"Gold Top Nuts" is the tenth episode of the nineteenth season of the American animated television series American Dad!. The 332nd episode of the series overall, it first aired on TBS in the United States on September 12, 2022. The episode follows the Smiths, as they become stranded on a mysterious island and lose their memories, subsequently following a plane crash. While on the island, the family takes shelter in a lighthouse, where they discover a tape, containing a commercial for the fictitious food product "Gold Top Nuts", onto which they build their fundamental understanding of society.

"Gold Top Nuts" was written by Brett Cawley and Robert Maitia, and was directed by Jennifer Graves. Upon release, the episode garnered high praise from critics for its innovative nature, with several naming "Gold Top Nuts" as one of the best episodes of the series. Despite the positive reception, series co-creator Matt Weitzman had initial concerns over how the episode would be received critically.

During a flight home from vacation in Cancun, the family's budget airline runs into a storm, which takes out the engines, resulting in everyone bailing out except them. They manage to wash ashore on an island, where they make their way to a lighthouse that they find stocked with canned pumpkin pie mix, a broken radio, and a TV set and VCR that only plays the commercial for a product, called Gold Top Nuts. Still angry with each other, they set about trying to get themselves rescued, but find themselves suddenly forgetting everything, eventually coming together, nude on the beach, with no recollection of who they are.

After becoming friendly with one another, they begin to piece together civilization based on the Gold Top Nuts commercial and their surroundings, giving themselves names from the commercial. They also observe that everyone is dressed, so they set about salvaging clothes from the crash. Left to their own devices, they start trying to recreate humanity based on their observations and the commercial. Stan discovers a magnetic rock gives him a headache, and it destroys their television when he places the rock on top of it. Deciding to spread the word of their discoveries, they build a raft and escape from the island, landing at another lighthouse, that turns out to be a fancy restaurant.

Away from their original island, their memories return, to their embarrassment. As it turns out, the island was originally abandoned due to the magnetic rocks, causing people to go insane. When they return to Langley Falls, their story is made public, and they are humiliated, but find themselves still thinking about their time on the island. In the privacy of their home, they realize that they have treated each other poorly, promising to treat one another like "Gold Top Nuts", vowing to "put out the good nuts" for each other.

"Gold Top Nuts" was originally made to air as the mid-season premiere, but the network insisted on opening with "The Curious Case of the Old Hole", an episode featuring Wheels & the Legman, a popular reoccurring plot point in the series.^[3]

The episode was directed by Jennifer Graves and was written by Brett Cawley and Robert Maitia, who all co-directed and co-wrote, respectively, the similarly acclaimed American Dad! episode "Rabbit Ears".^[4][5]

During production, Matt Weitzman was sure that the episode would be polarizing critically, due to its "off-kilter" nature.^[3] When the idea for "Gold Top Nuts" was initially pitched to Weitzman, he wasn’t completely convinced on the episode, saying in an interview that "the jokes are funny, but you’re also constantly asking, “What the hell is going on here?” Our characters are acting so oddly and there were moments through the process where I had doubts. It was pitched to me and I was like, yes, but it’s weird".^[3] After the episode had started production, Weitzman was then satisfied with how it turned out, saying "we had input, but the look turned out so strong there. I was really happy with how that one turned out and was curious about how audiences would receive it".^[3]

"Gold Top Nuts" has a noticeably story-driven, less gag reliant plot juxtaposed to the series' usual episode structure.^[6] The scene in which the Smiths presume an unfinished "HELP" sign as spelling either Heaven or hell has been interpreted as the family attempting to come to terms with the circumstances they have come upon.^[6] The episode has been called a "deconstruction of communication and community", and a "bizarre meditation on language, symbols, and identity".^[1][7]

The titular "Gold Top Nuts" are a way to show the slow deterioration of the Smith family's sanity and knowledge on how a society functions, taking all they know about how the world works from the commercial. In his analysis of the episode, Daniel Kurland of Bubbleblabber compared the episode to Tabula Rasa and Spin the Bottle, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, respectively. Daniel says that "Gold Top Nuts" is similar to them in the way it "buil[ds] upon supernatural circumstances, but still turn[s] into philosophical examinations of not just character, but identity". Daniel ends his analysis by calling the episode a message about "symbols that people ascribe meaning in are arbitrary and all a part of larger social constructs".^[6]

"Gold Top Nuts" was revered upon release, being included in many lists for the best American Dad! episodes. Daniel Kurland praised the episode, calling it the "weirdest episode" of the series, but said that "[it is a] testament to what stands American Dad apart from its animated peers." He went on to praise the episode's beginning for creating a "longing desire for the episode to stay contained to its rickety airplane and function as a bottle episode". Daniel calls the episode "[a] disarming experience from the first act onward that only goes on to become even more destabilizing with each turn. It makes for one of the all-time great episodes of American Dad."^[6]

In a list compiling the 25 best episodes of the series, also written by Daniel Kurland, the episode is placed in the #4 spot. Daniel called the episode "worthy of dissection" and praised it for taking risks that "pay off".^[1]

In an analysis of the series itself in his newsletter, David Teraoka called the episode his "favorite bottle episode in media". He goes on to call it "a triumph of storytelling. The episode develops the existential metanarrative with a history going back over 400 years into a digestible, hilarious, and fun story about a vacation gone wrong".^[8]

"Gold Top Nuts" was first broadcast on September 12, 2022 on TBS. It was the second episode of American Dad! after a six month hiatus, with the episode following "The Curious Case of the Old Hole".^[9] It was viewed by 0.39 million viewers, despite airing simultaneously with the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on NBC and Monday Night Football on ESPN2.^[10] It achieved a 0.13 rating in the 18–49 demographic group, according to the Nielsen ratings.^[10] The episode's ratings were significantly down from the previous episodes of the season, being the show's lowest ratings since "Steve's Franken Out", which was viewed by 0.37 million viewers upon its initial airing, and garnered a 0.17 rating in the 18–49 demographic.^[11]

The episode has been called back to in the series one time. In "The Grocery Store Bank", Francine picks up a jar of Gold Top Nuts in a store.^[12]

The episode contains one neologism, "Tiffany's boyfriend". The term originated in "Gold Top Nuts" as a way the characters expressed their distaste for something. The term has since been adopted by fans of the series to denote something negative or disliked.^[13][8]