Drew Turney
After writing and producing for Family Guy for years, former actor Matt Weitzman was plucked from the relative obscurity by co-creator Seth MacFarlane and given his very own show.
Like its older cousin [infamously cancelled in 2002 before the groundswell of support bought it back in 2005], American Dad has also occupied shaky ground. In 2013 it was quietly cancelled by Fox TV, but cable station TBS picked up the show and many appreciate the expansion of profanity and gallows humour that’s resulted.
Even though MacFarlane was instrumental with creating American Dad with Weitzman and Mike Barker (who left the show in 2013), it’s very much Weitzman’s baby. The 48-year-old showrunner steers a unique set of comic guidelines for the show, with no cutaway gags (think of Peter Griffin’s many ‘this is worse than that time I…’) and each episode of American Dad! consists of a major story and minor subplot, but it’s as chaotic and funny as Family Guy.
Weitzmann spoke to Moviehole about celebrating the 200th episode at 2016 Wonder-Con in Los Angeles.
Are there ever jokes in the script or even discussed that are just too offensive?
I remember way back when we once had a joke about Patrick Stewart, who’s the head of the CIA, having a thing for little kids. He actually was the one who would not allow himself to say it, apparently our monitor is kind of off. We’ve had times when we know not to cross a line. The line has kind of been put forward now that we’re on TBS, because they allow us to do a little bit more, but we monitor ourselves some.
Patrick Stewart personally felt uncomfortable?
Well, it wasn’t because he felt the character wouldn’t say it. He is an advocate against abuse, so that would kind of make sense.
What’s the best thing you’ve had Patrick do?
The biggest compliment I ever got was that Patrick Stewart was grateful to the show itself for opening the door to comedy for him. He never considered himself a comedic actor and being on the show showed the world that he has these amazing comedic chops even he I don’t think was completely aware of. I think that’s the best thing that I ever heard him say.
But when it comes to a particular episode? There’s a song that he sang when he was sleeping with Hayley in the very first season… ‘I Love Little Girls, They Make Me Feel So Fine’ by Oingo Boingo.
Was he your first pick for the role of Deputy Director Bullock?
I’m going to give that all to Seth [MacFarlane]. Seth had the idea of making Patrick Stewart the head of the CIA, which blew my mind because the logic part of me says ‘How can we have this British man being the head of the CIA?’ But it worked, and nobody really has asked the question.
It’s great how you just don’t have to pay attention to logic in things like that.
Thank God. There are so many logic bumps in our show. For instance, Roger was never intended to leave the house, especially in the first year. He was always expected to stay in the house like ALF. Then we discovered putting him in a wig and giving him a little bit of an accent or something and suddenly the world’s ‘Oh, no, I don’t notice you have no nose and you have 3 toes!’
But it’s worth it. As long as we buy it and we can justify it, I think that the world goes along with us.
How do you keep ahead of other new shows that are even raunchier or more outrageous while maintaining the tone?
Well, I originally came from Family Guy, so we were ready to do that kind of show and we still always wanted to be that edgy show. We always had a darkly optimistic point of view of the world.
But once you start looking at other things you lose your own focus. We just kind of kept on doing what we thought was best for the show and sometimes you lose your way, but you kind of regain what your destination is, which is always to be funny, heartfelt. That’s why you care about the characters and that’s why you come back and watch the show again.
Lots of shows are all about that edge and don’t come back to the family, but I think you watch those shows and you don’t care. If you don’t care, then why are we here?
After 200 episodes, how easy is it to repeat yourself?
You end up using one character that might have been a similar storyline, but the goal is to come up with new and fresh ideas as much as we can. One set of writers were there for about the first eight seasons, and then they show was not going to get picked up and people had to get real jobs or jobs on other shows, so we brought another crew in.
It’s kind of a blessing because we have new people with new life and new perspectives that we didn’t have in the beginning. We knew what kind of show we wanted to do, and the new people had to adapt and sometimes that takes a little bit of time, but all in all I think we’re mostly the same show that we were for our first 200 episodes.
What’s an example of something that’s changed?
In the beginning people weren’t sure about Klaus. We had a version of Klaus in the beginning that was kind of lascivious, then he played a much more minor role, but the new group of writers have embraced Klaus much more fully, so that’s why there’s a lot more love for Dee [Bradley Baker, who plays the speaking goldfish with the brain of an East German skier].
Having done Family Guy, which is so gag-based, and American Dad, which is so story-based, do you find there’s two different audiences or are they just different pleasures?
I guess I’d think the latter. We discovered that we had to be different from Family Guy. There’s a degree of maturity that your audience gains as time goes on and if you were just in it for the laughs they’d want a little bit more.
I think that we’ve been able to offer both to or audience – they want it to be funny and gaggy, but they also wanted it to be a little more grounded and have heart.
