Camp Refoogee

Infobox American Dad! episode
Title =Camp Refoogee
Series =American Dad!


Caption =
Season =2
Episode =1
Airdate =September 10, 2006
Production =2AJN06
Writer =Josh Bycel, Jonathan Fener
Director =Albert Callero
Guests =
newspaper_headline = "Zach Braff mania sweeps Zach Braff's Apartment"
Episode list =List of American Dad! episodes
Season list = Infobox_American_Dad!_Season_2
Prev =Tears of a Clooney
Next =The American Dad After School Special__NOTOC__"Camp Refoogee" is the second season premiere of the animated series "American Dad!", with 8.9 million viewers tuning in. It aired in the United States on September 15 , 2006 to 4.13 million viewers. It was #2 in its timeslot and came #33 for the week.

Plot

Stan forces Steve to go to summer camp, but he has missed the cutoff date to get in. Desperate to send Steve to any camp at all, he accidentally places him in a refugee camp in Africa. On Francine's insistence, Stan goes with Hayley to retrieve him. Although intending to help refugees, Hayley ultimately ends up staying at the resort-like UN complex. Once there, Stan maintains the delusion that this is really just an ordinary summer camp, doing everything from making t-shirts to naming the kids and pretending that the violent rebel organization across the river are members of a rival summer camp. When the rebel band kidnaps the African girl Steve is falling for, a "Camp-A-lympics" is set up to win her back.

Meanwhile, Francine and Roger have fun at home pretending to be a married couple, but as each annotates the other's backstory, steadily becoming more unpleasant, until it reaches the point where Roger says that Francine killed their baby, which results in a violent fight, scaring away their invited dinner guests.

At the refugee camp, Steve wins the final but it is revealed the the African girl had fallen in love with the leader of the rebels. Initially, Steve is upset, but Stan comforts him by revealing that his own camp love didn't return his feelings. Stan goes on to explain to Steve that this was only his son's first love, and he will get over it, before breaking down and lamenting the loss of his own camp love.

Back at home, Roger and Francine sit in the wreaked home, Francine asking whether they could change the story so she hadn't killed their baby, with Roger refusing, stating that she left the gate to the pool open, and the child drowned, and that she will have to live with that for the rest of her life.

Cultural references

*The first scene is a direct parody of the storm water canal chase (and many other scenes) in "". The car is also heavily based on the Chrysler 300C.
*Roger, when talking with Candy, begins to sing Candy by Iggy Pop.
*Klaus asks if they can grow "hitlermelons". This reference, made several times during the episode, is to an online joke which shows Adolf Hitler eating a watermelon during one of his speeches.
*Roger and Francine's role-playing as a married couple is essentially taken from the Edward Albee play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
*Sir Mix-a-Lot's famous song, "Baby Got Back", was featured in this episode, to the talent contest, which pays homage to the dance krumping, or clowning.
*In the scene just after the raid, where Stan is on his knees, and tells Steve he "doesn't know what to do", causing Steve to mock his voice, slap him, and tell him to "act like a man" is a mirror of a scene in "The Godfather" when Jonny Fontane asks the Godfather for help with his career.
*When Steve gets the snake's fang necklace from Akiva he is told "With this you will always have the heart of Africa." A reference from "The Ghost and the Darkness" in which Col. Patterson is given a necklace by Samuel, made with the claws from the lion he has killed and is told the same thing.
*The Rebels' general is named Ozomatli, presumably after the Los Angeles band of the same name.
*Steve meets Makeva by the river, when she leaps on and kills a large fanged snake; the song "Africa," by Toto, briefly plays in the background. This song is played again when Stan and Steve look over the photo of the assembled campers at the end of the episode.
*The camp t-shirts Stan buys for the campers happen to be "E! Entertainment" t-shirts.
*When the last race starts, the crowd shouts "Stevey bomaye". This is a reference to the Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman 1974 boxing match, where Ali's Congolese fans chanted "Ali bomaye" ("Ali kill him") prior to and during the match [ [http://proxy.espn.go.com/page2/s/neel/011221.html ESPN.com - Page2 - Muhammad Ali from A to Z ] ] .
*While giving Steve advice on his camp love, Stan tells him that chicks dig Hall & Oates. Later on, at the dance, the Hall and Oates song "One on One" is heard.
* Stan says that Africa reminds him of Arizona except that they probably celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Arizona was the last state to celebrate said public holiday, a fact made more famous by the song "By the Time I Get to Arizona" by Public Enemy. Stan was previously shown to be a Public Enemy fan in the episode "Finances with Wolves" when his favorite song is revealed to be "911 Is A Joke".

*The girl Steve meets and falls for is named Makeva. This is a reference to a character that Thandie Newton, who voiced Makeva, voiced earlier on the show ER, named Makemba Likasu. The love-interst and later wife of Dr. John Carter, whom he met while in Africa.

References

External links

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