J’s 25 Days of Christmas: Ninety North, Zero West, American Dad
People, I believe that I have now hit rock bottom on Christmas Specials. Why? Because I just found the Christmas Episode for last season of American Dad. I was into American Dad for a time, along with Seth Macfarlane’s other shows (even got his autograph). But then I grew out of them. But then I saw this special and decided to give it another shot.
American Dad Christmas
Two things you need to know about American Dad: it’s about the family of extremely conservative CIA agent Stan Smith, and every Christmas Special has seen something bad happen to them. Past examples include:
- Getting separated by the Rapture
- Fighting the Anti-Christ. Twice!
- Stan wishing to be single for Christmas only to end up with the wrong family after the wish was undone
- Santa sending an army of elves to kill them
- Santa killing Stan’s dad and turning him into Krampus
Bottom line, the Smiths and Christmas don’t mix. So in this episode, Stan decides to just bail on the whole thing and have the Smiths go into stasis for the day to wait out the holiday. Except for his son, Steve, is isn’t ready to give up on Christmas and runs off to ride a train. But then that train full of kids gets kidnapped and taken to the North Pole by Santa.
Crazy Plan
Apparently, Santa needs them as slave labor in his mines to search for these magical gemstones. They were once part of the eyes of this mythical giant that was slain by the ancient Sumerian hero Gilgamesh and granting him godly power. Santa’s plan is to use them to do the same thing to himself.
Why, though? What on earth does he possibly have to gain from such a convoluted plan? That’s really dumb, but also cool at the same time. But still dumb! That is literally what I thought to myself while I was watching this episode! I admit that this episode had an interesting premise, but it didn’t really do much to make me think of the Christmas spirit. In fact, the revelation that Santa set up everything just for a ridiculous plot to become a god made Steve finally hate Christmas. Thankfully, the hate doesn’t last long and by the end Steve likes Christmas again. Oh, and Santa and the elves got sucked into the giant’s mouth, but then we see his hand climb out the neck in dramatic fashion.
Not a traditional Christmas Special, by far, but this is adult animation. So it gets a pass. I think I need to go have some eggnog after this. American Dad can be weird at times.
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Fantastic post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this
topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit further.
Bless you!
You actually make it seem so easy together with your presentation but I to find this topic to be actually one thing which I think I might by no means understand.
It kind of feels too complex and extremely huge for me.
I’m having a look forward in your next post, I will try to get the grasp of it!