42-Year-Old Virgin

42-Year-Old Virgin is the sixth episode of the third season of the animated series American Dad!, which originally aired on November 18, 2007.

Plot summary

It becomes known to his coworkers, Ray and "Bad" Larry that Stan has never actually assassinated anyone, his previous victims having been killed off at the last second from causes other than Stan's bullets which fly way off the mark (i.e. choking on a meal, falling into an erupting mountain, getting shot by a gang). He is labeled by his fellow covert buddies as a "killing virgin". There are mixed feelings among the family all which make Stan uneasy — Steve accuses him of lying, Hayley is proud of him, Klaus loses faith, and Francine seems turned off sexually. Steve then disobeys Stan by drinking alcohol and joining the gymnastics club with his friends. Deciding to help, Roger and some of Stan's friends become determined to help Stan land his first target. They try killing people at bars who have no purpose in life and then tried purposefully poisoning a group of alien fanatics but Stan is unable to do it. A child molester named Randy moves into the neighborhood and takes Steve and his friends to his former workplace, the water park. Stan tracks them down and attempts to arrest Randy, but he is not worried; his mother is rich and he has a good lawyer so he would be out of jail in no time, so Stan decides that this is unacceptable and he shoots him. But due to his horrific aim, he accidentally shoots Larry straight through the waterfall; the dying cohort commends Stan. Now that Stan has finally found his "one", Klaus' faith is restored, Steve is proud of him again and Francine is turned on sexually again.

Censorship

• After the scene where Francine covers herself and goes to bed because she lost interest in having sex with Stan, the DVD version adds a part where we hear the sound of a vibrator. Francine says, stumbling through the words, that it's her pencil-sharpener, and she's "sharpening my... pencils for my... meeting tomorrow".
• This was the first episode of American Dad! to receive a 15 certificate from the BBFC instead of the usual 12 certificate, due to the plot point where Steve and his friends are abducted by a child molester and the scene with Francine using a vibrator for masturbation (which was cut on American TV, but not in the UK).

Cultural references

• When Stan and Avery look down at the victim that Stan says he killed, they break out singing "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen.
• The title and plot is a parody of the 2005 movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
  • In the poker scene, Stan is being questioned how he recently killed the man in the beginning and it turns out he did not kill anyone at all. This is a close reenactment from the movie when Andy Stitzer is being questioned what he does during intercourse and everyone finds out that Stitzer is still a virgin.
• When Stan says that polar bears should not give their cubs sodas after downing an entire can of pop in one go, it is a reference to a Coca-Cola commercial in which a polar bear gives a Coca-Cola to its cub.
• The child molester is a reference to the character Ronald James McGorvey from the film Little Children.
• The scene depicting Stan's first attempted kill is a reference to The French Connection where Popeye Doyle repeatedly enters and exits the train in an attempt to follow a suspect.
• One of the potential people that Stan's friends try to convince Stan to kill is Mark Reisman, creator of the 2004-2005 sitcom Quintuplets.
• Bad Larry's last words "I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" were actually Obi-Wan Kenobi's last words in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Stan and Roger do not seem to get the meaning of it, though.
• At the end of the episode, Klaus panics to figure out the last line of the episode, but when it becomes too late, He shouts out "No! No Fox Local News!". This is a reference to American Dad's normal airing of 9:30 on Fox, which is then followed by the 10:00 Fox News Channel (the line is retained on Adult Swim airings).
• In the scene when Stan and Hayley return from picking berries, they are both wearing crocs.
• The bar where Roger and the guys first tell Stan they are going to help him get his first kill is called Cloak and Stagger a reference to Cloak & Dagger.

Notes

• Although the plot of the episode centers around Stan having never killed anyone, in episode "Stan of Arabia" he breaks Jay Leno's neck. He also kills agent Jackson's double at the beginning of "It's Good to Be Queen". Also he accidentally disintegrates one of his co-workers in "I Can't Stan You". In "An Apocalypse to Remember", Stan shoots down someone who was hang gliding. In "Con Heir" he shoots a painter. Also in "Widow Maker" Stan reveals that he murdered his friend Craig (though this was later revealed to possibly be a lie). However, the previous episode, "Haylias", ends with Stan having suffered evident selective memory loss, which could explain his assertion that he has never killed anyone.
• A Comic-Con table read of this episode was included with the voice artists delivering to a live audience in the Season 3 DVD. The DVD extra included a slideshow with stills of the program as well as a view completed animated scenes.

References

• http://tv.ign.com/articles/808/808890p1.html