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Seth MacFarlane’s new animated TV show “American Dad” premiered tonight and it was god awful. It felt like a re-tread of an old Simpson’s episode combined with a rip-off of The Family Guy. But it was missing the heart and likeable characters of The Simpsons and it was missing the abrupt and sometimes hilarious segues of The Family Guy. Instead we have silly jokes about homosexuality and racism with the occasional splash of nudity or blood.

Like Brian (the talking dog) from The Family Guy they have a non-human cast member living in the household in the form of an unlikeable grey alien (!!!). I’m pretty sure that the alien is voiced by Seth MacFarlane doing a bad Paul Lynde impression. Speaking of voices by Seth MacFarlane, I think the Dad’s voice is also MacFarlane (very close to Family Guy’s Brian voice). He could be doing more, I don’t know (he also voices Peter, Brian and Stewie on The Family Guy). Personally, I think MacFarlane should focus on the writing of The Family Guy and let the voice actors do their job (though I do give him props for Stewie’s voice).

The opening credits has a short segment where the dad picks up a newspaper and we get to see today’s headline. My guess is this will be like Bart writing on the blackboard during the Simpsons opening credits (i.e. different every week), but I could be wrong. Either way I don’t really care all that much.

The animation is as blocky and unexpressive as The Family Guy. I’m not sure who to blame for this (how much does MacFarlane do?), but I don’t like the style.

While I might tune into The Family Guy for the fast-paced gags, abrupt/surreal segues and pure shock value (I laughed a few times during tonight’s episode), I probably won’t be tuning in to see American Dad again.