Family Guy Santa vs American Dad Santa
- Alexis Vigil
- Mar 12, 2019
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 12, 2019
If you enjoy Seth Macfarlane and his two great animated shows you'll enjoy reading this. Famlily Guy and American Dad love their holiday episodes, but the ones that stand out the most to me are the Christmas episodes. Many people may have already considered these points, but for the people who did not or have not seen both shows, each Santa gives us the same message, but with a different story. It is deeper than comedy... read all about it!
*Disclaimer: There will be spoliers so if you haven't watched the episodes watch them now then come back. Episode names and season listed under images above.
Welcome! Glad You're Here!
I have wanted to write about this for years and here I am finally doing it! WELCOME!! If you are a Family Guy and American Dad fan as you know already, these two shows are both great at storytelling and making you laugh your a** off. Both shows have their own vibe, but when it came down to the Christmas episodes, the great Seth Macfarlane and his amazingly creative and smart colleagues decided to use these episodes to depict two completely different, but believable representations of Santa Claus. Family Guy has had many different Christmas episodes with mall Santas and family drama, but the episode that stood out the most to was "Road to The North Pole". This episode stood out because of the way they transformed a holiday that is always seen as positive and giving to something much more dark while still remaining a funny episode all together. Despite the episode taking this turn, the wonderfully made music and the message was too good to not appreciate the clear point the writers were trying to make. I am going to give a summary of each episode so that you can know how the characters got to meet Santa and why the Santas are the way they are. It is super interesting so keep reading.
Family Guy Episode Summary
All the "Road to" episodes means that Brian and Stewie will be going on a wild adventure. In the beginning of "Road to the North Pole", the episode begins with a super catchy song with all the Griffin's holding notebooks singing about all the things they want Santa to give them for Christmas. The song continues to be sang by different characters in the show also singing about all the different things they want for Christmas. After this scene Stewie and Brian are in the mall waiting to see the mall Santa. Though Stewie is a genius with a most of the time mature personality, he is still a baby. Stewie firmly believes that the Santa he and Brian are in line waiting to see is the real Santa that is going to give him the gift he will ask for. When they finally get to the front of the line after waiting all day and he walks up to Santa pulling out a dollar bill as a bribe because he know he has been "rather naughty" but still wants to get a gift. Santa then looks at his watch and pulls out a sign that reads "CLOSED TO FEED THE REINDEER SEE YOU TOMORROW" and gets up and walks away. If you know Stewie you already know he did not like and so Stewie then demands that Brian must take him to the North Pole. Brian agrees due to a bad thing that resulted in him saying something stupid earlier in the episode that he wanted to avoid. Brian then takes Stewie to "Santa's Village" which is an amusement attraction for kids. Brian tried to get away with this by tricking Stewie, but as Stewie clearly states to Brian points a gun right at him while pushing him with it yelling "Do you think I'm an idiot?! Huh? Do you?" Brian tries to calm him down and explain that a jouney to the North Pole is a long and dangerous one, but Stewie reveals why he is so determined to go. He wants to kill Santa Claus for blowing him off at the mall. Stewie is driven by revenge not gifts which is why when Brian refuses he jumps onto a U-Haul truck to go on this journey alone. Brian follows him and they end up together after a big crash where Brian has to tell him the tough news that Santa is not really real. Stewie does not believe him and bribes him to embark on this dangerous journey together to prove to one of the other who is right about Santa. Brian agree and they begin. They finally arrive to the North Pole they knock and Santa opens the door and asks what they want. Stewie yells that he is going to kill him and Santa replies with great relief saying "Ah... thank God! Do it! Please!" Brian and Stewie both shocked at what they heard as the very sick exhausted, and pale looking Santa expalined why he was not jolly anymore. He expains that things got out of hand and the population kept growing and that kids wanted more toys/fancier toys. He explains that back then it was more simple. He and his elves were asked to make wooden choo choos, not millions of iPods. Santa begins to show them the toxic waste and the inbreed mutated elves. You can see the pain on the elves faces as you watch all the different toys they are trying to finish making. Santa is narrativing as the scene continues and he explains that the workload detroys them and near the end they walk out to the snow and die. We then are shown the reindeer, feral elf eating animals that look super creepy unlike the usual reindeer depicted in any other Christmas movie/show. Stewie and Brian then asked how Santa could let this happen and Santa exclaimed "Me? I didn't do this! Christmas did!" Then lively waltz music begins to play and Santa begins to sing about the horrideness of Christmas and what it does to him and the elves and that Christmastime is killing them. Santa collaspes making him unable to give out the gifts on Christmas Eve and so Stewie and Brian volunteer to help Santa to save Christmas. As they are trying to do Santa's job they realize how impossible it is and they completely fail. The next morning Peter wakes up and runs downstairs and sees no presents and the rest of the neighborhood also reacts. Tom Tucker, the news reporter, than starts to talk about how Santa skips Christmas and everyone woke up disappointed. Brian then interrupts and shows Santa Claus to the viewers and says that he is sick because he has been " Bludgeoned by years of greed and avarice." The episode ended with everyone agreeing to asking for only one present a year so that they can help Christmas continue.
American Dad Episode/s Summary
Unlike Family Guy's episode where their version of Santa is introduced and the problem is solved at the end of the two part episode, American Dad's Santa is featured as more of a series then of just one episode which is great. It will be something you look foward to if you enjoy reading about the message each Christmas episode with this Santa is trying to tell. American Dad's Santa is introduced in the episode named "For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls." In this episode Stan disobeys Francine's warning to not give Steve a gun fro Christmas. Of course being the American CIA dad he is he does so anyway. Steve though he doesn't want to shots the gun at a snowman and blood begins to shot out from behind the snowman. The snowman falls and Santa is reveal with bullet wounds all over him. He collapes and Steve exclaims "Oh my God! A mall Santa! I-I didn't see him!" The Smiths all bury the mall Santa in the woods... or so they thought. Later they all get threatening letters written very Christmas like, such as "THC You in Hell" or "Your Nuts Will Roast on an Open Fire". They realize that they have shot the real Santa and their lives are now in danger. The episode ends in a battle as the Smiths, Roger and Jeff include. Santa and his elves are determined to kill the Smiths until the Christmas Day. A great battle broke out with lots of blood shed. When the sun rose Santa yelled for all his elves to come back and return to the North Pole. Knowing that Santa was not going to stop hating them and wanting them dead they were relieved to still be alive and happy to have a new Christmas tradition. The next episode we see Santa in is an episode named "Minstrel Krampus" Season 10 Episdoe 8, which is my favorite. The episode begins with Steve, Francine, and Stan at the store getting toys. Stan says Steve has to be a good boy to get the gifts he wants and Steve exclaims, "NO! I GET WHAT I WANT!" He begins to break into song about how hes a bad boy and they need to give him toys with backup dancers who are also kids. Shoutout to Scout Grimes for doing such a good job on Steve's songs! So Stan is mad and takes him to his father in prison to show him what happens to bad boys. Stan's father then tells Steve to be glad he is bad now because he trapped Krampus in a copper pot when he was a young boy and if Krampus was still free Steve would not act this way. Steve thinks the story is lame and they leave, but as they are leaving Stan's father yells to check the copper pot in the basement because that is where Krampus is. Stan looks for the pot and frees Krampus hoping that he will make Stevebe a good boy, but instead Krampus steals Steve and yells to Stan to bring him Jack, who is Stan's father. Stan goes to Santa for help and he agrees because he does not want to share Christmas with "that soul-singing goat" again. Steve though captured begins to bond with Krampus in his mansion along with the furniature and toiletry items that are alive in the house (they are copying Beauty and the Beast). Steve ends up realizing that Krampus is a good guy and only punishes kids because he does not want them to grow up bad. Steve sees that it hurts Krampus to do this, but he does it because it is the right thing to do for thr kids instead of what Santa does by rewarding kids for being bad with presents every year. Steve and Krampus sing a song together that may be one of my favorite songs in the whole show. A big reason this is my favorite Christmas episode is because of the music. Krampus and Steve are together enjoying their time and then Stan, Santa, and the elves invade the castle and kill everyone. Santa shots Krampus dead and then turns his gun to Stan. Stan asks, "What are you doing? We had a deal." Santa replies saying "Ya well I'm Santa and maybe even a duma** like you can figure out that I;m the bad guy." Steve yells saying that is why Krampus is good, because he cared about the kids and Santa just spoils them. Santa replies saying, "And I make a hell of a lot of money doing it. Most of my portfolio is in toy stocks." He explains that the naughty kids buy the most toys and Roger is confused because he gives toys away. Santa then yells, "Do not over think this. Just know that I am in bed with Big Toys so I'm making money." There is another episode named "Ninety North, Zero West" Season 12 Episode 7, where Santa kidnaps children so they can do hard labor for him becasue he wants to find an object that will give him ultimate power, however, that does not go with the deep message I am trying to discuss. Give those episodes a watch those because they are all really awesome.
The Deeper Message
So what is the deeper message behind these two different Santa's? The deeper message is that Christmas is not always what it seems. On the surface Chirstmas is about giving to one another and celebrating with family, but the commercial aspect of Chrsitmas can get out of hand sometimes. Both Santa's are affected by the commercial aspects of Christmas. The Evil Santa in American Dad benefits from the commercialization of Christmas, and the Santa in Family Guy is destroyed to almost the point of death by Christmas. It is a great satire because we have all had the experience of wanting things at Christmas as kids and having to buy things for others. It is as if the world is greedy around Christmastime, and that greed has produced greater issues in the world. The mass production of consumer goods around Christmastime is really just and exploitation of resources that benefits major corporations who are selling things at this time of the year. It tells us that we always believe that more is better and Family Guy and American Dad are showing us how negative that thinking really is. They did a good job on shedding light on topics that mot people try to avoid. To my knowlegde, no one has ever done this before with such a well known topic as Christmas. Shedding light on a serious topic while making you laugh and giving you good musical numbers that are Emmy/Grammy worthy, Family Guy and American Dad give you a full satirical experience.
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