10 American Dad Episodes To Skip On A Rewatch

"American Dad" has quietly held it down as one of the most consistently funny adult animated comedies around, but it doesn't always knock it out of the park. And there are plenty of "American Dad" episodes to skip on a rewatch where you won't be missing any important character moments or hilarious jokes.

"American Dad" was Seth MacFarlane's follow-up to "Family Guy." Only this time, there was a stronger emphasis on modern politics with family patriarch Stan Smith (MacFarlane) being a die-hard Republican who often learns from his family to be a bit more empathetic. At least, that was the general throughline in the early seasons. Now, "American Dad" does pretty much whatever it wants, which it has the space to do with such longevity. It might get overlooked, but it genuinely deserves to be in the conversation of the best adult animated shows of all time. 

But with over 400 episodes and counting, not every excursion into Langley is worth the drive. In fact, some episodes will leave you scratching your head and have you wondering how anyone could find this funny. Assuming you've already seen all (if not most) "American Dad" episodes, these are the ones no one ever has to see again. 

As many longtime "American Dad" fans know, the show has a notoriously confusing record when it comes to labeling its own seasons and episodes. For this list, for simplicity's sake, we will be going off the way episodes are listed on streaming platforms like Hulu and Disney+.

Only a few seasons into the show's run and "American Dad" was already playing fast and loose with continuity. "The 42-Year-Old Virgin" starts as a fun "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" riff where Stan admits that he's never actually killed anyone working for the CIA. We're treated to a montage of various kills where people died accidentally while Stan was in the vicinity, but he's never pulled the trigger himself. This goes against what we've already seen out of the show with Stan directly killing people, but let's ignore that for a bit. 

Stan loses the respect of his family except Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) when they learn he hasn't killed anyone. But it seems like Stan can finally prove himself as a man by killing a pedophile targeting Steve (Scott Grimes) and his friends. The subplot adds an extra uncomfortable layer to the proceedings that by the end of the episode, you're just wishing Stan will finally kill this guy.

Of course, the episode has to upend expectations somehow. Instead of Stan killing the pedophile, he accidentally shoots and kills his friend, Larry (Don Lake). The pedophile gets arrested, but we learned earlier he has access to money and will probably wind up on the street soon enough. Of course, we're not really supposed to be worried about that, as the episode just gets us back to the status quo of Stan being a killing machine. It's hard to write this episode off completely, as it does give us Roger (Seth MacFarlane) as Chilly, one of his most fun personas. 

Television is filled with shocking deaths. Ideally, the death feels earned and helps move the other characters forward. Then there's "American Dad," which has seen fit on multiple occasion to gruesomely kill animals for sheer shock value, and nowhere has that been more clear than on "Choosy Wives Choose Smith."

The A plot involves Stan becoming jealous that Francine (Wendy Schaal) was once engaged to a pilot. Stan's manipulative here, but we could've worked with that if the B plot wasn't so grotesque. Steve befriends a little orange cat who gets struck by a car while the two are playing. Only it turns out the cat isn't dead and attacks Steve. The rest of this side story sees Steve watching out for this malevolent cat who seemingly can't die and takes any opportunity it can to scratch Steve.

It's a hard story to get through for any animal lover. Steve goes back and forth between wanting to help save the cat and then contributing to its demise, even throwing it against a wall and beating it with a cello. Even if you enjoy the A story, it's hard not to feel compelled to fast forward through all the cat parts. 

There are two subjects you're going to see crop up an uncomfortable amount of times on one of the longest-running shows on American TV: Animal cruelty and incest. For the latter, we start with "Pulling Double Booty," which shows Hayley at her most unlikeable. She goes on a rampage after Jeff (Jeff Fischer) breaks up with her, which is a common occurrence and enough to put her on the brink of going to jail. She then starts dating Bill, Stan's CIA lookalike.

Yes, Hayley isn't making out with her father exactly. But she's with a man who looks just like him, so the audience might have the same reaction Francine does upon seeing them kiss for the first time. Things get even grosser when Bill tries to have sex with Francine, at which point they realize he's no good for Hayley. To try to break it off, Stan poses as Bill on a romantic getaway to get Hayley to break up with him before she wants to do anything ... intimate.

That means at a certain point, Hayley is actively trying to get down with her own dad (even though she doesn't realize it's her father). Technically, nothing happens between Hayley and Stan, but it's still a very disturbing 22 minutes to sit through. 

Well, we're back to the animal suffering component of this list. In this episode, Francine gets Steve a new dog, Kisses, whom Stan takes a liking to. It's a big step for him considering his tragic past with dogs, but he's willing to give it another shot. The only problem is Kisses gets trampled by a hot air balloon filled with pirate cats (at least it's not another car). Refusing to let go of this new dog, Stan takes its body to a ghoulish doctor who turns it into a Frankenstein-like monstrosity. 

There's a heartwarming story under all of the body horror about Stan realizing it's okay to open his heart to a new pet but understanding when it's time to let go. The problem is that it trades out typical "American Dad" jokes with gross-out gags and macabre humor. 

Things do turn around by the end when Stan finally allows Kisses to die, allowing Kisses to go to heaven with Stan's old childhood dog, Freddy. It's a touching moment, but it's too little too late. Once you've already seen the episode, there's really no need to revisit it and put yourself through the same torment again. "American Dad" definitely won't be ranking on any best TV shows with dogs lists anytime soon. 

Roger is a sociopath, psychopath, and any other mental disorder you can throw in there. He can devolve into being absolutely vicious, but ideally, there's still a path for the family to understandably take him back. That doesn't happen in "Love, AD Style" where he develops a crush on Hayley. He shoots and kidnaps her to be with her, only to realize she truly does love Jeff. But in that process, he skins Jeff alive and wears that skin as a suit to a justifiably horrified Hayley. Everything wraps up quickly when Roger realizes that it was just a crush, and he doesn't actually love Hayley. 

Roger's behavior is nothing short of terrifying. Sure, he's terrorized plenty of people over the years, but normally, they're tertiary characters we, as the audience, don't really care about. To see him torture Hayley like this and then the two of them are fine again by the next episode, it leaves something to be desired. 

It might've been one thing if Roger faced some kind of consequence for his action. As it stands, he skins Jeff, and then we see Jeff's bloodied arm rise up from a bathtub upon learning that Roger will give him his skin back. It's a shocking place to end an episode on, even for "American Dad," making it a permanent skip.

"American Dad" has had some exceptional guest stars over the years. Unfortunately, Kim Kardashian in "Blagsnarst, a Love Story" isn't one of them. The story begins with Roger and Francine finding a furry, pink alien named Qurchhhh (Kardashian), whom Roger falls in love with. But after they sleep together, he loses interest, and in the end, it's revealed that Kim Kardashian herself was underneath all of that pink fur. 

It's the barest bones of a plot, and something we've seen from Roger before where he develops a hyperfixation on something only to lose interest by the end. The main selling point of this episode seems to be Kardashian's role, but her voiceover work leaves a lot to be desired. One could argue her deadpan delivery exemplifies Qurchhhh's vapid personality, but it often just leaves any of her jokes falling flat. It makes her role in "All's Fair" look downright Emmy-worthy. 

The only reason you might want to watch "Blagsnarst, a Love Story" is for the continuation of the ongoing Golden Turd saga. But even that segment's inclusion can't help warrant a rewatch.

Some "American Dad" episodes are best to skip because they're gross, mean-spirited, or just aren't funny. "Hayley Smith, Seal Team Six" is best to skip because it gets incredibly annoying after a while.

In his hypnotist persona, Roger makes Hayley mentally regress into a 6-year-old. Stan and Francine love the change, but Jeff and Roger try to get her back to normal by pinpointing when exactly she became disillusioned with the world, which occurred when she saw a baby seal get clubbed on TV. So Jeff decides to club a seal in real life to get her back to normal. 

The main problem with this episode is having to watch Hayley sound and act like a child for most of the runtime. It gets incredibly grating after a while. Of course, that's the point. She's supposed to be super childish to show how much she's soured over the state of the world after entering adulthood. But that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.

The one thing this episode does have going for it is the B plot where Steve and his friends become obsessed with slow cooking meat. It's the kind of dumb but hilarious side story the main plot needed, but it's still not enough to warrant a whole rewatch.

"American Fung" has one of those premises where you can understand conceptually why a group of comedy writers trying to come up with ideas for a show that's been on for over a decade would find funny. The basic idea is that a Chinese billionaire has bought "American Dad" and has now inserted himself to promote his products within a standard episode, which is just Stan forgetting his and Francine's wedding anniversary, so he has her committed to an institution.

It's hard to really talk about the storyline because it almost doesn't matter. Everything in this episode is secondary to the random fourth-wall breaks of Fung Wah (David S. Jung). On the one hand, it's a fascinating experiment. On the other, once you know the bit, it becomes entirely cumbersome. There's really no reason to rewatch it because you're not getting so much a story as a series of gags that can be pretty hit-or-miss. 

And it has the lowest IMDb score out of any "American Dad" episode with 4.0/10. Most episodes don't even go below a 6.0, but that's how much fans detest this episode. 

The Lady Gaga episode of "The Simpsons" is often seen as one fans can skip from that animated sitcom. It's a fairly humorless installment that functions more as a celebrity's vanity project than a compelling story. The same could be said for "A Starboy is Born" from "American Dad."

The Weeknd co-wrote the episode where the singer plays himself. Stan kidnaps The Weeknd to teach Roger a lesson about obeying house rules, but then Roger just adopts the Weeknd's persona while The Weeknd crashes at the Smith's house. We'll say this: The Weeknd definitely deserves some props for being willing to go along with such a ridiculous plot, including a portion where he reveals he's actually a virgin. He even has an original song, "I'm a Virgin," that plays in the episode. 

But aside from that, the episode relies too much on the gimmicky plot of heavily featuring such a famous person. The story is just too thin and bounces from one idea to the next, with the "American Dad" team clearly wanting to get as much out of The Weeknd as possible. Simply put, after watching "A Starboy is Born" once, there's really no laughs waiting for you during a rewatch.

We said earlier there were going to be multiple incestuous plotlines on this list, and we're here to deliver. "Tapped Out" involves Francine becoming worried that Steve is no longer her little boy, so she pumps breast milk and secretly feeds it to Steve so that he'll subconsciously still depend on her. 

There are some deep Oedipal undertones to this story that make it more unpleasant to watch than anything. The B plot doesn't help as Stan lengthens his neck so that he can better wear turtlenecks, and in the process, Jeff also gets a chimpanzee face implant. "American Dad" thrives on a level of weirdness you just don't get with shows like "The Simpsons" or even "Family Guy." Especially during the TBS era, the show pushed boundaries and got incredibly bizarre at times. 

Sometimes, this works in the show's favor, like with the wonderfully strange "Rabbit Ears." Other times, it just takes one step too far and gets unpleasant. Watching "Tapped Out" once is more than enough, and it's probably just best to forget this particular storyline ever happened.