American Dad! Panel

This year’s American Dad! panel started off with a music video composed of clips from the show expressing the cast and crew’s love for their fans, but that was just the start of the segment as the group went into detail about the new season and then opened the floor for questions.

The panel contained Seth MacFarlane, Wendy Schaal (Francine), Scott Grimes (Steve), Rachael MacFarlane (Haley), Dee Bradley Baker (Klaus) and writers, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman. The group started the show off by announcing that the new season would start on September 30th with an episode where Roger hires Haley to sing in his bar. This led right into a plug for an American Dad! album called Haley Sings featuring Rachael MacFalane. On a similar note, the show creators said that they would once again topping themselves with this year’s Christmas episode. This time, it will be a musical focusing on Steve that touches on the Christmas demon called Krampus, who will be voiced by Danny Glover.

This was followed by a long list of guest stars that will appear in the new season. This list contains Nathan Fillion, Will Forte, Rupert Grint, Jon Hamm, Alison Brie, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Charlie Day.

The Comic-Con program continued with some clips from the new season, and it looks to be just as wild a ride as the past ones. It looks like Haley and Jeff's marriage is in trouble as they start to fall out of love with each other, meanwhile (though it is unclear if this is in the same episode or not) Roger appears to develop a crush on Haley and several scenes of Roger flirting with her, or denying his feelings towards her with Steve, or even beating up Jeff show some damned funny parts of this plot.

Another clip had Roger telling Stan that he was Stan’s new stepdad and another has Toshi's mom asking the boy why he speaks Japanese all the time when she doesn't even speak it. But it seems another big event has Roger’s race coming by to bring him back home.

After the clips, the panel opened the floor to questions, and the first question asked was if there was ever any thought to making an American Dad! videogame. Macfarlane responded with a simple "yeah sure why not, let's do it," so while there doesn't seem to be anything in the works, he isn’t opposed to the idea, after all there is a Family Guy game.

When asked how the writing process was different between the three shows, it was explained that the overall process was the same as the one laid down by The Simpson and it's really about getting together and working on a story knowing that no matter what you talk about or how outrageous the set pieces will be, you can put the characters there without regard of cost. The panelists then went on to explain that the feel of American Dad! is more about story and character when compared to Family Guy and The Cleveland Show, since they rely heavily on cutaway gags.

One attendee asked Seth why all of the mother figures in his shows seem to have sordid pasts involving drugs or prostitution. Macfarlane admitted that those characters did seem to have some odd history, but he said it wasn't based on his own mother.

Another fan asked about Roger’s special powers and the crew explained that initially Roger wasn't supposed to have any powers, but as the show went on, they found places where it would be funny to give him some odd and unexplained ability, so while he doesn't have any specific or official list of powers, someone going through the show and noting what he can do would come up with an odd assortment of abilities.

In a related question, it was asked if there would be more about Roger's gold-encrusted poop. The panelists sidestepped the question saying only that it would return, but couldn’t go into more detail. Instead they decided to give a tidbit about Klaus’ body being discovered.

At one point, Seth was asked which character of his he would hang out with for a day. His reply was Roger because with him, there is no accountability. You could do whatever you want around him and he wouldn't care or report you to any authorities.

Oddly enough, there were quite a few questions about MacFarlane's recent movie, Ted. One question was about the fact that Ryan Reynolds is in the movie, but he doesn't really say much. MacFarlane explained that that was basically the joke, a fourth-wall joke pointed at the movie industry. He explained that the joke was the ability to get Reynolds attached to the film, but not actually give him any lines. When asked, Seth also said that he would love to do another feature film or even a Ted 2.

Seth was also asked if there was a specific toy from his childhood that inspired Ted. He said there wasn't and explained that he was essentially a child of corporate America and his favorite toy was always the new one that just came out and was put in front of him. He said that he did have a plush dog once, but it was quickly replaced by Skeletor and even that was replaced by something else soon afterwards.

One of the last questions in the panel was about coming up with the different characters Roger portrays. The writers explained that they don't try to see what they could make Roger dress up as. Instead, they write their episode and think about who a good guest star would be and that's the role that Roger takes on in the script.

The panel concluded with one of the songs from Haley Sings with clips from the show playing on the screen.