“You think he’s the puppet? He’s controlling you!”
While obviously an animated comedy, American Dad is often operating at peak performance when it’s taking its tonal cues from that of horror films. There’s just something that makes sense about this black comedy not holding back and accepting its darker inclinations. Although it’s surely just an example of some fortunate timing, it’s bit of a masterstroke that this episode is coming out around the same time as Annabelle: Creation, a killer doll movie that coincidentally shares a lot of the same shot composition as this episode. It’s not as if anyone will need that reference point to understand what’s going on in “The Talented Mr. Dingleberry,” but it makes for a welcome coincidence that results in this episode’s plot feeling particularly fresh, rather than some pastiche-y throwback.
Some American Dad episodes involve plots that are just so outrageous in concept alone that it’s hard not to get excited over them. Roger pretending to be a (violent) ventriloquist dummy for Steve is one of such installments. What isn’t awesome about that premise? All of this comes about when Principal Lewis, frustrated over the degree of talent that he’s seen so far, demands that every performance in the school’s talent show must be an original act. This is bad news for Steve, who has a consistently effervescent singing voice, but finds himself disadvantaged after AJ Slick resorts to unscrupulous tactics to take him down and tank his delightful 1950s greaser-themed performance. This leaves Steve in need of some other sort of passable skill for the talent show, as whining and crying is presumably not a demonstrable talent that could win the show
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The rest of the Smiths find themselves in a somewhat crazy situation this week too, with the family getting involved in the honey business—or at least attempting to get involved. When Francine finds her allergies running rampant, Hayley reveals that locally sourced honey is actually the best way to fight that sort of thing. These honey exploits make for the perfect sort of American Dad storyline that is broken right from the start, but only barrels harder into its nonsense.
Disaster strikes as soon as the Smiths get going when all of their bees wind up dead courtesy of some ill-placed hornets. With the bees, and therefore any hopes of honey, being out of the question, you’d think that the Smiths would just cut their losses. However Stan continues to embrace his ignorance toward all of this (although his false Burger King knowledge is impressive) as Francine’s condition worsens from allergy outbreak to severe medical issue. Francine’s eventual Akira-like appearance as well as Stan’s homemade poultice remedy are truly horrifying sights. Only a few glimpses of this bee story are shown throughout “The Talented Mr. Dingleberry,” but Francine’s safety is in jeopardy as soon as things begin and her condition only continues to decline.
With the rest of the Smiths being all caught up in their newest pipe dream (“Lo-cal! Ho-ney! Lo-cal! Ho-ney!”), Roger is the only one left to help Steve with his problems and he gives him an angle to retaliate with. As Steve and Roger begin their partnership, Roger announces, “I love a good quest for revenge.” It’s clear his motivation in helping out here is much more based on the possibility of burning others, not because he’s doing a solid for Steve. This unstable balance within Roger ends up becoming the crux of this whole endeavor.
Roger shares with Steve that back in the ‘70s, he was actually half of a very successful ventriloquism duo. In spite of their abilities, Roger’s naturally lewd mouth got him and his partner, Dennis, banned from television and their ventriloquism career tanked accordingly. With Steve appearing talent-less for the school’s big show, Roger’s latent “abilities” as Dudley Dingleberry are exactly what he needs.
This installment is also just full of clever, unusual moments, which stick out and help give things more character. A normal conversation between Roger and Steve, for instance, places Roger within a ceiling vent and has fun with his hampered geography. This is a strong script that knows how to bank on its characters and their ridiculous motivations in order to find its humor. It’s the sort of episode where even if the plots were junk (which they’re not), there would still be plenty of non sequitur weirdness to enjoy.
Roger’s intensive, painful prosthetics to create a dummy-like demeanor make for a nice gag. Not to mention, Roger’s whole disdain over the word “dummy” and that it’s a demeaning title feels like a believable trigger for the character, too. Before Steve and Roger even get rolling with their operation, there are already heavy rules in place between this boy and his dumm—manually articulated performative kinesio maquette.
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What makes all of this so effective is that it seems like Steve and “Dudley” would probably fare well in the talent show and actually do fine without the involvement of any foul play. This is Roger that we’re dealing with though, so it only makes sense that when a fellow member of the competition comes in with a broken leg, the audience knows that Roger is responsible. Suddenly this innocent activity for Steve morphs into an tense revenge pact with Roger that leads to a lot of people having their lives on the line.
Taking something as simple as a talent show (or going one step further with ventriloquism) and turning it into this tortured area of compromise for Steve is very satisfying. The material works even better as Steve finds himself at the mercy of his “dummy,” even though Roger is the one who’s really calling the shots. Steve just wanted to sing for his classmates, but now he’s stuck trying to make sure they don’t get murdered.
“The Talented Mr. Dingleberry” is also wise to lean into the wide range of staples from the “killer dummy” subgenre of horror. All of Roger’s murder set pieces become even more memorable when they’re mixed together with shots of a fleeting dummy moving through the shadows or shots of the thing’s perpetually-limp body and its dead eyes. This is an episode that knows that dummies are creepy and that a Roger dummy is especially so, with it not holding back in the area (the constant thunderstorm is another nice touch). One confrontation between Steve and Dudley is beautifully framed and the show knows exactly how to make Roger’s appearance as unnerving as possible. The episode shifts so gradually in the direction of horror that it takes Steve a while to clue in towards the tragedies that are following him around.
As the episode continues, it’s surprising to see that even Steve’s friends, like Barry, end up finding themselves as collateral damage for Dudley Dingleberry. Nobody is safe from this dummy’s talent-based rampage. Fortunately, Barry doesn’t end up as one of the victims that actually die, but his malnourished, desiccated state leaves him completely unable to perform his talent come Friday. It’s at this point that Steve clues into the damage that Roger is causing and the situation that he’s found himself in, only now it’s too late.
Before Roger volunteers to step in as Steve’s marionette, he explains that Dudley Dingleberry is perhaps his most mentally vexing persona. After doing a little research, Steve learns that Dudley’s former partner was sent to the Danvers Asylum for the Criminally Insane to pay for Dudley’s crimes. With Roger appearing to regress even deeper into his new character, Steve becomes desperate for answers and ends up finding himself at the Danvers Asylum (don’t worry, children are encouraged). For a minute the episode has a lot of fun doing its best Shutter Island impression as Steve tries to reach a solution. This detour isn’t the most eventful scene, but the visual of Dudley’s former ventriloquism partner using another dummy as his defense lawyer is so wonderful and absurd.
Steve’s predicament comes down to the industrial airplane paint that Roger coats himself in in order to create his necessary wooden appearance. The fumes from said paint are mighty strong and prone to cause psychosis or other murder-happy urges, which acts as a surprisingly strong reason for Dudley’s recent string of murders. Audiences probably would have just accepted Roger’s unquenchable thirst for revenge as the reason for his actions, so for the episode to actually provide something substantial here is going above and beyond.
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The final act sees Snot’s life being put on the line and the episode going down a disturbing path where Roger paralyzes Steve and forces him to do their act together. The ventriloquism performance is a huge success and in spite of fearing and resenting Roger for how they get to this point, Steve seems surprised to learn that he’s actually happy to see that they’re dominating the talent show. Some really intelligent foreshadowing from earlier in the episode regarding Morse code and a throwaway line about bobby pins ends up saving Steve’s ass. Seeing these details actually come into play and help wrap up the episode makes for an immensely satisfying conclusion to all of this.
American Dad episodes can sometimes have such a good time building their ridiculous stories that their resolutions and endings can occasionally suffer as a result. “The Talented Mr. Dingleberry” pushes a smart conclusion that challenges its audience, even if that subject matter happens to deal with narcissistic dan murderous manually articulated performative kinesio maquettes. As American Dad begins to wrap up its 14th season, it’s encouraging to see the year going out on such impressive installments as this one.
Now to just track down a Milky Bar Chew to enjoy with next week’s finale…
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