Roger Smith

Roger (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is one of the main characters in the animated comedy series American Dad!. He is a space alien (whose appearance resembles that of the greys) living with the Smith family, Roger is sarcastic, surly, and speaks in swish. Speculation exists regarding Roger's sexuality, but the discussion might be moot, as he is, after all, an alien. (His name may come from the word Andrognous which means having both male and female traits) Roger came to live with the Smith family after saving Stan Smith's life in Area 51. He has lived with the Smiths for four years. He is possibly based on Dr. Roger Adelson, one of MacFarlane's former professors.

Roger's flamboyant speech pattern is a parody of Paul Lynde, although many thought it was akin to Family Guy's Cleveland Brown. Due to the similarities between Roger and Cleveland, some incorrectly thought Roger was voiced by Mike Henry or Dee Bradley Baker, not MacFarlane. He can speak Spanish (though not very well). On his home planet, he was a greeter at a Wal-Mart-analogue store called Philaxido. His favorite baseball team is the San Diego Padres. His favorite movie is Miller's Crossing.

Little is known about Roger's past; his planet is never seen or described in-depth, though according to him, it sounds fairly similar to Earth, although Roger claims the climate of his home world is 400 degrees colder than most ecosystems of Earth, with the possible exception of Antarctica. In "The Best Christmas Story Never", he says he landed on Earth sixty years ago at Roswell. In "Of Ice and Men" he mentions that snow reminds him of his home planet, and figure skating apparently exists there; he has also commented that the planet has stores like Wal-Mart (he was once a greeter at one of these places) and colleges. Likewise why he came to Earth is never explained: he does state that the reason he came was to collect a sample of hepatitis, although since arriving he seems to mostly be mooching, and seems in no hurry to go back home (in the pilot he was supposed to try to contact his home world, but got distracted by an "I Love The 80s" marathon). This led to the possibility that Roger is marooned on Earth and his homeworld does not know of his whereabouts. Though it was finally revealed in the episode the Weiner of Our Discontent that he believes he came to earth to be "The Decider", seeing of the planet was worth saving or to destroy it. This belief was crushed horribly when he discovered in his spaceship a note that stated that the ship was a test model and he was in it as a "crash test dummy", meaning his own species abandon him on the planet. It is also known that Roger "invented" disco and became a millionaire in the 1970s after he discovered a cassette tape from the future, thereby creating a time paradox, but he lost his fortune after disco died.

Four years prior to the series, he was incarcerated by the CIA in Area 51, when Stan Smith, then an intelligence officer, was on duty at the base. Tired of living in a laboratory, he escaped his holding cell, thus triggering a lockdown investigation. Stan tracked him down in a kitchen and was about to kill him before Roger pleaded for mercy, but the security team riddled the room with gunfire, from which Roger pulled Stan to safety. They slid down a laundry chute into a waiting truck just as a thrown grenade blew up where they previously had been standing. Grateful to Roger for saving his life, Stan offered to repay him in any way at all, obviously leading to his being added to the family. As a means of convincing the family to let him stay, Stan presented him as a birthday present to Steve for his tenth birthday. Hayley and Francine were horrified of him at first sight, as was Klaus, but Steve was delighted to have his own alien. By the start of the series, however, the family seems to have come to terms with him.