'American Dad' Just Made One of the Show's Biggest Memes Real

American Dad just brought one of its most popular memes to life in a new episode titled "A Little Extra Scratch." The show's bold opening credit sequence typically starts with Stan (Seth MacFarlane) leaping out of bed and singing along with a triumphant horn-blaring song. Fans have often joked about Stan sleeping in for once, and last week, he finally did.

American Dad has aired hundreds of episodes with its iconic title sequence – Stan jumps out of bed, greets his family, then leaves for work at the CIA. The alien, Roger (MacFarlane), waits in the car to surprise him, and he crashes into the flagpole when he arrives at the office. Stan jumps out of bed so reliably that back in 2019, someone created a meme about it. In the edited version, the music still plays but Stan stays in bed and does not sing along. It has been used on social media mostly as a joke about being unimpressed by something.

The team behind American Dad seemed to acknowledge this meme in "A Little Extra Scratch," which premiered on Dec. 11, 2023 on TBS. The new episode looks much like the meme at the beginning with Stan staying in bed after his cue to get up, except his hair is gray and he has a five o'clock shadow. It then cuts downstairs where his family is waiting for him in their usual places.

This may have been a subtle nod to one of the show's most viral memes, but it plays into the story as well. The B-plot of the episode is about Stan dealing with money troubles that leave him paralyzed with fear, as he could lose the house. However, the main plot of the episode is about Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) and Francine (Wendy Schaal).

If you want to watch this episode for yourself, you only have a couple of options. If you have a valid cable login, you can watch it on the TBS app or website. Otherwise, you can rent or purchase the new episode on a digital store like Prime Video. If you purchase the entire current season, you'll get new episodes every week when they air.

It's also worth noting that the episode may appear with different season and episode numbers depending on where you look – American Dad suffers from a long-standing issue with its season-numbering scheme, but the titles are consistent. At the time of this writing, "A Little Extra Scratch" is listed as Season 20, Episode 21 on Wikipedia, but as Season 18, Episode 21 on Prime Video, TBS and on the American Dad fan wiki. At the same time, the latest batch of episodes added to Hulu are listed as Season 18 there, but that doesn't match up with the other sources.

As far as TBS is concerned, the current season concludes on Monday, Dec. 18 with an episode titled "Into the Jingleverse." Previous episodes are streaming now on Hulu.