Review: American Dad “Permanent Record Wrecker”

Posted on May 5, 2014October 8, 2019 by Tommy North

Spoilers Below

Last night’s episode of American Dad was titled “Permanent Record Wrecker”. The story begins with Stan searching for his Red Dawn DVD. When he finds out that Steve left the movies out of alphabetical order, he takes every DVD off the shelf and makes Steve put them all in alphabetical order. When Stan gets to work the next day, he finds out that he’s been fired due to a budget cut. He ends up having to take a job at the same grocery store that Steve works, and it would be fair to say that Steve hasn’t forgotten the DVD incident.

Meanwhile, Roger is out at his favorite coffee shop when he is annoyed by how terrible the live musician is. Roger challenges the musician (voiced by Robin Thicke) to a competition that would take place in a week, and the loser must leave the coffee shop forever. This leaves Roger only a week to learn the guitar, and reality hits home for him when he learns that playing the guitar isn’t as easy as it looks.

“Permanent Record Holder” was packed with some good laughs. It was funny to see how far back this permanent record goes for Stan, and how it affects his life. This isn’t the funniest episode based around the relationship between Stan and Steve this season, nor is it the most memorable, but I still found it pretty good. I think Steve lacks in the humor department this episode, and most of the comedy is left on Stan’s shoulders. Understandably so, because how funny is it seeing a CIA agent of twenty years working at a grocery store.

Roger’s portion of the episode was simply there to chew up time. It did that pretty well. As somebody who is frequently in coffee shops littered with aspiring musicians, I could definitely relate with Roger in this episode. There wasn’t very much to this plot, but I did have quite a few laughs with it. Seeing the extremes Roger will go to just to learn the guitar is pretty entertaining. Robin Thicke fans will be sad to know that his character doesn’t say very many lines this episode, but it’s a fun little cameo nonetheless.

Overall, it was an alright episode. I don’t have too many problems with it. I would have enjoyed a plot that stood out a little more. Other from that it was a pretty funny episode. Of course, we all experience comedy differently so perhaps you guys will otherwise. I had a lot more fun with Roger’s plot this episode, and I would have enjoyed to have some more of that story.