"Tearjerker" is the tenth episode of the
fourth 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 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 originally 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 January 13, 2008. As the episode follows a story based entirely from a ''
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
'' film, each ''American Dad!'' character plays a role of another:
Stan as Agent Stan Smith,
Francine Smith
Francine Lee Smith (formerly Ling; née Dawson) is a fictional character on the American animated sitcom ''American Dad!'' She is the wife of the main character, Stan Smith and the mother of Hayley and Steve Smith. Francine is voiced by Wendy ...
as
Sexpun T'Come,
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, '' ...
as
Miss Peacenickel,
Steve as
S,
Avery Bullock
This article lists characters from the animated series ''American Dad!''.
Voice cast
The voice actors are not assembled as a group when performing the lines of their characters; rather, each of the voice actors perform their lines privately ...
as
B,
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 ', ' ( ...
as Tearjerker,
Klaus
Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas.
Notable persons whose family name is Klaus
* Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American base ...
as Tchochkie Schmear, Terry Bates as Mannie,
Greg Corbin as Peddie,
Chuck White as Professor, and
Captain Monty as Gums. This episode follows Agent Stan Smith during his infiltration of a movie set, where he finds
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey ( ; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor. He had his breakout role with a supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy '' Dazed and Confused'' (1993). After a number of supporting roles, his first succes ...
to be a robot, as well as
Johnny Depp during his visit on Tearjerker's island. Tearjerker, the main antagonist of the episode, is a
business tycoon
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
who has been abducting celebrities from his spa and replacing them with robots that will star in his horrible movies. While in the meantime he is pressured to accept a marriage by Sexpun T'Come, Stan goes to stop Tearjerker from premiering his tragedy film in
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
...
s worldwide, making those who watch it cry to death literally.
The sequel to "Tearjerker", "For Black Eyes Only", aired on March 10, 2013, as the 13th episode of
season 9
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...
.
"Tearjerker" was written by Jonathon Fener and directed by Albert Calleros. It was met with mostly positive reception from television critics, with much of the praise going into the character development of the antagonist. It features guest appearances from
Seth Green and
Don LaFontaine
Donald Leroy LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 – September 1, 2008) was an American voice actor who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers and hundreds of thousands of television advertisements, network promotions, and video game trailers over four ...
, along with several recurring voice actors and actresses for the series.
Plot
A
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
agent jumps out of a cable car, and the woman next to him tells her
henchmen
A henchman (''vernacular:'' "hencher"), is a loyal employee, supporter, or aide to some powerful figure engaged in nefarious or criminal enterprises. Henchmen are typically relatively unimportant in the organization: minions whose value lies pri ...
to follow him. After the agent kills one of them and prepares to shoot another, Agent Stan arrives to assist him. Stan blows up the henchmen, which creates an avalanche, causing the two agents to fall over a cliff. They open their parachutes, though the British agent and his parachute is crushed by Stan's falling snowmobile.
Stan's boss, B (Bullock), assigns Stan to infiltrate a movie set produced by Tchochkie Schmear (Klaus). Stan travels to
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
to investigate one of Tchochkie's movies, ''Bark of the Covenant''. There, he finds
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey ( ; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor. He had his breakout role with a supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy '' Dazed and Confused'' (1993). After a number of supporting roles, his first succes ...
working on the set, only to find out he is a robot when Stan exposes him to milk. He also discovers that Schmear had been hired by Tearjerker (Roger). Suspicious, Stan arrives at a
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
casino, where he is introduced to Sexpun T'Come (Francine) and Tearjerker himself. Stan challenges Tearjerker to play a game in exchange for an invitation to an exclusive spa in the Teardrop Islands. Since he does not know how to play
Baccarat
Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...
or
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, "street ...
, which are Tearjerker's expertise, Stan declares playing "highest number", in which the players name the highest number they can think of. Stan wins the game and leaves with an invitation to the spa. In the meantime, Sexpun gives Tearjerker Stan's wallet, containing his personal
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
information.
On his way to Tearjerker's island, Stan meets
Johnny Depp, who is later replaced by a robot replica that, like the McConaughey robot, malfunctions when given milk. Tearjerker orders Sexpun to seduce Stan, but when she approaches him, he proposes marriage to her, and she falls in love with him as well. Meanwhile, Tearjerker plans to use his masterpiece tragedy film, ''Oscar Gold'', depicting an
intellectually disabled
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signifi ...
alcoholic
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
boy and his
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
-ridden
puppy
A puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies can weigh , while larger ones can weigh up to . All healthy puppies grow quickly after birth. A puppy's coat color may change as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in breeds such as the York ...
set during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, to make the moviegoers literally cry themselves to death. Stan and Sexpun embark on a boat tour explaining Tearjerker's diabolical plans, which ends in Tearjerker's office room, where Tearjerker ties the two to a chair with ropes and forces them to watch his film, which simultaneously premieres in theaters throughout the world.
With everyone on the verge of crying to death, Sexpun accepts Stan's proposal of marriage. Stan suddenly recalls the engagement ring given to him by S (Steve). He asks her to put it on, and Sexpun does so, which causes her breasts to swell, breaking the ropes. Discovering
Adrien Brody
Adrien Nicholas Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring as Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's '' The Pianist'' (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Acto ...
and
Halle Berry in Tearjerker's
dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...
below the floor, Stan records a video of their celebrity baby, posts it on the Internet, and makes a mass phone call, redirecting the moviegoers' attention from the film to the video. Enraged, Tearjerker unleashes his soldiers to kill Stan, though instead they end up plummeting through the poorly constructed floor to the bottom. Tearjerker attempts to flee in an
escape pod
An escape pod, escape capsule, life capsule, or lifepod is a capsule or craft, usually only big enough for one person, used to escape from a vessel in an emergency. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose ...
in order to create an even sadder film (6 hours of a baby chimp trying to revive its dead mother). Shortly into the air though, his pod malfunctions and falls into a
volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Ear ...
. After Stan and Sexpun are married, Tearjerker's hand rises from the lava pit briefly, but then falls back in.
Reception
"Tearjerker" was met with mostly positive reception from most television critics. In a simultaneous review with ''Family Guy'', Genevieve Koski 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 it a mixed review, going on to write, "I wasn't wild about tonight's "Tearjerker", though I did appreciate that it tweaked the ''Bond'' conventions into an original story rather than doing a straight-up recreation. It seems so easy to do a ''Bond'' parody, especially when your main character is a
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
agent."
However, she went on to praise the Tearjerker character portrayed by
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 ', ' ( ...
, writing, "The most obvious inspiration–Roger as the arch-villain–was also the funniest. Sure, "Sexpun DeCome" and "Peacenickel" were chuckle-worthy throwaways, but Roger's–excuse me, "Tearjerker's"–plan to create the world's saddest movie
..being foiled by Mike, the world's worst contractor, provided for some nice Roger tantrums
.." She went on to give the episode a C+, the highest grade of the night, scoring higher than the ''Family Guy'' episode "
McStroke
"McStroke" is the eighth episode of season six of the animated comedy series '' Family Guy''. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on January 13, 2008. The episode follows Peter as he saves the life of a fast-food restaurant owner who ...
".
Donald Campbell of ''
U-Wire'' gave the episode a four out of five stars, going on to write, "
Seth MacFarlane has brought laughter to quite a few Americans - most of them under the age of 30 - with his two series, ''Family Guy'' and ''American Dad''".
See also
*
''Don'' (1978 film), featuring a song sampled in this episode.
*''
A Kitten for Hitler
''A Kitten for Hitler'', also known as ''Ein Kitten für Hitler'', is a 2007 short film
directed by British director Ken Russell. Russell created it intending to be offensive. This caused casting problems, so he decided to cast an adult with dwa ...
'', a real film with a similar plot to the fictional one depicted in this episode
*"
The Tears of a Clown
"The Tears of a Clown" is a song written by Hank Cosby, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder and originally recorded by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles for the Tamla Records label subsidiary of Motown, first appearing on the 1967 album '' Make It H ...
", the 1979 song by
The Beat which two characters dance to in this episode.
References
External links
*
{{American Dad!
American Dad! (season 4) episodes
2008 American television episodes