S6 E3: Best Little Horror House in Langley
American Dad, The Walt Disney Company, 2005.
For eight years, Stan Smith has ruled Halloween on his block.
Unfortunately for Stan, his neighbor Buckle is a former Disney Imagineer, which means his idea of a haunted house involves elaborate effects that suggest professional training and an alarming amount of free time. Projected spirits swirl around the property, the scenery seems to bend reality, and one spectral apparition cheerfully announces, “Free ghost churros for the little ones.” It is the perfect theme-park touch: terrifying enough to make you question the stability of the universe, but still committed to concessions.
Francine is immediately obsessed. She keeps sneaking back to Buckle’s house, returning home with stories of impossible hallways, changing weather and compromised bladder control. Stan, naturally, does not respond to this challenge with introspection. Instead, he responds by deciding that fake horror simply isn’t scary enough. With some encouragement from Roger, he uses his CIA connections to populate his haunted house with actual serial killers, proving once again that there is no seasonal decorating problem Stan cannot turn into a federal incident.
The problem is that serial killers behind bars are giving “underfunded zoo exhibit,” so Roger decides to improve the experience by letting them loose. This does, technically, make the haunted house scarier. It also sends Stan, Francine and Roger fleeing through the woods while murderers chase them… enthusiastically.
Meanwhile, Steve spends Halloween attempting to romance Akiko while avoiding Toshi, who has finally accepted the samurai costume he initially refused to wear and is now using it for its most literal possible purpose. The two storylines eventually collide when Toshi arrives just in time to dispatch Stan’s escaped killers with a katana, restoring peace to Langley Falls in the traditional Halloween manner.
But the real tragedy here is that Stan never understands Buckle’s competitive advantage. You can have real corpses. You can have actual serial killers. You can endanger an entire neighborhood. But unless your haunted house has ghosts floating around announcing free churros (for the littles ones), you are simply not offering the full experience.
Make it! Churros from Preppy Kitchen