Stan Smith

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Stan Smith
American Dad! character
First appearance	Pilot
Created by	Seth McFarlane
Portrayed by	Seth MacFarlane (voice-actor)
Episode count	86
Duration	1x01– (2005–)
Information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Occupation	Intelligence Officer
Family	Smith Family
Spouse(s)	Francine Smith Thundercat Smith (ex-wife) Joanna Smith (ex-wife)
Children	Hayley Smith Steve Smith
Parents	Jack Smith (father) Betty Smith (mother) Hercules (stepfather)
Half-Siblings	Nicholas Smith
Residence	416 Cherry Street, Langley Falls, Virginia
Nationality	American

Stan Smith is the main character of the animated television series American Dad! Stan is a Central Intelligence Agency agent and, later on in the series becomes a pirate, promoted Deputy-Deputy Director, placing him on the third tier of importance in the C.I.A. under Deputy-Director Bullock and the currently unidentified Director. Although once a field agent, he is now a weapons expert.^[1] However, he does execute the occasional regime change in Latin America. Stan is voiced by co-creator of the series, Seth MacFarlane.

Fictional character biography

20 years ago, Stan, then a college student, took experimental drugs to get rid of his acne. However there were side-effects which meant that his hair fell out after a few days, and he has been wearing a wig ever since. This was found out in the episode Chimdale. A few years later met his future wife Francine. She was hitch-hiking and Stan gave her a ride. As he was driving, he accidentally ran over a raccoon, which he shot and killed to put it out of its misery. Francine thought it was the most compassionate act she ever saw, and he got to kill something.^[2] They started dating and got married later that same year. At some point in Stan's childhood, he was given bad advice about sex, leading to Stan's belief that masturbation would lead to hair growing on his palms and his eyes melting, a belief which Stan almost passed on to his son.^[3]

According to the episode, Weiner of Our Discontent, he also suffers from a severe seafood allergy.

Family

Stan is presumably 38 or 39 years old because he said that Francine, who is 38, is ten months younger than he is.^[4] Later Stan is 42 years old. They have an adult daughter, Hayley, and a teenage son, Steve. Stan allows Roger to live in the Smith household because the alien saved his life at Area 51 and Roger has come to think of the Smiths as family.^[5] His goldfish, Klaus, was actually an East German skier, which explains how he is able to talk. To prevent Klaus from winning the gold medal in the nonexistent 1986 Winter Olympics, the CIA switched his brainwaves with those of a goldfish and he has lived as a goldfish with the Smith family since then, after the CIA ordered Stan pass off Klaus as the pet of the Smith family.^[6] The Smith Family currently lives at 416 Cherry Street in Langley Falls, Virginia, near the C.I.A. Headquarters.

Stan's reflexive super-patriotism possibly stems from his father, Jack Smith. Jack, a Nick Fury-look alike, was an absent father and was believed to be a part of a group of spies known as the Scarlet Alliance. He wasn't able to attend Stan's wedding so he had a fake father come to the wedding and pose as his real father for 20 years. Stan clearly worshipped his father until discovering that Jack was, in fact, a jewel thief.^[7] Stan has a borderline Oedipus complex for his mother and according to Stan, she is a very attractive woman. Due to his father abandoning them, it is revealed that Stan's feelings for his mother had driven him to become so overprotective of her that he kidnaps all of her boyfriends and deposits them on an island so that no one can take his place in her life as protector. Stan also has an estranged half-brother who lives in New Glarus, Wisconsin.^[8]

Personality

Although Stan is, for the most part, a loving husband and father, he often causes problems within the home with his 'God Bless America' attitudes. Stan also seems to prize popularity; he encouraged Steve to date cheerleaders, and lied about his own popularity in school, not to mention forcing Steve to have a better life than his own adolescence. He is horrified when he discovers his son, Steve, is a geek and is reluctant to let the other C.I.A. agents see him, lest Stan become one of the uncool agents, as in the episode "All About Steve". Though he appears to dislike nerds, Stan is shown owning a bat'leth, a type of Klingon sword. In addition to this, he claims to be a huge fan of Star Trek, as well as being seen as unpopular and a geek in his flashbacks, as well as saying Francine is the only woman he has dated. He also is seen to wear the exact style of glasses that Steve does at the end of Bullocks To Stan, and therefore has far more in common with his son than he would like to believe. He is oblivious to the obvious, and occasionally mistakes sarcastic comments for suggestions. Stan can speak with dolphins ^[9] and use Morse code.^[10] Stan dislikes overweight people, as depicted in several episodes where he made remarks about his son's friend Barry. In another episode, he meets his son Steve's overweight gothic girlfriend, Debbie, whom he doesn't take very kindly to until he finds out she is interested in guns. However, when he is told he's put on a few pounds, his attempts to slim himself down, to prevent becoming what he hates, leads him to anorexia.^[11] He used to have a massive fear of seagulls.^[12] In "Choosy Wives Choose Smith", Stan became trapped on an island and was able to overcome his fear of seagulls (although he only truly overcame it since he killed and ate them to survive). Apparently he never killed anyone until he killed Bad Larry in the episode The 42 Year Old Virgin, but he has killed Jackson's double in the episode It's Good to Be Queen. Stan can also be emotionally hurt, in a similar way to of how Roger deals with insults, and can do very drastic things as an effect such as leaving Francine for a college girl named Jessica during Roger's alcohol filled Spring Break party briefly because she laughed at his jokes (ones Francine didn't like, to be specific) and was nicer to him than Francine, who had lost her patience with him because she was stressed out because she had to go to her parents' house for the week because her father had hurt himself. Stan came back because Jessica rejected him after he asked her out when she told him the only reason she liked him was because she was drunk half the time at the party.

Political and social views

Stan plays the role of a straw man of extreme conservative Republican politics. He is very vigilant and xenophobic. He initially profiled the new neighbors, Bob and Linda Memari, as terrorists solely because of their Iranian heritage, though he later seems to warm up to them.^[13] He is so proud of the United States that he hates anything foreign, even food (e.g. French toast, falafels). He also hates being pegged as feminine. In the episode "Roger Codger", he began to shed tears before he almost shot Roger. Steve pointed that out, and Stan immediately said, "I'm not a lady!". Stan is very traditional, as he believes that his wife should be at home, doing housework, unable to leave the house without being escorted, and cooking meals, and is opposed to the idea of his wife having a career outside of the house. In the episode "Tears of a Clooney", when the car is stopped, a "Cheney-Quayle 08" bumper sticker can be seen (the episode was made in 2006). He also longs to go back to the days when white males had all the power, and blames equality on liberals. MacFarlane says these qualities of Stan are based on Archie Bunker from All in the Family.

As a proud Republican, he strenuously opposes abortion and gun control. He even talks to his gun (an HK USP),^[14] believing it to be alive. When fighting Hayley in "Haylias", he threw his gun away and told it "Gun, call for help!", or buckling the gun into the passenger seat while driving. At the beginning of the series, he had a strong prejudice against homosexuality. However, while he loudly denounces it, and has also memorized all characteristics of stereotypical gay men and women as a "Gaydar", and taught Steve to do the same, he is oblivious to his obviously gay neighbors and Hayley's one-time fiance Dill; he also seems to have a spotty knowledge on gay slang, knowing the definition of "Power Top", but unaware what "coming out" meant. His views on the subject soften greatly in the episode "Lincoln Lover", in which he finds out that his neighbor, Greg Corbin, is not only gay, but a Republican; he gradually learns that he and other gay Republicans are not gay by choice, but nevertheless are Republicans by choice.^[15]

Although he becomes obviously more accepting of homosexuality, particularly towards his neighbors, he still retains many phobias towards them, such as when Francine agrees to carry Terry and Greg's baby. Stan's belief that having two fathers will destroy the child's life, leads him to kidnap the newborn baby girl and place it in an orphanage in Nebraska. Later, he realizes that two same gender parents would not be as terrible as he initially thought. However, a restraining order is set against him to never come within ten feet of the child ever again. The restraining order was later lifted (or possibly expired), as he is seen near the baby in the episode "Daddy Queerest", and everybody seems to have forgiven Stan for the kidnapping. In that same episode, he goes to great lengths to (unsuccessfully) convince Terry Bates' father, Tank, to accept his son's homosexuality, pointing out that Terry was born gay and is happy with his partner, Greg.

He also greatly admires the Republican presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan (whom he shot in "The Best Christmas Story Never"), and George W. Bush in particular (whose photo he kissed in The Magnificent Steven), while hating liberals and Democrats, especially Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Moore, who he believes are trying to destroy America by getting rid of American traditions and values. He frequently argues with Hayley over her liberal political views and appears to somewhat distrust her, shown in the pilot episode when he set up a metal detector in the front door and gave Hayley a search when she set it off. When his boss once insulted her, however, Stan defended her honor by nearly beating his boss to death.^[16]

He is very religious and thinks everyone should be the same. In "Dope & Faith", he meets a man named Brett after praying to God to have a friend. Since they share right-wing neo-conservative political views and "a love of paddle boats that sometimes borders on the erotic", they hit it off. But shortly after learning Brett is an atheist, he tries make his life miserable and convert him to theism by destroying his home, restaurant, and marriage. Instead of going to God, he attempts suicide. At the hospital, Stan prays that if Brett lives, he'll accept him the way he is. But after waking up, Brett said that he now does acknowledge the existence of God, who subsequently rejected Brett's entrance into Heaven due to his failure to accept Jesus' death on the cross, whereupon Brett was banished to Hell and became a Satanist after striking a deal with the Devil. When it seems obvious to Stan and others that Brett may have suffered a hallucination he produces a goat-head guitar as proof of meeting Satan. Stan and Brett remained friends though because Stan promised God that if he woke up he would accept him for who he is, and that Brett assured Stan that he still likes golf because "I'm a Satanist, not a poor person!"

Hobbies and talents

Stan's childhood hobbies include gun cleaning, wood burning and decoupage, all of which he revisits with Steve in order to help him with self-denial.^[17] Stan's current hobbies include collecting commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint, and he has an incredible talent in figure skating. Stan can also play the guitar, and has passed this talent on to Hayley^[18] and Steve.^[19] He also seems to have an interest in musical theater. In "Homeland Insecurity", Stan performed with his cellmate in jail in the play, South Pacific, and he has long been dying to see the musical Mamma Mia!.^[20] Stan is also a fan of the TV series Lost and 24, and has written an extensive unpublished children's book series called "Patriot Pigeon", which has 3,012 books (and Stan received 10000 rejection letters).^[21] He is evidently a fan of Star Trek (despite chastising Steve for liking it) and once stated he has seen every episode, with the exception of Deep Space Nine (which he hates for multiple unspecified reasons).^[22] Stan also seems to enjoy the rap and hip-hop culture, as evidenced by his occasional use of slang, his rapping in the shower, and his purchase of a Flavor Flav clock. He credits hip-hop for saving his life twice, ^[23] and for R&B, he considers "the entire genre to be one long song." He is also a fan of the Georgetown Hoyas and watched their basketball games with Klaus while the rest of the family was in the "vacation goo" and his favorite dinosaur is the triceratops, as revealed by God when Stan holds a gun to his head. He is also shown to be a decent skateboarder and appears to have an affection for ponies.

Stan has been described as "terrible" at sex throughout the series. In the episode "When A Stan Loves A Woman" Francine claims Stan has "forgotten how to get a boner", and in the episode "Tearjerker" Francine's character "Sexpun T'come" sleeps with Stan for the first time and says "Oh my God, you really are a virgin." Stan replies "What, that's not good?" She then says "No, it's awful."

Cameo appearances

• In the seventeenth season episode of The Simpsons called "The Italian Bob", Stan, along with Peter Griffin from Family Guy, is seen in the Italian police book. Stan is guilty of Plagiarismo Di Plagiarismo (pseudo-Italian for plagiarism of plagiarism, which is the Simpsons writers' way of saying that American Dad! is a rip-off of Family Guy which is already considered by some Simpson writers and detractors of Family Guy as a rip-off of The Simpsons. However, Family Guy and American Dad! are made by the same people; it could be more likely a barb that Seth MacFarlane was rehashing the basic plot of Family Guy with American Dad!).
• Stan appeared alongside Avery Bullock in the Family Guy episode "Lois Kills Stewie", although this episode turned out to be a computer simulation. In the episode, Stewie Griffin calls Stan "Joe" when he first meets him, most likely because he shares many traits with Family Guy character Joe Swanson (like his chin and body type, which is athletic, as well as similar professions). Stan also had a nonspeaking appearance in "Road to Rupert", which is arguably his only canonical Family Guy appearance. Seth MacFarlane has hinted at having Family Guy/American Dad in a mishmash or crossover, such as where Stan Smith might find himself married to Lois Pewterschmidt or Peter Griffin find himself married to Francine and working as a CIA agent. A more realistic crossover may have the Griffin family visiting Langley Falls or the Smith family visiting Quahog.

Notes