Pilot (American Dad!)

Pilot (American Dad!)
Steve is upset about his lack of popularity, and notices that girls seem attracted to guys with dogs, so he convinces Stan to get one.

Season: 1 Episode: 1
Total Episode Count: 1
Prod. no.: 1AJN01
First Aired: February 6. 2005

Guest Starring: Carmen Electra
Featuring: Stan Smith
Director: Ron Hughart
Writers: Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman

Newspaper Headline: "Democratic Party Missing: Feared Dead"

Plot: In the pilot, Steve is upset about his lack of popularity. He notices that girls seem attracted to guys with dogs, so he asks his parents for one. Stan gets Steve a 19-year-old dog, because it was alive during the Reagan administration. One night, Roger the Alien makes a noise and Stan goes downstairs, thinking it is an intruder ("Osama? Is that you?"). Stan shoots the intruder, only to find out that he just accidentally killed Steve's dog.

They bury the dog, and Stan tries to make up for it by rigging the school election so that Steve becomes the school president. Once elected, Steve uses his attribution as student body president to impress the head cheerleader. He gets drunk with power, but believes that he is succeeding, until she dumps him when he first tries to kiss her. Steve goes crazy and holds the school hostage. Stan sneaks into the school and gets Steveto stop by revealing that he was unpopular in high school as well.

On another front, the audience is introduced to Roger, an alien who saved Stan's life in Area 51. As repayment, Roger lives with the Smiths, but his presence is ignored by the CIA, Stan's employer, and the world. Since Stan fears that the CIA would erase his and Roger's memories if the alien were ever discovered, Roger is forced to live in confinement at the Smith's. Roger is also addicted to sugar, and Francine puts him on a forced diet when his weight causes him to break a chair and the dinner table. In order to get around Francine's strict control of candies in the house, Roger strikes a deal with Hayley to do her homework in exchange for her smuggling sweets to him. It works at first, but on the night before the deadline for one of Hayley's papers (on Henry Kissinger), Roger has too much sugar and passes out without doing the work. He and Hayley are able to come up with an excuse to make her teacher give her an extension on the paper's deadline (they dig up Steve's dead dog and Hayley tells the teacher that she just lost her dog). After this scare, however, Hayley decides to discontinue her agreement with Roger. Roger, noticing Steve's frustration in getting a girl, becomes his adviser for dating, in exchange for "boatloads" of candy. Roger also reveals that every seven hours an ooze shoots out of his body, "like clockwork".

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