"Camp Refoogee" is the first episode of the
third season and the twenty-fourth overall episode 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 ani ...
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 United States television ...
''
American Dad!''. It aired 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 ...
in the United States on September 10, 2006, and is written by Josh Bycel and Jonathan Fener and directed by Albert Calleros.
In the episode,
Stan's determined to send a reluctant
Steve to summer camp. The only one he finds is in Africa, and it is a refugee camp. Back in Langley Falls,
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 ...
and
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 ', ' ( ...
pretend to be a married couple at events around town, but they can't agree on their backstory. At the refugee camp, Stan and
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, '' ...
arrive to take Steve back to Langley Falls, but Stan decides to stay for a while and run the place as a summer camp.
Plot
When Stan tries to persuade Steve to go to summer camp, Steve refuses, wanting instead to stay home and spend time gardening. Stan does not give up, however; upon learning that a camping supply store is donating its equipment to a camp, he sends Steve along with it. Steve tells Stan that he was not in Boyz II Men. Francine then learns that Stan actually sent their son to an
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
refugee camp (which Stan mispronounces as "re-foo-gee") and demands that he bring Steve home. Wanting to help the refugees, Hayley also tags along.
Once in Africa, Hayley discovers the workers feasting while the refugees are starving, and tries to protest. However, after finding out that she will be staying in Africa for a while, she quickly joins them. Meanwhile, Stan turns the refugee camp into a summer camp so Steve can have ''some'' kind of camp experience. Steve meets Makeva, an African girl about his age, but then gets annoyed when his dad keeps bothering him. Just then, a group of rebels kidnaps Makeva. Stan then suggests a "Camp-a-lympics" to the rebels, saying that if his team wins, the refugees get Makeva and their land back. Back home, Roger and Francine amuse themselves in town, pretending to be a professor and his wife. They meet another couple and invite them home, and the subplot becomes a parody of ''
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive ...
'', resulting in a bloody fight which wrecks the living room.
At the Camp-a-lympics, the score is tied going into the final event, a foot race between Steve and the rebel leader. Steve wins the event, but Makeva runs into the arms of the rebel leader, whom she has already fallen for. Stan then tells a dejected Steve that his first camp love dumped him too. As they fly home, Hayley, who had spent all of her time eating at the UN headquarters there instead of helping the refugees, says she thinks she "gained the African twenty," while Steve thanks his dad for an "awesome" camp experience.
Reception
Daniel Solomon of Cinema Blend gave the episode a mixed review, saying "Camp Refoogee" "in which Stan’s zeal to help his son grow up the right way leads him to send Steve to a refugee camp in Africa. Instead of correcting the mistake, Stan joins him and helps turn the place into ''Meatballs'' or ''Heavyweights'', depending on how young you are. Like with all the jokes in ''American Dad'', it could be better if the movies the episode parodies aren’t mentioned. But so powerful is the writers’ need to spew pop culture knowledge from every orifice that Stan makes direct reference to them several times. Hey kids! I remember ''Short Circuit''! Isn't that hysterical?" The episode was watched by a total of 8.93 million people; this made it the third most watched show on
Animation Domination that night, losing to ''
Family Guy'' and ''
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 Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
'', which had 11.6 million viewers.
References
External links
*
{{American Dad!
2006 American television episodes
American Dad! (season 3) episodes
Television episodes set in summer camps