REVIEW: AMERICAN DAD “OLD STAN IN THE MOUNTAIN”

Stan doesn’t like old people much, and as such he lets them have it every chance he gets. Soon enough, he crosses the wrong old dude who then puts a hex on Stan to teach him a lesson. Pretty much through the whole episode we experience Stan trying to go through his normal everyday as an old guy as he learns that he should be more receptive and understanding of the elderly. For most people, this lesson might just eventually work its way into the story, but in Stan’s case he has to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and enlists the help of Haley and Steve.

Of course, being an old guy has its disadvantages, like being hard of hearing and acting paranoid more often than not, and that comes to play here as he swears that his kids are there to kill Stan and leave his body to rot in the wilderness…but not if Stan gets them first! Eventually, Stan does reach the top but not before he stabs his own kids in the back(both literally and figuratively) but as Sir Isaac Newton has taught us so many times, what goes up must come down! And that’s what happens to Stan, as he takes a most brutal pillage down the mountain on to some jagged rocks, but somehow still alive. You would think a local hiker would act as a Good Samaritan, but really he starts harassing Stan, the same way Stan harassed the crazy old guy earlier in the show. Eventually, Stan learns another noble lesson, which is if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it.

Roger and Francine are par-taking in a dance contest and Francine really needs to learn her moves. However, its all just bull shit because Roger brings Francine along for a gauntlet of random events relative to his ex-wife who is apparently now dead. Yep, they do it all, from going to the funeral, to digging up the corpse, and shaving its head bald for the purposes of keeping the dead body’s red hair, we see it all. However, Francine eventually gets fed up with it and ends up throwing Roger off of a cliff.

This was a stinker of an episode all over, first the whole “Stan’s intolerance of a certain group of people, only for him to learn a valuable lesson in the end” motif has been done a 1000 times and this time the writers apparently ripped off the movie Jack mixed with Spleen’s back story from the movie Mystery Men. As a matter of fact, there’s a scene in the show where Klaus and Stan are going through a bunch of Disney movies that have pretty much the same plot line! Coupled with an even lamer story with Roger and Francine, “Old Stan in the Mountain” has me pissed off because this would’ve been a rather perfect end to a really strong Animation Domination, but instead just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that will last for two weeks.