American Dad/Trivia

• Accidentally Accurate: George Washington Carver didn't actually invent peanut butter, though the real origins of the food aren't nearly as interesting as the conspiracy Steve unearthed.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Any time the writers can get Avery Bullock to say something Picard-esque, they will. Best highlighted by his references to "Number One" in "One Little Word".
    • There are also several low-key visual gags which serve as allusions, such as Picard's distinctive fish tank showing up in Bullock's home.
    • On the flip side, they also rely upon this when Bullock is doing completely ridiculous things simply because the imagery of Picard doing something ridiculous is part of the hilarity.
    • In one episode, Avery Bullock shows off a device exactly like a Star Trek holodeck. When Stan makes the obvious comparison, Avery angrily remarks that he doesn't even know what Star Trek is.
  • In one episode, Klaus tries to get Stan to put him back in a human body and says he'll get a job making animal sounds. "Making animal sounds" is pretty much Dee Bradley Baker's entire job description.
  • There was an episode in which Roger disguised as Stan, but found that he's unable to mimic Stan's voice. Another episode had Stan do an equally-terrible impression of Roger. Both characters are voiced by Seth MacFarlane.
  • In one episode, Steve sings Scott Grime's hit song, "Sunset Blvd". He also says that two movies Scott Grimes was in, Critters and Critters 2, are crappy.
  • Schmuley's nickname, "Snot", alludes to Curtis Armstrong's most famous role, "Booger", in the Revenge of the Nerds film series.
• The Danza: Hayley's on-and-off boyfriend, Jeff Fischer, voiced by Jeff Fischer. His voice actor even looks like a Real Life version of Jeff, making him an Ink Suit Actor.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • The obvious one: Stan's boss is Captain Picard!
  • It's a testament to Seth MacFarlane's vocal talents that his voice doesn't leap out at you as much in this series (or The Cleveland Show, as MacFarlane's only character he voices in that series is Tim the Bear, Cleveland's next-door neighbor). Most viewers can figure out that Seth voices Stan (since the voice of Stan has been used on Family Guy in a couple of parodies of 1950s educational short films, like the one on "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar" about how men deal with women in the workplace), but a surprisingly large number of people aren't aware he voices Roger the alien ^[1] and Greg the newscaster.
  • Hayley is voiced by Rachael MacFarlane, Seth's younger sister, which leads to a lot of incestuous undertones as both Seth and Rachel have played characters who get romantically involved (Stewie Griffin and Olivia; a couple episodes of American Dad! have had references to Hayley being romantically involved with her father -- in "Francine's Flashback", Stan's plan of revenge after Hayley's boyfriend runs off with Francine is for Stan and Hayley to date each other [until Stan realizes that he didn't think the plan through], and "Pulling Double Booty" was all about Hayley dating a man who actually looks like Stan).
    • Another incest reference: in one episode of Family Guy, Rachel played a flight attendant who got seduced by Quagmire.
  • Spottswoode is Stan's dad, Jack.
  • "An Apocalypse to Remember" has Roger trying to get married to a Jewish woman; the father of the woman is the same voice actor as Ron's Jewish father in Kim Possible.
  • Dr. Cuddy plays mountain man Buckle's incredibly Jewish wife Shari.
  • Sarevok took a break from trying to be a god to work as the principal at Steve's school.
  • Dee Bradley Baker as Klaus.
  • In one Christmas Episode, Paget Brewster guest starred as a red-haired lawyer with (eventually) wings and a quirky personality. Coincidentally, Paget used to play a red-haired lawyer with wings and a quirky personality.
  • And of course Lisa "Phoebe" Kudrow as the voice of a Christmas Spirit in one episode.
    • That would be Elliott Gould, who also played Ross and Monica's Jewish father on Friends. And the mother in that episode was played by Liz Sheridan, best known for playing Jerry's mother on Seinfeld, yet another Jewish parent role.
  • Interestingly enough, both Rachel and Dee played characters, Numbuhs 362 and 4 (another Butt Monkey) respectively, on Codename: Kids Next Door.
    • Also, Principal Lewis is Numbuh Five's dad ^[2], Stan's dad is Count Spankula (among others), and Toshi's sister Akiko (her first voice) is Lizzie.
    • However, in Germany, Steve voices Numbuh Four.
  • It appears that in Spain and Germany, Steve is Piggley Winks. In the former country, he's also Screech and Piglet.
  • Jon Kavanaugh apparently moonlights as a series of detectives in Langley Falls all named Turlington.
• Missing Episode: The Christmas episode "Minstrel Krampus" that was scheduled to air on December 16th, 2012 was pulled following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. It would be almost a year later before this episode would air around Christmas time.
• The Other Darrin: Reggie the Koala's voice actor changed between the Season Four episode "Family Affair" and "Wife Insurance" and again in Season Five. The voices don't sound alike at all.
  • Duper was voiced by Phil Lewis in most of his appearances. Dee Bradley Baker voices him in "The Kidney Stays in the Picture".
  • Akiko was voiced by Grey DeLisle until "Best Little Horror House in Langley Falls", where she was replaced by Grace Park.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Half the things Avery Bullock says are hilarious simply because they sound so bizarre coming out of Patrick Stewart's mouth.
  • Picture Picard saying this to his crew and try to keep a straight face. "Gentleman do what ever it takes to empty our coffers: lapdances, champagne dances, shower dances. Oh, the things you can buy for a hand full of bills. It makes me excited. It gives me these chills. They'll be filcher rubs, breeders, hambones and tweeners, zobos and debos and blorps that go 'eenahs'. For a one dollar bill you can pull down their zippers. I am the Snorlax, I speak for the strippers!"
• Real Life Relative: Hayley is voiced by Seth MacFarlane's sister Rachael.
• Talking to Himself: Seth MacFarlane voices both Stan and Roger, who have many, MANY scenes together. In fact, there are several entire episodes that are mainly just the two of them.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, Laura Prepon (Donna from That '70s Show) was supposed to voice Hayley Smith, but was replaced by Seth MacFarlane's sister, Rachel. Had Prepon stayed, the show would have gotten a lot more unfavorable comparisons to Family Guy as the latter show also has someone from That '70s Show as a cast member (Mila Kunis replaced an uncredited Lacy Chabert on Family Guy and played Jackie on That '70s Show).
  • According to the commentaries, the original plan for Roger would've been that Season 1 would've had him be stuck in the house all the time, but get fed up with it in Season 2 and try the disguises. They would've worked until Season 3, where Roger gets revealed in public and it becomes a giant media scandal. But by Season 4, everyone would've gotten used to aliens and stopped caring, making Roger try to become the hot new story with schemes.
  • Klaus was originally French but Dee Bradley Baker didn't know French well, so they retooled the character to make him German.
  • Steve also had a different design (read: he was really skinny and awkward-looking), and was going to voiced by Family Guy writer Ricky Blitt. This design can be seen on an early trailer for the show on the Family Guy: Freakin' Sweet Collection DVD.

1. ↑ (though, if you watch both this show and Family Guy long enough, you can sort of tell that Seth voices Roger because Roger's crying sounds exactly like Peter Griffin's)
2. ↑ and a great number of other characters, mostly goofy black guys or scary black men. Exceptions to this rule include The Joker from The Batman and Exile Mikhailovich Zanhusky