Roger (American Dad!)

Roger (voiced by Seth MacFarlane]]) Is the secondary protagonist of the animated comedy series American Dad!. He is a space alien, reminiscent of the Roswell greys, and lives with the Smith family. Roger is sarcastic, amoral, self-centered, and hedonistic. He speaks in a swish intended to resemble Paul Lynde, and has a near-obsessive childlike affinity for role-playing various personas in his day to day life. He came to live with the Smith family after saving Stan Smith's life in Area 51.

Character

Roger was born on an unnamed planet c. AD 408. Although Roger has shown an affinity for the cold, has remarked that snow reminds him of his home world and that he learned to ice-skate there, Roger's planet and species are never specifically named nor seen. Roger also has purple blood and has on one occasion demonstrated to be capable of moving at superhuman speed. It is also revealed that he records an individual's memories after sexual intercourse. On his home planet, Roger worked as a greeter at a Wal-Mart-style department store. Roger was tricked into coming to Earth as a crash test dummy under the assumption that he was "The Decider" and that the fate of man kind was in his hands. Having survived the crash he has been on Earth since 1947, Roger has been a part of several important moments in recent American history. Roger had a hand in inventing disco music, was a member of the Miracle on Ice 1980 US Olympic men's hockey team, drove Phyllis Diller to two of her first three abortions in the '60s (with Roger feeling bad that Diller never got her driver's license), was Jerry Lewis's tailor in 1966 and gave him the idea for the MDA Telethon which Lewis took full credit for, fought for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, and was responsible for the death of Notorious B.I.G. in 1997 after angering an armed driver who cut the rapper off in traffic (Roger survived the shooting and stole the Notorious B.I.G.'s gold chain, which Stan assumed was a gift Roger made for him).

He lived with several families before the Smiths, with varying degrees of amicability, the Smiths being the only family knowing of his true alien identity. The CIA is aware of his existence and has been attempting to capture him, succeeding once (when Stan Smith met him), and once when Roger accidentally caught himself while working at the CIA. In order to make Roger palatable to the family, Stan gave him to his son Steve as a birthday present, and Roger is now accepted as part of the Smith family.

Personality

Roger describes himself in "You Debt Your Life" as a "fey pansexual alcoholic non-human" in a similar vein to comedian Andy Dick. Roger spends his time watching trashy television shows (Dynasty, Sex and the City, and a fictitious season of The Simple Life that showed Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as prisoners), eating junk food and using recreational drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, steroids oxycodone, ecstasy, cooked down Affron, Euphoria (a.k.a. the "fake drug from 90210"), nitrous oxide, and methamphetamine. His excessive consumption of alcohol would, in human terms, qualify him as an alcoholic. He shows a preference for white wine. It is suggested in "The Best Christmas Story Never Told" that he is depressed over being stranded on Earth and having no place in human society, which could be a factor in his excessive alcohol and drug use. He defecates golden feces with encrusted jewels that caused random people to do deplorable things.

Roger is frequently childish, showing an affinity for character role-playing, tantrums, and pranks, as well as being quite petty, spiteful, greedy, and cruel. In one instance, he convinced Steve he was adopted in retaliation for Steve having eaten the last cookie, and in another he threatened Steve's life by having him employed in a meth lab and convincing him he is at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter novels. He has at one point adopted a group of foster children with the intent to use them as slave labor. When he becomes dictator of a Caribbean island, he demands extravagant and vain services from the populace, such as painting the island yellow; he also sexually abuses his male staff. It is explained in "Frannie 911" that acting in a spirit of human courteousness and general niceness is poisonous to Roger, and he needs to clear his system of unpleasantness or risk death. Roger also has a history of holding grudges as shown in "Great Space Roaster", as he tried to kill the Smith family for insulting him at his Comedy roast, by starting a gas leak causing an explosion, hiring a hitman to shoot them, removing the brakes from Stan's vehicle, and writing death threats to Merlin Olsen for seven years after Father Murphy was cancelled.

Disguises

Roger is not permitted to leave the house at all at first, though he later earns the right to leave in various disguises. He possesses dozens of wigs and hundreds of costumes of both genders stored on a carousel in the Smith attic, along with a vast array of fictitious personas and a book to track who knows him as which of these personas. Roger greatly enjoys his roleplaying and allows himself to be completely absorbed by his character, even to the point of violence and abuse towards those he considers close to him, such as stabbing Steve in the chest while acting as an employee for one of his other personas. His many personas caused him to temporarily develop dissociative identity disorder (a split personality) in the episode "The One That Got Away" as "Sidney Huffman", a puritanical antithesis to Roger's usual personality. He also appears to be leading entirely separate double lives from his life with the Smith Family, as his persona of "Jeanie Gold, wedding planner" has two full-grown sons named Alex and Ronnie who refer to him as "mom", and has advertisements in Argentina as both a wedding planner and prostitute in "Shallow Vows". While Roger usually gets away with his disguises, in Bar Mitzvah Hustle, Steve introduces him in disguise to his friends as his uncle Roger. Toshi says in Japanese, "Ah yes, the Alien in the wig," to which Steve responds, "Yes, on my mother's side".

Gallery

For a full gallery of Roger with his costumes and everything else, see Roger (American Dad!)/Gallery