Francine's Flashback

Unreferenced|date=October 2007|section called "Cultural references"Infobox American Dad! episode
Title =Francine's Flashback
Series =American Dad!


Caption =Messing around with Francine's memories
Season =1
Episode =4
Airdate =May 15, 2005
Production =1AJN05
Writer = Rick Wiener
Director =Caleb Meurer
Brent Woods
Guests =
newspaper_headline = "Hooker Killed For Heart of Gold"
Episode list =List of American Dad! episodes
Season list = Infobox_American_Dad!_Season_1
Prev =Stan Knows Best
Next =Roger Codger

__NOTOC__"Francine's Flashback" is the fourth episode produced in the TV animated series "American Dad!".

It features the special voice participation of Billy West (as Elmo/Big Bird), Jeff Fischer (as Jeff), Patrick Stewart (as Bullock), Debra Wilson (as Whitney Houston), Marissa Jaret Winokur (as Jewel), Mike Barker (as Terry), Mike Henry (as Jackson/Charlie), Daisuke Suzuki (as Toshi), Eddie Kaye Thomas (as Barry) and Curtis Armstrong (as Snot).

Plot

Despite Francine's early tips, Stan completely forgets their anniversary, only remembering that it was time for the CIA's annual fishing trip. He leaves in a hurry, dropping food on the bed and soiling the stairway, since he didn't have the time to go to the bathroom, all left for Francine to clean.

During the day, Francine still has hopes that Stan will remember and do something romantic for her, something that Klaus the goldfish and Roger highly doubt, as they watch a taped episode of COPS from the previous year, when police had to be called as Francine was beating Stan to a pulp for having forgotten their anniversary. Francine remains confident, since she figures Stan has until midnight to come up with something. Meanwhile, Hayley gets invited by her boyfriend to go to Burning Man, something that she is less than enthusiastic about doing.

While midnight fishing with his friends, Stan eventually mentions that he's glad not to be at home on that day, since it is the anniversary of a "huge fight" he and Francine had the previous year. When his friends ask the reason, he says it was because he forgot their anniversary, but he never makes the connection. His friends wait for a while, until Stan realizes, in horror, that he had again forgotten the anniversary. He shows up home looking to make amends, with an excuse that he did not forget and had just been trying to throw Francine off; and brings with him Whitney Houston for a private performance, in exchange for a fix of cocaine. Francine is not impressed, and vows that she will never forget what Stan did. He then hands her a card that is supposed to make everything better. When Francine opens it, gas comes out and knocks her unconscious. Stan then takes her to the CIA secret lab, to have the last 20 hours of her life erased from her memory, but the scientist performing the procedure gets the dials for years and hours confused and ends up erasing the last 20 years of Francine life, as she now believes that it is 1985. He also finds out that the procedure is irreversible, and he will have to make do and just hope that Francine eventually recovers her memory.

After bringing an unconscious Francine back home, Stan remains confident that she will remember their love as soon as she wakes up, but when she does, she doesn't recognize anyone, and freaks out about Roger the alien and Klaus the talking fish, so Stan is forced to gas her again. Then, a video presentation by "forgettable actor" Bill Pullman convinces Stan that the best way to handle the situation is to have Francine believe that she is indeed still 18 years old and not tell her of what happened, otherwise her brain will implode. He has her moved back to her old apartment and Hayley is to be her roommate. After getting rid of the old lady that was living in Francine's old place, Stan and Hayley fix up the place so that it looks like it's still 1985. While Francine wakes up to her fake youth, Stan, back home, reminisces with Roger the day when he met Francine and they fell in love: he gave her a ride on the road, then ran over a raccoon, who was then dying in agony. Stan shot it in the eye, and Francine thought that it was a high act of compassion. Roger then suggests that Stan reenact this to try and bring back Francine's memory. He then has Hayley abandon Francine by the road, picks her up and tries to run over the raccoon that Steve sets free by the road. This time, however, he misses the target, the raccoon is unharmed and Francine won't let Stan execute it. He then drags Francine along as he tries to shoot the animal dead. It is all to no avail, as the raccoon escapes and Francine now views Stan as psychopathic.

Back to the apartment, Francine throws a party. During this, Jeff, Hayley's boyfriend, tries to drag her to the Burning Man event again, but she is unwilling. Back home, Stan comes up with another plan to get Francine to remember their life together. He finds a dried flower that he gave her on the day of their wedding, and goes to the apartment to show it to Francine. When he gets there, he and Hayley discover that Francine and Jeff ran off together to the Burning Man event. They follow them there, and are joined in the trip by Klaus, who was hiding in Stan's thermos and peed in his coffee. At the concert, Stan warns Hayley not to tell anyone of his soft side otherwise he would kill her, which he describes as "reach into [her] chest, pull out [her] beating heart and eat it. All of it. Every last bit." before going to sleep. The next morning, they find Jeff, who had only brought Francine to attract Hayley, which at then, she makes out with him. Stan eventually finds Francine as she prepares to go on tour with a band. He shows her the flower, but she confuses it with some sort of drug and eats it. When Stan is about to give up, after hearing from Francine that she would never "hook up with a stiff like him", the Burning Man gets accidentally ignited by a smoking paraglider, and Stan saves Francine from a fiery death. He brings her to a recovering tent, and pledges his love to her as she vomits repeatedly on his shoes. All this brings Francine's memory back.

On another front, Steve asks out a girl from school, Lindsay Coolidge, and is surprised when she accepts, on the condition that he can get a date for her friend, Jewel. The girl, however, is as ugly as can be, and no human being will date her. So Steve gets Roger to take on the job. Disguised as a Jamaican, Roger, who had been bitter about never being able to leave the house, joins Steve and the girls at a dinner for a double date. All goes well, as Steve is successful in getting Lindsay to go back to his house, but all the while Jewel is getting quite hands-on with Roger. While trying to escape Jewel's advances, Roger's costume comes off, and she sees him as the alien he is. When Jewel runs to tell her friend the truth, Roger is forced to clobber her in the head with a frying pan. Lindsay sees what happens, and Roger, and tries to run, but Roger hits her on the head by throwing the pan at her. As Roger and Steve stand over the two unconscious girls, Roger suggests that they should pin the assault on "black guys".

Stan and Francine come home only to find Roger and Steve with two girls tied up and gagged. The solution is obvious: take them to the CIA secret lab and have the last 24 hous erased from their memories. While this is done, Stan is relieved to find out that Steve was hanging out with the cute girl.

Cultural references

* Stan says "Remember the deal, Whitney. First you sing, then you get your precious cocaine." In this scene, Stan is making fun of Houston's crack cocaine addiction, which was posted in all the tabloids in the late '90s.
* The song Stan makes Whitney Houston sing, "Greatest Love of All", is revealed to be Francine's favorite song, but in a later episode, Francine's song is said to be "Little Red Corvette" by Prince.
* Toshi refers to Jewel as Godzilla.
* There is an AC/DC poster on a wall in Francine's old apartment.
* Francine's quote "Not if you're gonna spend the weekend tinkling on Bob Guccione!" is a reference to Penthouse Magazine founder Bob Guccione, who directed the controversial 1979 film "Caligula". The movie featured, among other perversions, the actresses playing the Emperor's sisters urinating on the corpse of a recently executed soldier.
* The scene where the raccoon dances to the music after surviving the explosion is reminiscent of the movie, "Caddyshack".
* When Steve says that no human being could date a girl that ugly, Roger walks into the room saying "Hello." This is Squiggy's famous line from "Laverne & Shirley", which he used whenever Laverne or Shirley would make a reference to something creepy or disgusting.
* Stan runs into the port-a-potty and instantly goes out fully-dressed, in much the same manner Superman does in phone booths.
* Bill Pullman also mimicks Troy McClure's famous "you might remember of such films as" quote.
* While fishing with his boss, Stan finds and kills Ariel from the Disney movie "The Little Mermaid".
* When Francine is on stage, the band playing is Queens of the Stone Age, and their frontman Josh Homme guest starred in this episode.
* The name of the tent where Stan takes Francine to after she fell unconscious at the Burning Man festival is called the "Dave Chappelle Freakout Tent".

Deleted/Alternate Scenes

The American Dad season 1 DVD has several scenes and different takes of scenes that never made it to the final cut, including:

*An alternate scene after Hayley reads Francine's note on the refrigerator and exclaims, "My mother stole my boyfriend!" and Stan exclaims, "Your boyfriend stole my wife!" Originally, the scene cut to an old woman with a beer bong and several frat boys standing around her as she says, "You know, these guys just asked me to have sex with them--and I just might do it!" The final cut version replaces this with Stan suggesting that he and Hayley date each other as revenge for Jeff running off with Francine, then concludes with, "Wait a minute. Daddy didn't think that through."

*A scene where an unnamed girl with piercings at Burning Man flirts with Klaus and thinks Klaus's fish body is a hallucination.

*A scene after Hayley and Jeff make out where Stan encounters a strange man in a butterfly costume who tells him what he's seen. Stan then rips the man's wings off and the man curls into a fetal position, whimpering as two men in cat costumes bat him around.

Reception

The original broadcast of this episode on FOX scored a 5.6/8 rating, bringing the total viewers for the episode to 8.08 million. In the U.L it aired on June 10 , 2005 and gained 3.3 million viewers. It was #3 in its timeslot and #13 for the week.

Notes

* Langley Falls Post front page headline: "Hooker Killed for Heart of Gold", a reference to the common stereotype.
* Cookie Monster is drawn differently on this show than on Family Guy. He was given a human-like body on Family Guy, while in this episode he looks closer to his real appearance.
* Right in the beginning, when Stan and Francine were talking in the bedroom, they're just standing there when the audio skips and their positions move slightly.
* This episode originally aired out of production order.
* This episode had a parental discretion for animated nudity and sexual dialogue before the beginning of the episode on FOX.
*Lindsay Coolidge reappears in "Big Trouble In Little Langley".