Very rarely in American Dad does the plot stop to allow fights with giant chickens, bursting out into an old musical number, or to immediately explain a joke thats already been said. Not that the cutaways in Family Guy arent amusing, but they force the already brief plot of 20-25 minutes to be put on hold while Brian and Stewie show off their dance moves. Additionally, the cutaways in Family Guy can vary wildly in length, suggesting that the longer a cutaway is, the more its being used to fill the gab in a shorter-than-usual script. Examples of this deceptive stretching out of the show are the Conway Twitty performances and that Bowie/Jagger video. American Dad stands away from such devices, instead utilizing the offbeat nature of the characters/plot to provide, at most, a brief pullover to allow some comic relief before roaring back into the plot.
Senior editor for the superhero/comic book hub A Place To Hang Your Cape. BA in Creative Writing and Film Studies from Hull Uni. Currently getting lost in the big wide world of freelance writing. And some other stuff.
