My Morning Jacket to Appear on 'American Dad'

Fox's 'American Dad' is set to rock -- literally.

Kentucky's finest southern-rock band, My Morning Jacket, will appear on the Nov. 22 episode of the Seth MacFarlane comedy. The episode will be titled 'My Morning Straightjacket,' and will feature not only the band in cartoon form (a first!), but six MMJ songs and guest voiceovers from the likes of Zach Galifianakis, who will play a MMJ super-fan.

"Honestly, it was an organic evolution," said 'American Dad' co-creator Mike Barker in a statement. " I was at Bonnaroo in the summer of 2008, watching MMJ play their guts out in the rain at 4 a.m. when the idea for the episode struck me. I pitched the idea to the guys the next day and thankfully they were on board."Fox's 'American Dad' is set to rock -- literally.

Kentucky's finest southern-rock band, My Morning Jacket, will appear on the Nov. 22 episode of the Seth MacFarlane comedy. The episode will be titled 'My Morning Straightjacket,' and will feature not only the band in cartoon form (a first!), but six MMJ songs and guest voiceovers from the likes of Zach Galifianakis, who will play a MMJ super-fan.

"Honestly, it was an organic evolution," said 'American Dad' co-creator Mike Barker in a statement. " I was at Bonnaroo in the summer of 2008, watching MMJ play their guts out in the rain at 4 a.m. when the idea for the episode struck me. I pitched the idea to the guys the next day and thankfully they were on board."

Barker goes on to detail the difficulties of transforming the band into a cartoon, and said the show had to get the band's approval before the episode could be finalized. "It's always tricky animating real people. Because you're not just animating them to resemble who they are in real life, you also have to make sure they resemble characters that live in the American Dad universe, and that carries with it a whole host of challenging parameters for our animators. But I think our character designers did a great job at capturing Jim [James] and the guys."

This isn't the first time a band has been glorified in ink by a MacFarlane program. 'Family Guy' has referenced KISS and Devo over the years, while the animators from 'The Simpsons' have regularly transformed the likes of Sonic Youth, Phish, Paul McCartney, the B52s, the Moody Blues and U2, just to name a few.

Having an act weave more than just a song or two is a new avenue for an animated series -- but not something we haven't seen on TV before. Earlier this year, U2 played the entire week of March 2 on 'Late Night with David Letterman,' and Bon Jovi will grace a host of NBC programs in the next few weeks.

That said, this is just one 22-minute episode, and we're sure that the MMJ gang's meet up with Stan and crew will work out just fine for all parties. And they don't even have a record to promote!