Of Ice and Men

"Of Ice and Men"
American Dad! episode
Stan assists Francine in attempting a near-impossible ice skating stunt
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 7
Directed by	John Aoshima
Written by	Brian Boyle
Production code	2AJN10
Original air date	November 26, 2006
Newspaper Headline	Turkey Uprising Fails!
Guest stars
Martin Mull as Father Donovan Tom Hollander as Clifford
Episode chronology
← Previous "Iced, Iced Babies" Next → "Irregarding Steve"
List of American Dad! episodes

"Of Ice and Men" is a second season episode of the animated series American Dad! The title is a play on the title for the famous novel, Of Mice and Men.

Plot

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. During an attempt to confront Stan in their bathroom, Francine accidentally stumbles upon an underground secret passage, guarded by traps and a knight (Tom Hollander). After following him to the surface, Francine is astonished to see Stan figure skating. 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 still has the extreme competitiveness, it goes for a second, then he sees Greg and Terry skating together, so it comes back. 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.

While telling the story, Klaus reveals to his grandson, that he was once a fish. He then becomes more interested in that fact than the actual story.

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 decide to leave without seeing their score.

Roger later returns home with the wigs, and it's revealed that he won by skating with Greg after having Terry attacked, ala Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

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.

References

External links

• "Of Ice and Men" at the Internet Movie Database