10 American Dad Episodes That Pissed People Off
American Dad! is a great show, but there were times it really missed the mark.
If Family Guy is to Seth MacFarlane what The Simpsons is to Matt Groening, then American Dad! is very much in the same category as Futurama. A brilliant second show having to struggle to break free from the shadow of what came before it.
American Dad! has never been able to enjoy quite the same popularity as Family Guy, despite being just as funny, and arguably even better at times. Like most cartoons, its quality has dropped over time, but it still has a loyal army of fans, if smaller than it deserves.
However, even among those fans there have been episodes that have crossed the line and pissed people off. In typical Seth MacFarlane fashion there are controversial topics tackled by American Dad!, as well as jokes and stories used solely for shock value that may have worked a little too well.
There are also episodes that fans can’t stand, not out of any principle or disagreement with how a message was put across, but just because they were that bad. American Dad! has had its mix of these different episodes, all with the one thing in common that they made a lot of people mad.
10. Hot Water (S8E1)
American Dad! over the years has produced some genuinely funny and intelligent stories. From down to Earth family matters, to those that could only be brought to life by a CIA man and an alien. However, this was not one of those episodes.
The opening outing of season eight saw the Smith family buy a hot tub that started to tear Stan and Francine apart. Voiced by Cee-Lo Green, who also narrated the episode, this hot tub was sentient, and tried to break them up.
Firstly, it’s a terrible concept for an episode, with the framing device of the real life Cee-Lo missing the mark. It wasn’t funny, it was just weird, and while musical episodes are rarely ever received particularly well, this was worse than most.
There was nothing necessarily offensive about the episode, particularly when compared to some of the outings that will appear higher on this list, fans hated it instead just because it was one of the worst episodes the show has ever put out. An unfunny, uninspired waste of 20 minutes.