The animated series American Dad is entering its ninth season and appeared at a Comic-Con panel to give the audience a sneak peek. The panel opened with a psychedelic clip show that was half preview and half fan appreciation. Patrick Stewart himself introduced the sequence and some of the flashed clips included the various faces and costumes of Roger (Seth MacFarlane), a suicidal lemur, various attempts by Stan to jump a chasm and a tearful farewell from Roger. The panel featured MacFarlane, Wendy Schaal, Scott Grimes, Rachael MacFarlane, Dee Bradley Baker, Mike Barker, Jordan Blume and Matt Weitzman. Hit the jump to check out my panel recap and click here for all of our continuing Comic-Con coverage.
This may have been one of the more awkward panels of the day as all of the stars appeared to be a little out of it (perhaps from partying to hard the night before). The new season of American Dad kicks off September 30th with "Love, American Dad Style" and features Roger hiring Haley to sing at her bar. Here are some highlights from the moderator Q&A that followed:
Rachael MacFarlane: “Haley Sings” comes out September 25th, it’s her first record
Weitzman: We have a new Christmas episode coming out that deals with Krampus (voiced by Danny Glover), a Christmas demon let out by Stan who steals Steve and Stan has to rescue him.
Upcoming voice guests: Nathan Fillion, Will Forte, Rupert Grint, Jon Hamm, Alison Brie, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Charlie Day
Fan Q&A:
A fan asks about making a Family Guy/American Dad video game.
Seth MacFarlane: Yeah, sure, why not.
A cute little girl asks why Stan always tries to kill his children.
Barker: When you have kids, you’ll understand.
What’s going to happen this year with the Christmas special?
Barker: We’re going to go as dark as we can this year.
Seth MacFarlane: This Christmas we’ll break into your house and steal your presents. Not the characters; us.
Why didn’t Ryan Reynolds say anything in Ted? Did you have to pay him more?
Seth MacFarlane: The joke there is sort of a fourth wall joke, that we have Ryan Reynolds there and we’re wasting him. He flew all the way there and we didn’t even give him a line.
Some kids does a mic check for some reason.
Barker: Yeah, it works. All the mics work.
Why when there’s a flashback to a mom character is she always a drug addict/prostitute/porn star? Is there some sort of personal experience?
Seth MacFarlane: In general on all the shows or just American Dad? All our Mom characters do tend to have a dark past. No my mom was not a Porn star. She had been known to partake from time to time in some life additives.
Will we see an episode about Roger’s trip to Earth? Is Steve Stan’s only son?
Barker: This season, you’ll see a character leave the planet and you’ll see some of Roger’s home planet.
*The Golden Turd will return
*We’ll see Klaus’s original body in the upcoming season
Where did Roger’s character traits come from?
Barker: Rather than go out and get a guest star, they dress up Roger as a different character and make Seth do a different take on it.
*The family may return to a convention like Star Trek or Comic-Con in a future episode.
Does anyone ever turn down saying anything in the script?
Barker: Patrick Stewart’s character would do just about anything, but Stewart objected to saying something that would have portrayed his character as a pedophile.
The panel closed with a music video and Rachael MacFarlane's rendition of "Feelin' Groovy" accompanied by clips from American Dad.
