[Exclusive Interview] Matt Weitzman on How to Keep American Dad Fresh, Funny, and Fearless After Nearly 350 Episodes
The animation industry continues to evolve in unpredictable ways and it’s nothing short of incredible how an undistinguished animated pilot could air at the start of 2005 following Super Bowl XXXIX and now, more than 17 years, 350 episodes, and two networks later, American Dad is at the top of its game. The opinionated critique of middle America started as an addendum to FOX’s prestigious Animation Domination block, yet it’s since been able to achieve a level of independence that’s arguably elevated American Dad above all of the animated comedies with which it got its start. Now, in its celebrated 18th broadcast season, American Dad continues to rewrite the rules on animated sitcoms and in some ways the series feels like it has more life than ever before.
American Dad has embraced change rather than stubbornly insist upon stasis. Matt Weitzman, co-creator and co-executive producer, has been a vital voice for many of these helpful transformations and the creatively liberating energy that the series exudes. Matt Weitzman graciously opens up on the evolving nature of American Dad’s storytelling and character dynamics, the genesis of the series’ mind-bending “Gold Top Nuts” episode, whether the recent TBS rumblings have them worried, and what American Dad’s own Multiverse of Madness might look like.
Daniel Kurland: When this current season of American Dad ends, you’ll be close to your 350th episode. Do these milestones still mean as much as you get deeper and deeper into the show’s run? Do you have big plans for 350 and the hypothetical 400th episode?
Matt Weitzman: We’re actually past that because by the time that—Out in the world is that crazy numbered broadcast schedule, while we on the inside have a totally different schedule that’s built from produced seasons. So in my mind, what’s currently airing is what I would consider to be Season 16, and we just finished all of the table reads for Season 17. Then, in November, I will begin Season 18, even though the season numbers out in the world are like 19 and 20. By the time that we’re done with the upcoming—what I consider to be the 18th—season, which has been picked up, we will have 388 episodes.
DK: One more season would take you guys to 400.
MW: Even a half-a-season! 12 episodes is all I need to get to 400.
DK: After telling stories for so long with these characters in this world have you found that you now have different goals in terms of what episodes should accomplish? Has the writing process changed at all?
MW: It varies. I’m still really proud that I’ll get surprised by episodes. Certain episodes still make me go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that we’re able to do this!” We’re doing—and it’s going to be a while until it airs because I just looked at the storyboards—but we’re doing this multiverse episode. That’s not airing until what I consider to be Season 17, after we begin in the spring of 2023. I think I teased the multiverse episode at Comic-Con, but it’s on the way. We already have our two Christmas shows set up for this year, and the coming year. This coming year we’re kind of doing a spin of The Grinch, where Roger becomes the Grinch, but it has more to do with sex than the original story…
After that, we have a Metaverse episode where the third act is all in 3D. So we’re really pushing the medium in that sense and playing with elements that I never previously thought that we would. Whenever I’m surprised, I know that the audience is surprised. It’s great for the writers and the audience, but harder on the animators to pull off since they’re working twice as hard. They’re willing to put in that extra effort when it’s something that they believe in and it’s appreciated by the fans like it is with American Dad.
DK: I’m glad that you brought up the show’s animation because I feel like the past few seasons have really upped the quality in terms of visual experimentation and playing around with unique animation styles. To hear that you’re messing around with 3D in the future feels like a natural progression to all of that.
MW: We’re still trying hard! I’m still trying hard! People will ask me when I’m going to do something else, but I’m still enjoying this, I like what we’re doing, and as an audience member myself, I just want to keep it on top. There are a lot of people who don’t just continue to watch the show, but truly enjoy it, whether they catch it on TBS, Hulu, or Adult Swim. So there’s a pretty large audience and I want them to feel that we’re not phoning it in and still doing our best to keep them laughing and surprised through both comedy and visual elements.
DK: The episode from this season “Gold Top Nuts,” is one of my favorite installments that you guys have ever done. It reminded me a lot of “Rabbit Ears” and I just love when you guys engage in more avant-garde experiments like this. Can you just talk a little on the construction of that episode and how you thought it might be received?
MW: Same writers as “Rabbit Ears,” Brett Cawley and Robert Maitia, and I believe that the director of “Gold Top Nuts” was the assistant director of “Rabbit Ears.” With that episode I knew that there’d be a polarizing reaction because it’s so off-kilter. The jokes are funny, but you’re also constantly asking, “What the hell is going on here?” Our characters are acting so oddly and there were moments through the process where I had doubts. It was pitched to me and I was like, yes, but it’s weird.
The whole step-by-step evolution of it was by analyzing those moments where we weren’t sure if things would work or not and pushing through. It’s a weird episode, but it’s also saying something. The way that it ends—I always think about how we feel at the end of an episode, whenever we’re writing. How you feel at the end of an episode is really the greatest takeaway. You can have all of this great stuff happen at the beginning, but if the ending is meh then you’re going to feel meh about it all. If you feel good at the end of the episode then you’ve done your job as an artist and a writer. You leave the audience feeling like they haven’t wasted their time.
DK: The end of “Gold Top Nuts” is so perfect. The musical score and everything. I just love it.
MW: Even the style of the whole montage where they’re trying to rebuild. It looked really cool. We had input, but the look turned out so strong there. I was really happy with how that one turned out and was curious about how audiences would receive it. We were supposed to return to the season with that episode, but TBS thought it’d be better to go in with Wheels and the Legman.
DK: Well on the topic of Wheels and the Legman. Do you appreciate having those running jokes and homages to continue to turn to or is there a level of concern that they’ll wear themselves out?
MW: As long as we’re building upon it then I’m happy, but if it’s just more of the status quo then I’ve got an issue with it. Even in that Wheels and the Legman episode, we start to show the intro and then we cut out of it to show that Roger is in those shorts. It was funny and doing something different with it all. I like Wheels and the Legman and I think that it’s a fun runner between Roger and Steve. I’m all for it. There are certain other canon ideas that we play with and we still haven’t gone back to the Golden Turd, but there are ideas like that where the audience really connects with something.
DK: You mentioned Christmas episodes and how they’re still important for the series, but you’ve also started to tackle some broader Halloween episodes. Do you think you’ll continue to embrace Halloween and indulge in more supernatural stories?
MW: You’re right! We have another Halloween-like Scooby Doo episode on the horizon, too. It’s interesting because American Dad is kind of a sci-fi show. We do a lot of those fun sci-fi elements, and I’m all for that. They’re such fun tools to tell stories. Let’s do it. We started with an alien, so the audience has already bought into the science fiction. At that point there’s nothing that you can’t do as far as sci-fi or fantasy, so why not actively use those tools as long as they’re inventive and fun.
DK: Rogu is a relatively recent addition to the series, but he’s quickly become one of my favorite characters. It’s impressive how you’ve integrated him into the series and that he doesn’t just feel like a visual gag or extension of Roger. How has the Rogu experience been, did you expect for him to become a permanent part of the series, and what’s on the way for him?
MW: Yeah, I wasn’t expecting Rogu to end up in as many episodes as we’ve ended up using him. He’s a little bit polarizing, as far as I can tell from the audience—some people love him, some people hate him—but it’s nice at times to have Roger as some degree of a parental figure as he takes care of this guy. It’s kind of like having a baby in the house, in the sense that you only have to use him so often. He’s still potentially dangerous, fun, and I’ve really come to like him. And I’m glad that the audience, by and large, is also into him. To me, the more the merrier. As long as other people aren’t being sacrificed. I don’t think we use the character too much. You won’t see him for many episodes, and then suddenly he’ll appear. Yeah, I’m just happy to give Roger more to do. After so many seasons, you have to open up the box a little more to find out what people are made of. I think we as “artists,” and the audience, want that, too.
DK: In the past there had been murmurs that an American Dad movie might be a possibility. Is this something that’s been considered any further or might now be more feasible since there are more streaming services like HBO Max and Hulu that have platforms for original movies and it no longer needing to be a theatrical endeavor?
MW: I know that Bob’s Burgers just came out with their movie. I still spend a lot of time making these episodes, so the idea of tackling a 90-minute movie is still a little daunting to me because I do spend so much time on this show and want every episode to be as good as possible. So, I think that if we were to do a movie it would have to be during some sort of break, or when we’re all done with this—if this ever does end. Nobody at the studio has ever come to us and been like, “We need you to do a movie…” It’s still at the back of my mind, so it’s certainly a possibility, but I’m not itching to do it.
A lot of shows on cable—and with Bob’s Burgers this isn’t the case—they don’t do 22 episodes. We do 22 and that’s a lot of episodes, which take a lot of time. Luckily we get to do that, but it’s time-consuming. And I’ve got four kids. They’re real life. They demand things of me.
DK: There have been such shake-ups going on in the television industry when it comes to ownership and regime changes. TBS is facing some serious shifts when it comes to scripted content. You guys are quite resilient in the sense that you’ve already survived a network change. Can you talk at all about this current situation and if it’s got you all starting to consider the end or if other contingency plans are in place elsewhere?
MW: I’ve always been concerned about the future. And I think that in order for the show to continue I always need to be concerned about the future. I’m always ready for it to go at any time. Yes, I was even concerned that even though TBS had bought season 18 that they would still just say thanks and let it go.
DK: I think a lot of fans were concerned that might happen.
MW: I’ve been made sure that season 17 is definitely happening, so that’s fantastic news. And then, even to hear from them that we’ll need to see what happens when it’s time for them to make a decision about picking more up, where they are in their rebuilding of TBS, TNT, and what all those things mean. I think the fact that we’re on TBS and Adult Swim makes it a two-fer for them, which is a bonus for them. We also get them the audience and numbers that they want.
We’re relatively safe for now, but yeah, it’s still in the back of my mind. I need those 12 episodes to get to 400 and if they don’t pick us up then I’m definitely going right to Hulu and being like, “Hey guys, remember us? We’re doing really well on your platform…” Yes, I hope that it would be able to continue somewhere else if it doesn’t—but I’m super happy with TBS and how everything has been. They’ve allowed us to tell the stories that we want to tell in the ways that we want to tell them. I couldn’t be happier with them and this new regime has been nothing but supportive. I’m looking forward to continuing to have a place at TBS, but you always kind of have to be ready.
The good thing about American Dad is that everybody already knows it. It’s so hard to break through as a new show and get into the public awareness. We’ve been on long enough and have a good enough reputation that people still want to watch us.
DK: That’s so encouraging to hear. You’re also the rare example of a show that’s survived a network change, which is pretty rare.Is there anything else on the horizon that you’re excited for audiences to see? You mentioned the “Multiverse of American Dadness.” Can you elaborate at all on what’s going on there?
MW: That one is a little bit of a ways away. We’re doing a story where we do a Roger origin story. It’s the first time that he lands on Earth and it’s certainly not going to be what people expect it to be. Off the top of my head, there’s a lot of fun stuff coming. We’re doing a Klaus horror story where he gets a girlfriend that’s a Wraith. That in and of itself is insane, but it ends up working. We have another episode where there’s a printer that has—So the CIA takes out everyone’s romance because they want them to be killing machines, and those emotions get placed into appliances. Stan ends up taking his printer and using it as a way to woo Francine, but as you’d imagine it goes badly. So we’ve got robot printers running around that want to woo Francine. We’re also doing a story where Francine goes into Stan’s body, Innerspace style.
As you can see, we do a lot of science fiction stories. It’s just a fun genre that the writers take advantage of and artists who turn it into something that’s also a visual feast. It comes back to what you were talking about with how we want to keep pushing things and as long as we’re not asking too much of our artists then they’re into it as well. I’m just really happy that audiences are as happy as they are. When I look at things on Reddit—which I do look at—it’s validating to see that audiences are enjoying the episodes as much as we’re having fun making them. All of that is coming across. People haven’t complained over the show’s quality, which feels good, and motivates me to keep on pushing harder.
‘American Dad’ airs Mondays at 10pm (ET) on TBS
