American Dad!

American Dad! is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on February 6, 2005, following Super Bowl XXXIX, with the rest of the first season airing from May 1 of the same year. The show centers around the Smiths, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Stan and Francine, their children, Hayley and Steve, as well as a goldfish named Klaus and an extraterrestrial named Roger. In the seventh season, Hayley's boyfriend (turned husband) Jeff Fischer joined the main cast, followed by Rogu, Roger's neoplastic son who joined in season fifteen. Unlike MacFarlane's other show, Family Guy, American Dad! does not lean as heavily on the use of cutaway gags, instead deriving its humor mostly from the quirky characters and their relationships.

The show was conceived by MacFarlane and Weitzman after the two were inspired by the 2000 United States presidential election, and Fox Broadcasting ordered a pilot presentation of the series in September 2003. American Dad! was the first series made specifically for Fox's Animation Domination block. The series moved to TBS for its twelfth season in 2014 until the conclusion of its twenty-first season in March 2025. It will return to Fox for its twenty-second season in early 2026 and was renewed through its twenty-fifth season on the network.

American Dad! has received generally positive reviews and has been nominated for numerous awards. In June 2013, it was awarded as top television series by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. It has also been nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards and two Annie Awards.

The series focuses on the eccentric upper middle class Smith family in the fictional town of Langley Falls (deriving its name from the actual locale of Langley, Virginia) and their four housemates: father, husband, CIA agent, Republican, and breadwinner Stan; his wife and homemaker/housewife Francine; their liberal, hippie, college-aged daughter Hayley; and their dorky high-school-aged son Steve. There are four additional main characters, including Jeff Fischer, Hayley's dimwitted boyfriend and later husband; Klaus, the family's unusual goldfish who has the brain of an East German athlete; Roger, an alien who is a flamboyant, hedonistic, self-serving master of disguise; and Rogu, Roger's ex-tumor son. Stan's boss Avery Bullock, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a recurring character as is Steve's incredibly unprofessional and hedonistic Principal Brian Lewis. Also recurring are Steve's best friends, Snot, Toshi, and Barry.

American Dad! centers on the absurd circumstances, adventures and domestic life of its title character Stan Smith, his immediate family, and their four housemates. Adding to all the ridiculousness and absurdity are the various personality traits of all the show's eccentric main characters, listed as follows:

Seth MacFarlane was inspired by the 2000 election for the show, noting: "me and co-creator Matt Weitzman were so frustrated with the Bush administration that we would just spend days bitching and complaining, and we figured we should channel this into something creative and hopefully profitable." In early February 2005, Barker stated, "About a year and a half ago, Seth called and asked if Matt and I would be interested in working on a show about a right-wing CIA agent and his liberal daughter. It was right up our alley, and everything just fell into place." On September 14, 2003, Variety reported that Fox Broadcasting had ordered a pilot presentation of the then tentatively titled American Dad! and "If greenlit, American Dad! could launch as early as fall 2004." At the time, Fox was aiming to develop a new lineup of adult animated sitcoms.

American Dad! had a mid-season debut. Its first episode, titled "Pilot", was originally shown directly following Super Bowl XXXIX on February 6, 2005. The rest of the first season, however, would not launch until May 1, 2005, as part of the debut of Fox's Animation Domination lineup. Initially, it was a replacement for the originally failed series Family Guy (1999–2002). American Dad! was originally intended to be Fox's answer to the hordes of fans left behind from the original failure of MacFarlane's previous animated venture. Just three short months after American Dad!'s debut however, Family Guy was revived, leaving American Dad! with a formidable expectation: whether the series could distinguish itself from its counterpart and succeed on its own merits. Instead of taking over creative direction of the series, MacFarlane left the job largely in the hands of Barker and Weitzman so as to distinguish American Dad!

In its early going, American Dad! brought in strong ratings but fought an uphill battle in gaining widespread acceptance and approval from viewers and critics alike. The popularity of MacFarlane and his involvement with Family Guy had led to foregone conclusions and prejudices against American Dad! as a rip-off of the predecessor and some critics had already written off American Dad! prior to its birth as nothing more than a pale imitation of Family Guy and MacFarlane's attempts to get his old show back on the air. One example, prior to the American Dad! series debut, a writer of The Washington Post published a piece that reads "But those same executives have also given MacFarlane a whole new animated half-hour to play with in the disappointing American Dad! The new series officially premieres in May but has a sneak preview tomorrow night in the coveted post-Super Bowl time period ... The look and pace of American Dad! is the same as Family Guy."