"Bully for Steve" is the sixteenth episode of the
fifth season of the
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
comedy series
Television comedy is a category of broadcasting that has been present since the early days of entertainment media. While there are several genres of comedy, some of the first ones aired were variety shows. One of the first Television in the United ...
''
American Dad!
''American Dad!'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Since 2014, the series has been airing new episodes on TBS. ''American Dad!'' is the first television ...
''
It originally aired in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
on
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
on April 25, 2010. The episode follows
Stan who is unhappy with
Steve's passive behavior, so he poses as a bully for Steve to toughen him up, despite
Francine
:''This is a disambiguation page for the common name Francine.''
Francine is a female given name. The name is of French origin. The name Francine was most popular in France itself during the 1940s (Besnard & Desplanques 2003), and was well used i ...
's disapproval.
The episode was written by Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson and directed by Rodney Clouden. "Bully for Steve" was watched by 5.31 million viewers in its original airing. The episode received positive reviews with its main plot, along with mixed reviews with its subplot, from critics. The episode features guest performances of
Jeff Fischer Jeff Fischer may refer to:
*Jeff Fischer (baseball), former pitcher
*Jeff Fischer (actor)
Jeffrey Todd Fischer (born August 10, 1968) is an American voice acting, voice actor known for his work in commercials, cartoons, and video games. He is als ...
,
Kevin Michael Richardson
Kevin Michael Richardson (born October 25, 1964) is an American actor. Known for his distinctively deep voice, he has mostly voiced villainous characters in animation and video games. In film, Richardson voiced Goro in ''Mortal Kombat'' (1995) ...
,
Cleo King
Harriet Cleo King is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on television, particularly ''Mike & Molly'' (2010–2016).
Early life
King was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was the youngest of seven children. She graduated from ...
, and Erik Durbin.
Plot
Stan learns that
Steve is too passive and resorts to confronting Steve as a bully. Steve quickly figures out the bully is his own dad. After a physical confrontation, Steve comes home injured and Stan asks him what happened and changes the topic to his own
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
experience being bullied by a Greek student named Stelio Kontos. He also tells Steve that, as bullies do not just go away, he must deal with them.
Francine
:''This is a disambiguation page for the common name Francine.''
Francine is a female given name. The name is of French origin. The name Francine was most popular in France itself during the 1940s (Besnard & Desplanques 2003), and was well used i ...
opposes this approach, saying that violence is never the answer, so Stan threatens to beat Steve up further if he ever tells her he is being bullied by his dad.
Francine notifies Principal Lewis of her increasing concern for Steve, and despite Stan's threats to keep Steve from telling, Lewis reviews the
security camera
A closed-circuit television camera can produce images or recordings for surveillance or other private purposes. Cameras can be either video cameras, or digital stills cameras. Walter Bruch was the inventor of the CCTV camera. The main purpose o ...
. Francine finds out that Stan is the bully. Nervous, Stan flees from the school, with Francine chasing him, eventually crashing her car into his SUV as he tries to escape from her wrath. Enraged at Stan's actions, Francine tries to train Steve to fight back, but is unsuccessful, and Steve is unable to dodge Stan with an old lady disguise. Finally accepting that he cannot avoid being bullied, Steve decides to settle things at the school playground the next day at 3:00. However, instead of fighting himself, Steve hires Stelio Kontos to beat Stan up. Stelio violently beats Stan, leaving him bloodied and bruised to the point where he finally admits defeat. After the fight, Stan is considerably injured and humiliated, but respectfully acknowledges Steve for overcoming his bully in his own way.
Meanwhile, Reginald asks
Hayley
Hayley (pronounced ) is an English given name.
It is derived from the English surname Haley (surname), Haley, which in turn was based on an Old English toponym, a compound of ''heg'' "hay" and ''leah'' "clearing or meadow".Katie Martin-Doyle, '' ...
out on a date, which she agrees. They arrive at the carnival and encounter Jeff Fischer, who is working there. After engaging in a brief conversation with each other, Hayley and Jeff reconnect, with Reginald understanding.
In another subplot,
Roger
Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...
attempts a career as a
crime scene
A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcement ...
photographer, and finally achieves success with a picture of Stan's injuries from the fight. He is assigned to a "brutal triple rape right off the freeway" by
Captain Crunch.
Production
The episode was written by series regulars Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson and was directed by series regular Rodney Clouden.
It's the second episode Clouden, Fusfeld, and Cuthbertson worked on
this season, their previous episode being "
Don't Look a Smith Horse in the Mouth
"Don't Look a Smith Horse in the Mouth" is the tenth episode of the sixth season of ''American Dad!''. It aired on January 3, 2010 on Fox and is the first ''American Dad!'' episode to air in 16:9 720p high-definition.
In the episode, when Stan ...
."
Ron Hughart
Ronald P. Hughart (born June 18, 1961) is an American animator, director, and storyboard artist. He has worked on several shows, including ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'', '' Family Dog'', '' Futurama'' and '' American Dad!''.
He also worked on ''Ren & ...
and Brent Woods served as supervising directors for "Bully for Steve."
Erik Sommers served as the main producer for the episode, with Laura McCreary and Erik Durbin serving as co-producers, along with
Chris McKenna and Matt McKenna as supervising producers.
Walter Murphy
Walter Anthony Murphy Jr. (born December 19, 1952) is an American composer, keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for the instrumental " A Fifth of Beethoven", a disco adaptation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony which top ...
, a regular music composer for the music of
MacFarlane-produced shows, including the opening theme songs of ''American Dad!'' and ''
The Cleveland Show
''The Cleveland Show'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry for the Fox Broadcasting Company. A spin-off of ''Family Guy'', the series centers on Cleveland Brown, his new wife Donna Tubbs, a ...
'', composed the music for the episode.
In addition to the regular cast, actress
Cleo King
Harriet Cleo King is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on television, particularly ''Mike & Molly'' (2010–2016).
Early life
King was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was the youngest of seven children. She graduated from ...
guest starred in the episode. Recurring voice actors
Jeff Fischer Jeff Fischer may refer to:
*Jeff Fischer (baseball), former pitcher
*Jeff Fischer (actor)
Jeffrey Todd Fischer (born August 10, 1968) is an American voice acting, voice actor known for his work in commercials, cartoons, and video games. He is als ...
and
Kevin Michael Richardson
Kevin Michael Richardson (born October 25, 1964) is an American actor. Known for his distinctively deep voice, he has mostly voiced villainous characters in animation and video games. In film, Richardson voiced Goro in ''Mortal Kombat'' (1995) ...
, and co-producer Erik Durbin also guest starred in the episode.
Cultural references
A recurring gag throughout the episode is Stan insulting Steve with a sexual joke involving the usage of the phrase, "That's what your mom said last night,"
a variation of the original phrase, "
That's what ''she'' said." When Stan is driving in his SUV right after fleeing the high school, he sings a soundtrack of ''
Drops of Jupiter
''Drops of Jupiter'' is the second studio album by American pop rock band Train, released in 2001. The album's title is derived from "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)", its lead single, which was a hit internationally and won the Grammy Award for Best ...
'' by the musical group
Train
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...
.
Francine directly mentions the marine theme park
SeaWorld
SeaWorld is an American theme park chain with headquarters in Orlando, Florida. It is a proprietor of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, animal theme parks, and rehabilitation centers owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (one park will be ...
when she says she needs to "punch a dolphin,"
while Steve mentions the social networking site
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
, where he says he found Stelio Kontos.
Towards the end of the episode,
Cap'n Crunch
Cap'n Crunch is a maize, corn and oat breakfast cereal manufactured by Quaker Oats Company, a subsidiary of PepsiCo since 2001. After introducing the original cereal in 1963, marketed simply as ''Cap'n Crunch'', Quaker Oats has since introduced n ...
appears at the police station when he decides to give Roger the job for presenting the injured Stan, demonstrating Roger's talents in crime scene photography.
Reception
"Bully for Steve" was broadcast on April 25, 2010, as a part of an animated television night on Fox, and was preceded by ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'', ''
The Cleveland Show
''The Cleveland Show'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry for the Fox Broadcasting Company. A spin-off of ''Family Guy'', the series centers on Cleveland Brown, his new wife Donna Tubbs, a ...
'', and ''
Family Guy
''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...
''. It was watched by 5.31 million viewers, according to
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
. The episode also acquired a 2.7/7 rating in the 18–49 demographic, beating ''The Cleveland Show'' but scoring below ''The Simpsons'' and ''Family Guy''.
The episode's ratings increased slightly from the show's last episode, "
Merlot Down Dirty Shame
The sixth season of '' American Dad!'' aired on Fox from September 27, 2009, to May 16, 2010. The season consists of nine episodes from production line four (4AJNxx) and nine from production line five (5AJNxx). The entire season was released in th ...
," and its total viewership increased by 2.65%.
The episode's main plot was met with positive reception by television critics and fans alike upon its initial release, while its subplot received mixed reception. The
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
Show Tracker blog gave a positive review to the episode. They comment its main plot, Stan teaching Steve a lesson, as "the next best thing to Roger’s insanity."
Jason Hughes of
TV Squad
Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs, although the vast majority of its traffic could be ...
also praised the episode overall, commenting that the main plot of Stan bullying Steve "was a stroke of genius by the creators of 'American Dad.'"
Hughes said it "fits in perfectly with
teve'scharacter." He added "it led to so many other funny moments in the episode," noting both instances of the janitor's sudden werewolf transformation at school and the footage showing Principal Lewis "drinking an entire case of beer and peeing on the basketball hoop before heading off."
However, he gave a mixed review to the episode's subplot involving the relationship between Hayley and Reginald, saying he could not "bring
imelf to really care about this relationship, or even Reginald at all."
In a simultaneous review of the episode of ''The Simpsons'' that preceded the show, Todd VanDerWuff of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' gave "Bully for Steve" a positive review, saying that the episode overall was "just purely funny."
He praised Stan for "missing more and more work for this ridiculous quest to make Steve a better man," as well as Stelio Kontos for his own theme song and his fight scene with Stan.
Overall, VanDerWuff said that the episode's main plot worked, suggesting that the relationship between Stan and Steve, their "mutual lack of understanding," is analogous to that between
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
and
Lisa Lisa or LISA may refer to:
People
People with the mononym
* Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam
* Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer
* Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...
in ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
''.
However, like Hughes of TV Squad, VanDerWuff criticized the episode's secondary plot, commenting Hayley and Reginald's relationship, "which seems to have reached its ending
.. continues to just not work,
..since the ending to the storyline was fairly abrupt and out of nowhere."
He rated the episode an A−, the highest grade of the night, scoring higher than ''The Simpsons'' episode "
The Squirt and the Whale
"The Squirt and the Whale" is the nineteenth episode of the twenty-first season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. The 460th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on A ...
."
References
External links
*
{{American Dad!
2010 American television episodes
American Dad! (season 6) episodes
Television episodes about bullying