americandad

This week may have featured our first Christmas with the Brown family over on The Cleveland Show, which would have normally been enough to elevate it to the top MacFarlane show of the night. But American Dad took itself someplace so bizarre with its Christmas special, that I spent most of it stunned that I was even watching American Dad.

Of the three shows, Dad was always the one that stayed with the characters and avoided trips into fantasy. Wacky asides and over-the-top shenanigans are a staple of Family Guy and have proven a smaller, but still important, part of The Cleveland Show. So I was left with my jaw hanging open when the Rapture kicked in and people started flying off to heaven.

Admittedly, I've not seen every episode of American Dad, so maybe this isn't as surprising an episode as I thought it was. It was, however, a simply fantastic episode.

Fox has announced a new addition to its Sunday night animated comedy bloc.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the network will serve up 13 new episodes of 'Bob's Burgers.' The show is based on Loren Bouchard ('Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist,' 'Home Movies') and Jim Dauterive's ('King of the Hill')12-minute presentation, with a voice cast that includes H. Jon Benjamin, 'Flight of the Conchords' alum Kristen Schaal (pictured), Eugene Mirman and 'Important Things with Demetri Martin' writer Dan Mintz.

The show centers around Bob, a struggling burger joint owner, his "tightly wound wife" and their three reckless kids. Bouchard told the Reporter that the original idea was to write a show about a family of cannibals, but the latter aspect was ultimately dropped -- probably for the best, considering the family runs a burger joint.

Hey look, Scrubs is back early!

Oh wait, never mind. That's just Donald Faison on American Dad. How could I have possibly gotten those two things mixed up? I don't know why, but I still get a kick out of guest appearances on animated shows, particularly when the actor who plays the actual character jumps in to do their own voice, as Faison did here.

Plus, it was an interaction with Roger. Ah, Roger. Let's talk about what has to be the single greatest presence of all three Seth MacFarlane shows. I probably don't mention him enough, because sometimes he's not as integral to the plots of AD. But, he's always a huge part of the laughs. As soon as he waddles into a room, you just wait for the zingers or the costume or the antics that will send you off your rocker. His turn this week as a "madame" was sheer brilliance.

The "All Seth, All the Time" block of animation on FOX is getting stronger every week. I think this may have been the most wholly satisfying episode of The Cleveland Show we've had yet. The show finally knows what it is, the characters are settled in and established, and it even knows where it's going to derive its humor.

There's a sweetness to The Cleveland Show that is more reminiscent of King of the Hill than either of MacFarlane's established shows, and I'm glad to see it. My biggest fear was that Cleveland's star vehicle would be nothing more than Family Guy-lite, but after a very rough start, I'm able to see and appreciate it for what it is.

Family Guy may have found their replacement for Cleveland in this week's episode. I hope the boys do find a new "fourth," and I don't think I'd mind if it's the guy they find themselves hanging out with this week. On American Dad, Stan discovers rock music, and he'll do anything to hang out with his new favorite band: My Morning Jacket.

It was nice to cut back Seth MacFarlane's domination of Sunday nights to only three shows. As much as I enjoy all three shows in a general sense, two-and-a-half hours of MacFarlane's brand of humor was a bit much. I continue to enjoy the growth of The Cleveland Show more and more; I'm beginning to see why FOX went ahead and gave it an early season two pick-up.

After a shaky start, we're starting to get a better feel for all these new characters, and I'm finding little things about them to enjoy. It's little things like Arianna's love of confetti that add layers to the character. And while I'm sure it's politically incorrect of me, I find Kendra tooling around in her Rascal absolutely hilarious. That and the over-eating, but all with such a sweet disposition and voice.

Are you still losing sleep over FOX's unsurprising yet tragic cancellation of Josh Joss Whedon's Dollhouse? This may be the melatonin you need.

CollegeHumor has uncovered the true reason FOX nixed the action drama from its airwaves. It needed more room for more Seth MacFarlane cartoons about pop-culture spewing families with anthropomorphic pets and American Idol. I never thought I'd long for the good ol' days was Fox was known for quality programming like Bad Orderlies Caught on Tape 2 and When Lawn Equipment Goes Screwy 4.

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 pushed the boundaries of their Seth MacFarlane-filled Sundays about as far as they could. It wasn't enough to have three animated series already in the lineup, but they had to give him his own "variety show" as well. They bumped The Simpsons to make room for a two-hour block of Seth madness!

But that's not all! If you watch new episodes of American Dad, Family Guy, The Cleveland Show AND the all-new Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show, we'll throw in a bonus episode of Family Guy absolutely free! The real question is... was America really ready for that much Seth?

I thought I was.

Seth MacFarlane's humor may be too much for Bill Gates, but it's apparently just fine with Rupert Murdoch. Fox has renewed his 'American Dad' for a sixth season

The Hollywood Reporter reports that though the series has only just begun airing episodes of season five, Murdoch's network was forced to make an early decision on the series due to expiring contract options for the show's writers as well as the long production time animation requires.

The Fox network cannot risk pissing off Seth MacFarlane. If they do, they run a good chance of suddenly finding most of their entire Sunday night line-up sucking eggs. At least, that's one possible reason for the renewal of American Dad for a sixth season. That pickup gives MacFarlane the renewal trifecta for Sunday nights.

Actually, of MacFarlane's three series, American Dad is the best one (although I'm finding The Cleveland Show inching closer to first place). As opposed to Family Guy, the storytelling is more linear than the other two and the jokes actually have some relevance to the plot or characters (I'm on Team South Park regarding that "feud").

The Cleveland Show is also better at linear storytelling and jokes than its predecessor, but it's still not up to the standards of American Dad. Sadly, American Dad will likely live in the shadow of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show for years to come. At least MacFarlane has three chances with Fox to keep on working.

Well, it seemed like an unusual pairing when it was announced. Kind of like oil and water. Well, the oil slick has hit the proverbial fan. Microsoft has withdrawn its sole sponsorship of Fox's Seth MacFarlane comedy special. That's the special that Fox was promoting like crazy yesterday all during the NFL games, the special called Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show.

In the grand tradition of show business, though, the special will go on November 8, just without Microsoft commercials. Fox is looking for alternate sponsors. Here's my first call if I'm at Fox -- Apple. Don't you think those Mac/PC ads would send a message to viewers who might still think Microsoft is behind this?

It would also be a brilliant PR move by Steve Jobs and Apple. After all, they could say, "Hey, we're not afraid of the content in Seth MacFarlane's show. We have a sense of humor."

When it debuted last spring, 'Parks and Recreation' already seemed in need of some urban renewal. Sure, Amy Poehler was funny, but the rest of the ensemble didn't gel around her, the plotting was listless and the jokes fell flat.

In its second season, however, the writing has become sharper, the pacing has gathered steam and Poehler's bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur has become someone to sympathize with and root for.

'Parks' deserves a ribbon for improving on a rocky start; after all, few shows that stumble out of the gate are able to recover their footing and race to the forefront. Here are nine more that did ...

Not that the future of this series was ever in doubt, but Fox has extended its original season-and-a-half order of The Cleveland Show to a full two seasons. Given the strong premiere ratings for the show, seasons beyond number two will likely be in the bag. If Fox didn't extend, they'd have to deal with an irate Seth MacFarlane who currently controls most of their Sunday night line-up.

Is The Cleveland Show going to end up being more popular than its progenitor Family Guy? Do these ratings simply represent a high initial interest in the new show that will wane over time? I have used the analogy of The Jeffersons spinning off from All In The Family, but did The Jeffersons ever beat All In The Family in the ratings?

Whatever the case, Seth MacFarlane doesn't have to worry about it for at least two seasons, and probably longer.

[Watch clips and free episodes of The Cleveland Show at SlashControl]

The man who virtually owns Fox Sunday nights, Seth MacFarlane, will be joining Carrie Underwood in what is seemingly Fox's attempt to revive the variety show genre. Didn't anybody learn the lesson of Rosie O'Donnell?

The show is called Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show. It'll be broadcast on November 8th and be commercial-free thanks to Microsoft (who will be promoting Windows 7). The special will be a mix of animated and live performances. I've seen Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois Griffin) perform together in Family Guy Live and they're certainly better together than anything Rosie could produce.

It's interesting how retro these planned variety shows are going. It used to be that shows like The Colgate Comedy Hour would have live sketches about their sponsors sprinkled throughout the show. I wonder how MacFarlane and company will handle shilling Windows 7. Do they even like Windows 7? MacFarlane strikes me more as a Mac guy. "Mac" is even part of his last name.

This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.

With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.