Why Roger Smith is One of the Greatest Animated Characters Ever

Why Roger Smith Is One of The Greatest Animated Characters Ever Created

There are animated characters who are funny. There are animated characters who are memorable. And then there is Roger Smith.

Roger is something else entirely.

The gray alien living with the Smith family on America Dad should not, on paper, be one of the most versatile characters in television history. He is selfish, theatrical, vindictive, manipulative, petty, unpredictable, and capable of turning the smallest inconvenience in an elaborate personal vendetta. He lies constantly. He creates drama simply because he s bored. He routinely makes situations worse when absolutely nobody asked for his involvement.

And somehow, I love him.

More importantly, after years of watching American Dad, I have come to believe that Roger Smith deserves to be considered one of the greatest animated characters ever created.

That is not simply because Roger is hilarious.

Roger represents something incredibly difficult to achieve in television: a character who can essentially become anything the story needs without losing the characteristics that make him recognizable.

He can be the villain.

He can be the victim.

He can be the best friend.

He can be the antagonist.

He can be the voice of reason-which is terrifying when you stop and think about it.

And, thanks to his seemingly endless collection of personas, he can be almost anyone else too.

Roger isn’t simply one character.

Roger is practically an entire television ensemble contained inside one little gray alien.

Roger Wasn’t Always the Roger We Know

One of the most interesting things about Roger is that the character evolved alongside American Dad itself.

When the series premiered in 2005, Roger’s basic concept was much simpler. He was the alien Stan Smith had rescued and was secretly hiding inside the family home.

Roger therefore spent much of his early existence confined to the Smith house.

The show’s creators have compared the original concept to ALF: Roger would essentially remain at home while commenting on the family’s adventures. Eventually, however the writers discovered something important.

Roger was much moe entertaining when they let him out of the house.

Co-creators Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman have discussed how putting Roger into costumes and allowing him to interact with the outside world gave the writers far more storytelling possibilities. Weitzman even described Roger as essentially the show’s “guest star of the week”: instead of introducing a completely new character every time a story required one. Roger could simply be that character.

That realization changed everything.

Roger stopped simply reacting to stories.

He could create them.

And once American Dad discovered Roger’s personas, there was seemingly no limit to what the character-or the show-could become.

Roger’s Personas Are a Brilliant Storytelling Device

This is ultimately what separates Roger from almost every other animated sitcom character.

Most characters are limited by their established identities.

A character has a job, personality, family, history, and place within the show’s universe. Writers can certainly put that character into unusual situations, but there are limits before the story begins feeling completely inconsistent.

Roger doesn’t have that problem.

Roger can walk upstairs, disappear into his attic and emerge as an entirely different human being.

Not just a disguise.

A person.

Roger’s personas have names.

They have careers.

They have wardrobes.

They have relationships.

They have enemies.

They have businesses.

They have histories.

Somehow, some of them appear to have been functioning members of society for YEARS.

Don’t ask me how.

Trying to understand the logistics of Roger’s personas is one of the quickest ways to lose your mind while watching American Dad.

But that’s precisely why they work.

The personas allow the writers to create virtually any character imaginable while still keeping the story centered around someone the audience already knows.

Need a detective?

Roger.

Need a therapist?

Roger.

Need a professor?

Roger.

Need some bizarre local businessman who inexplicably has an elaborate personal history with another character?

There is a very good chance it’s Roger.

The possibilities are almost limitless.

And occasionally, the show makes the joke even better by having a Smith family member encounter one of Roger’s personas without realizing it’s him.

Apparently, a wig, some glasses and a change of clothes are enough to make the residents of Langley Falls completely forget what Roger looks like.

I don’t need an explanation.

It’s funnier without one.

Every Persona is Roger-and Somehow Isn’t

The truly brilliant part isn’t simply that Roger wears disguises.

It’s that the personas frequently feel like actual characters.

Roger commits.

He doesn’t merely put on an outfit and introduce himself under another name. He constructs an entire personality.

Different mannerisms.

Different motivations.

Different professions.

Different relationships.

Different moral codes-or, considering this is Roger, occasionally a complete absence of one.

That allows Roger’s personas to become more than recurring jokes.

They expend the fictional universe of American Dad!

Some personas are relatively harmless. Others are competent professionals. Others seem to exist specifically because Roger wanted an excuse to create chaos.

And then there is Ricky Spanish.

You knew we were getting there.

Ricky Spanish represents the darkest, most infamous corners of Roger’s personality concentrated into one identity. The character became memorable enough that merely invoking his name became part of the joke.

But Ricky works because he demonstrates something important about the persona concept.

Roger’s identities aren’t random costumes.

They’re exaggerations of pieces of Roger himself.

Different personas allow different aspects of his personality to take control.

That makes Roger almost infinitely adaptable without making him completely inconsistent.

Roger is Chaos in Character Form

There is one fundamental rule every American Dad! Character should have learned by now:

Do not involve Roger unless you are prepared for the situation to become approximately 700% worse.

Roger doesn’t solve problems normally.

That would be boring.

Roger escalates.

A minor disagreement can become an elaborate revenge plot.

A casual hobby can become an entire career.

A slight inconvenience can become a lifelong vendetta.

Roger possesses a spectacular ability to treat insignificant situations like matters of international importance while occasionally treating genuinely serious situations like mild inconveniences.

That reversal creates some of the show’s funniest moments.

Roger operates according to how own emotional logic.

And once you understand that logic, his behavior becomes weirdly predictable.

Roger wants what Roger wants.

The problem is that what Roger wants can change approximately thirty seconds later.

His Pettiness is Legendary

Some characters hold grudges.

Roger builds infrastructure around them.

This alien has the kind of commitment to revenge that most people reserve for graduate degrees.

And I respect that dedication.

Roger’s pettiness works because it is so disproportionate to whatever happened to him.

Someone inconveniences him slightly?

Roger behaves as though generations of his family have been dishonored.

Someone tells him no?

This is now war.

Someone hurts his feelings?

Roger may create an entirely new identity, establish a business, build relationships and develop a complicated scheme solely to prove a point that everyone else stopped caring about three days ago.

It shouldn’t be relatable.

And yet…

Who among us hasn’t imagined an absurdly dramatic response to a minor annoyance?

Most of us simply don’t do it.

Roger does.

Roger is the intrusive thought with a costume budget.

Roger is Horrible-But the Show Knows He’s Horrible

Another reason Roger works is that American Dad rarely asks us to pretend he is a good person.

That distinction matters.

Roger can behave terribly, but the comedy generally comes from the absurdity of his behavior and from the other characters recognizing exactly what kind of creature they are dealing with.

Nobody watched Roger destroy someone’s life over a minor disagreement and thinks:

“What a wonderful role model.”

That’s not the point.

The point is:

“OF COURSE Roger did that.”

The show understands him.

That self-awareness gives the writers enormous freedom.

Roger doesn’t need to become morally admirable at the end of every episode.

Sometimes he learns something.

Sometimes he demonstrates genuine affection.

Sometimes he grows.

And sometimes he remains exactly the same chaotic little nightmare he was 22 minutes earlier.

That’s Roger.

Roger Isn’t Completely Heartless

This might be the most important ingredient in making Roger work.

Underneath the costumes, scheme , selfishness and theatrical insanity, there are moments when Roger genuinely cares about the Smiths.

If Roger were nothing but cruel, the joke would eventually become exhausting.

Instead, American Dad periodically reminds us that this bizarre group really is a family.

Roger may insult them.

Manipulate them.

Lie to them.

Compete with them.

Use them as unwilling participants in whatever ridiculous fantasy he has created that week.

But they are his people.

And he is theirs.

Critics have notes that American Dad succeeds partly because underneath its shock humor and surrealism, the show maintains an emotional investment in its characters. Roger’s relationship with the Smiths is a major example of that principle.

The family doesn’t tolerate Roger simply because the premise requires him to remain in the house.

They love him.

And Roger, in his deeply dysfunctional Roger way, loves them too.

Those occasional moments of sincerity prevent him from becoming a one-note sociopath.

There is something underneath all that chaos.

You jut have to gig through 400 wigs to find it.

Roger and Steve are Comedy Gold

Some of Roger’s greatest moments come from pairing him with Steve.

Their personalities should make absolutely no sense together.

Steve is awkward, earnest and desperate to experience the exciting adult life he imagines exists somewhere beyond his suburban adolescence.

Roger is exactly the kind of person who can provide that adventure.

Unfortunately, Roger’s version usually involves fraud, disguises, unnecessary theatrics and decisions that would make a responsible adult immediately call Stan.

That’s why they work.

Steve gives Roger someone willing to participate in his fantasies.

Roger gives Steve access to a bizarre world he otherwise wouldn’t experience.

The Legman stories demonstrate this perfectly.

Roger and Steve can suddenly become characters in their own detective adventure while the show temporarily transforms into something completely different.

That’s the magic of Roger again.

Put Roger into a storyline and the genre itself can chane.

Roger Gives American Dad Permission to Be Weird

This may be Roger’s greatest contribution to the series.

American Dad began with a relatively straightforward satirical premise centered heavily around conservative CIA agent Stan Smith and his liberal daughter Hayley. But the show’s creators eventually moved away from relying so heavily on topical political satire and toward stories centered around the family’s dynamics and increasingly bizarre adventures.

Roger fits that evolution perfectly.

Actually, I would argue Roger helped make it possible.

Once your television series establishes tat a gray alien living in Virginia can leave the house wearing a wig and somehow convince everyone that he is a completely different human being with decades of personal history, the normal rules of sitcom storytelling no longer apply.

You can get weird.

Really weird.

And American Dad does.

Stories can become surreal.

Characters can enter bizarre worlds.

Episodes can parody completely different genres.

Reality can end.

The show can become unexpectedly dark, absurd, sentimental or cinematic.

Roger makes almost all of those tonal shifts easier to accept because Roger himself operates according to cartoon logic.

He is basically the show’s permission slip to do whatever the hell it wants

Seth MacFarlaned’s Performance is Essential

None of this works without Seth MacFarlane.

Roger has one of the most immediately recognizable voices in adult animation, and there’s an interesting piece of television history behind it.

MacFarlane has explained that Roger’ voice was modeled after actor and comedian Paul Lynde. MacFarlane said he had always found Lynde’s distinctive characterization hilarious and saw him as an obvious inspiration in the Hanna-Barbera tradition of using recognizable character actors as springboards for cartoon voices.

It’s a brilliant choice

Roger’s voice can sound sarcastic, offended, seductive, exhausted, furious and completely insane-sometimes within the same conversation.

But MacFarlane’s achievement becomes even more impressive when Roger assumes a persona.

He doesn’t completely abandon Roger.

Instead, he performs Roger performing another person.

We aren’t simply watching Seth McFarlane voice a detective.

We’re watching him voice Roger pretending to be a detective.

There are layers to the performance.

That’s part of what keeps Roger recognizable even underneath the costumes.

Roger Can Be Almost Any Kind of Character

Think about the range required to sustain Roger.

He can function as protagonist, antagonist, comic relief, sidekick, villain, mentor, best friend, rival, authority figure complete idiot, surprisingly competent professional, mysterious stranger, romantic disaster, detective, businessman, criminal, socialite, or whatever deranged individual walks out of his attic next.

Most sitcoms would require dozens of recurring characters to fill those roles.

American Dad has Roger.

That’s an unbelievable storytelling advantage.

But it only works because Roger has such as strong core personality.

Strip away every wig, costume and fake identity and we still know exactly who we’re looking at.

Roger is dramatic, impulsive, vain, petty, craves attention, loves performance, wants excitement, is capable of surprising affection, is bored incredibly easily, and will go to absolutely absurd lengths to get whatever he has decided he wants.

The persona changes.

The Roger underneath it doesn’t.

He is Essentially a One-Alien Sketch Comedy Show

Roger also allows American Dad to borrow something from sketch comedy.

In traditional sketch comedy, performers become new characters every few minutes.

One performer might play a teacher in one sketch, an elderly neighbor in another and a deranged businessman in the next.

Roger gives American Dad access to that same creative freedom while maintaining continuity.

Every new persona can introduce a completely different comedic archetype.

But unlike a traditional sketch character, we know the person underneath.

It’s Roger.

That’s creates an additional layer to every joke.

Sometimes the humor comes from the persona.

And sometimes it comes from watching the Smith family realize they’re dealing with Roger when they desperately hoped they weren’t.

Roger is Unpredictable Without Feeling Random

This is incredibly difficult to accomplish.

Randomness isn’t automatically funny.

A character who simply does unpredictable things can become exhausting because the audience has nothing to understand or connect with.

Roger’s behavior is outrageous, but it usually follows Roger logic.

He wants attention.

He feels disrespected.

He’s bored.

He’s jealous.

He wants money.

He wants to prove something.

He wants to experience some elaborate fantasy.

He has become so committed to a persona that the original reason for creating it no longer exists.

The reaction may be completely disproportionate.

But the motivation is usually recognizable.

That’s why Roger’s chaos works.

We don’t know what Roger is going to do.

Bu afterward, we understand exactly why Roger would do it.

Roger Helped American Dad Find Its Identity

Perhaps the strongest argument for Roger’s greatness is what happened to the show around him.

The earliest version of American Dad was much more dependent on political satire. Over time, the series became stranger, more character-driven and more willing to follow bizarre premises wherever they led.

Roger underwent a similar transformation.

He went from the alien hiding in the attic to one of the most flexible storytelling devices in television.

The two evolutions complement each other so perfectly that it is difficult to separate them.

The A.V. Club has argued that American Dad didn’t truly begin reaching its potential until the writers realized what Roger could become, with his increasingly elaborate alter egos eventually making him arguably more essential to the series than Stan himself.

Why Roger Has Lasted

Comedy characters can become stale.

A catchphrase stops being funny.

A gimmick gets repetitive.

A personality becomes predictable.

Roger has a built in defense against that problem.

He can reinvent himself indefinitely.

The writers can create another persona.

Pair him with another Smith.

Explore another corner o his personality.

Give him another ridiculous obsession.

Put him into another group.

Let one of his identities develop far beyond that anyone reasonably expected.

And because Roger himself is obsessed with performance and reinvention, those changes aren’t violations of his character.

They are his character.

That may be the most ingenious thing about him.

Roger’s gimmick contains the mechanism to prevent gimmick from becoming stale.

From Attic Alien to Animated IconAmerican Dad

Roger Smith could have remained a joke.

The weird alien living upstairs.

Instead, the writers discovered something extraordinary hiding inside the character.

Roger didn’t need to stay upstairs.

He didn’t need to stay Roger.

He could walk outside.

Put on a wig.

Choose a name.

Invent a history.

And suddenly American Dad had another character.

Then another. And another. And another.

More than two decades after the series debuted, tat basic idea remains astonishingly fertile.

Roger represents everything great about animated comedy: exaggeration, flexibility, absurdity, and he freedom to construct a world that operates according to its own rules.

But underneath all the insanity is remarkably strong character writing.

We know Roger.

No matter what name he is using.

No matter what he’s wearing.

No matter what profession he apparently obtained seventeen years ago without anyone noticing.

No matter how outrageous the scheme becomes.

Somewhere underneath that wig is the same selfish, hilarious, vindictive e, theatrical, strangely lovable gray alien.

And that’s why Roger Smith isn’t merely my favorite kind of American Dad character.

He’s one of the greatest animated characters ever created.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need someone to explain how this alien has enough hours in the day to maintain hundreds of careers, businesses relationships, rivalries and apparently entire separate households throughout Langley Falls.

Actually, don’t explain it.

I don’t want to know.

That’s part of the magic.