Santa Schmanta (American Dad!)

Plot
When Roger finds out that Hanukkah lasts for eight days a year, he converts to Judaism and tries to promote Hanukkah over Christmas by using Santa’s powers.

Why It Deserves Coal for Christmas

 * 1) The biggest problem with this episode is that it seems promote anti-semitism by suggesting that Christmas is more important than Hanukkah, it portrays Roger as the villain for wanting to promote Hanukkah over Christmas, and that is associates Roger, who is often depicted as a sociopath with Judaism.  All of this can be seen as very offensive towards the Jewish community and to any Jewish viewers of the show.
 * 2) The episode only seems to exist just to prolong the Santa vs Smith Family conflict when that arc was thought to have been concluded in “Ninety North Zero West”
 * 3) Continuity Error: Snot says that he in unaware of “Uncle Roger” and that it is the first time meeting him in this episode even though Snot and that particular persona of Roger’s met before in “Bar Mitzvah Hustle”.
 * 4) It is a cliched “Roger craves attention” and “Smith Family vs Roger” episode as it features Roger not only wanting attention and doing something outrageous to get it but has him come into conflict with the Smith Family for it.
 * 5) There are too many musical numbers in this episode, including parodies on “Jingle Bells” and “Driedel Dreidel” that just feel unnecessary.
 * 6) Francine’s quote “Is Jewish even a language” is a very distasteful quote,
 * 7) Hypocrisy: The episode criticizes the commercialization and materialism of the holidays by having Roger focus on the material aspects of Hanukkah over tradition and making Snot upset over it but the moral is broken with the decision to bring Santa, who is the poster boy for the materialistic aspects of Christmas back to life, not to mention the episode’s apparent promotion of Christmas over Hanukkah.
 * 8) The episode just feels very out of place for a typical American Dad! Episode as it acts more like an episode from South Park.
 * 9) When Snot brings Santa back to life, he does it using the method used in Jewish folklore on how to bring Golems to life.  The episode completely confuses how Golems are brought to life as it involves bringing to life an inanimate compound of clay and mud to life, not dead bodies.  Snot made a golem out of Santa but he does not use clay and mud but instead Santa’s corpse, a bunch of tubes shaped like the Star of David, and a jug of blood.  Because of this the episode tries to instigate a completely inaccurate Jewish stereotype that says that Jewish people practice necromancy and have the power to bring the dead back to life.
 * 10) The episode just can’t decide who the actual main antagonist of the episode is as it first shows Roger as the villain by having Hanukkah overshadowing Christmas and then Santa helping the Smith stop Roger but then in the last couple minutes, Santa tries to kill the Smith family again.
 * 11) There are eight title cards the episode uses throughout that represent the eight days of Hanukkah.  However the inclusion of these cards causes he pacing of the episode to become very choppy.

The Only Redeeming Quality

 * 1) Snot is surprisingly likable in this episode.

Reception
This episode got a 6.5/10 on IMDb with several fans criticizing episode for it’s unfunny and offensive jokes

Videos


Comments
]]