Of Ice and Men (American Dad!)

"Of Ice and Men", after Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, is a second season episode of the animated series American Dad!.

Plot summary

This episode begins in the year 2045, where Klaus – who, inexplicably, has been returned to a human body – tells his grandson a bedtime story about his past:

Every winter, Stan, without explanation, becomes aloof and goes off by himself for entire days or nights, which causes Francine to become depressed. She eventually decides to follow him through a secret passage in their bathroom, guarded by traps and a knight. After following him to the surface, Francine finds Stan figure skating, and confronts him. Stan explains that he once was a competitive figure skater, but his overzealousness lead to his partner getting injured, and as a result he is afraid of skating with other people. However, Francine convinces him that skating can be a fun couples activity, and Stan slowly begins to enjoy skating.

Francine eventually enters herself and Stan in a contest, which horrifies Stan; he tells Roger part of his backstory he didn't tell Francine: due to his extreme competitiveness, he continued his figure skating routine despite his partner's injury, and then drove across the country with her to protest his poor score, rather than take her to the hospital. However, upon discovering the contest's prize is a set of wigs which he wants to play with, Roger convinces Stan that he and Francine should participate. Stan quickly becomes overly competitive with Francine and eventually dumps her as a partner in favor of Roger, who turns out to be an excellent figure skater.

At the competition, Stan sees a rather inept elderly couple who, despite their low score, are happy and enjoy each other, causing him to realize that he should be skating with Francine. He rushes home, tranquilizes Francine, and brings her to the rink. She wakes up with the two of them skating, and the two argue as they do a flawless routine. They leave without seeing their score.

Meanwhile, Steve and his friends order binoculars, but somehow receive a Russian mail-order bride instead. Hayley, however, convinces the woman to protect her interests and not do anything sexual with them until one of them marries her. The four boys hold a contest to decide who gets to marry her, and Snot wins; however, at the wedding, Toshi, who learned Russian to woo her, makes an impassioned plea for her, and she leaves Snot for him.

Klaus then finishes his story. When his grandson asks if he was ever a shark, Klaus angrily replies that he was two sharks and a monkey before telling him to sleep.

Cultural References

• Nancy Kerrigan's attack is referenced at the end of the episode.
• One of the wigs that Roger wins at the competition is a replica of the hairstyle of Wilma Flintstone.
• Francine has a tricorder-like device, "Is it the Olympics or Not?" with sounds taken from the NES version of Tetris.
• Roger invites Stan to watch a tape of Anita Hartshorn and Frank Sweiding debuting their Mustang Sally routine.
• The framing device is similar to that of The Princess Bride.
• When Stan performs an incorrect salchow, Roger remarks, "It looks like you have mad salchow disease."
• During a break from Klaus' story, he relates to his grandson that he was once Ricky Schroder's roommate. When prompted for more details, he tells his grandson, "Okay. Rick Schroeder sucks. He just, he... he just sucks. He sucks so hard. Rick Schroeder uses women. The end."
• When Stan asks Roger where he learned how to skate, Roger replies that Stan would know if he read his MySpace page [1].
• The episode title is a reference to the John Steinbeck novel, Of Mice and Men.
• Francine discovers Stan figure-skating on the song Gloria by Umberto Tozzi.

Notes

• There is a 1998 book by Bruce Dowbiggin, also entitled "Of Ice and Men", about the lives of hockey legends Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios, Steve Yzerman and Glen Sather. [2]
• The newspaper headline in this episode's opening sequence reads "Turkey Uprising Fails!"; the episode aired shortly after American Thanksgiving.
• Klaus breaks the fourth wall by telling his grandson that they are a "framing device" for the main story.
• Klaus' human form has hair that resembles the fins of his fish form.
• "Of Ice and Men" is also the name of an episode of Roseanne and the animated television series Aladdin.