'American Dad!' Is Returning To Fox After 10.5 Years At TBS

That was fast. And the book has reopened.

Well that was fast. Just hours after it was confirmed that TBS was indeed waiting out the clock on American Dad!’s last renewal, its new home has been confirmed. After 10 and a half years and 212 episodes with the upcoming season finale “What Great Advancements!” airing Monday, March 24 at 10 PM, the Seth MacFarlane-created and starring series is packing up and headed to its original home, Fox. 20th Television Animation and Fox Entertainment are nearing a likely multi-season pickup deal to bring it there.

The deal has been in the works for months, and is fueled by the $1.5 billion deal extension Fox Entertainment and Hulu made in November that keeps the broadcast network’s shows on the streamer in-season. The new agreement paves the way for its other Animation Domination friends it’s rejoining, The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers to have its next renewals confirmed as well. Multi-season pickups for those shows are just as customary. Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, posted to Instagram on February 20 that the table read for the 800th Simpsons episode was happening that day. That something that, well, being February obviously wouldn’t be airing in the current 36th season. Jeff Fischer, the voice of Hayley’s husband Jeff Fischer had posted a new script to his stories in the last month as well. Currently all full previous seasons stream on Hulu, up to the current season’s 15th episode, "Get Him to the Greek Lifestyle". It’s a relationship rooted in its Fox origins and is guaranteed to return to next-day postings with the move back. From what I’ve been present for thanks to the Disney+ integration, TBS did batches at inconsistent frequency. A move back to Fox also allows maintenance of 22-episode (or 20-something-episode) seasons.

Animation Domination Overhaul With 'Family Guy' Return Gets Premiere Date

American Dad!, also created by Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, premiered as a Super Bowl XXXIX leadout in February 2005, with its proper timeslot premiere happening on May 1, 2005 with the relaunch of Animation Domination and revival of MacFarlane’s first Fox show, Family Guy. After 172 episodes across a disputed amount of seasons, American Dad! would wrap its initial Fox run with three unaired episodes of the previous season that didn’t fit into the schedule and instead aired over two Sundays in September 2014. The last of those, “Blagsnarst, a Love Story” was framed as a story told from a book titled American Dad on Fox, which Stan then closed and placed on a shelf. Literal metaphors, they’re fun.

The series was renewed for its latest two seasons in December 2021, just four months before WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery. Scripted programming at TBS and TNT was one of the first things halted by the new regime. It was later confirmed that Discovery executives asked TBS’s senior executives if they could get out of it early, which they could not. So it became the contractually-obligated last vestige of TBS’s scripted originals era, and thus it was only a matter of time. The show centers on CIA agent Stan Smith (MacFarlane) and the misadventures of his unconventional family in Langley Falls, Virginia. That family consists of his wife Francine (Wendy Schaal), daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane), son Steve (Scott Grimes), persona-riddled alien Roger (also Seth), German skier in a fish body Klaus (Dee Bradley Baker), the aforementioned Fischer, and Roger’s homunculus of a son Rogu (also Baker). Reruns will continue to air on TBS and Adult Swim through 2030, though it’s unclear if the arrangement now covers what Fox picks up (probably will for the latter).

'Percy Jackson' Showrunners In Talks To Take On 'Power Rangers' Reboot Series For Disney+

Source: Deadline