Stan Smith (American Dad!; Fox era)

Stanford Leonard Smith is the main protagonist of the adult animated sitcom American Dad! He is voiced by the series' co-creator and executive producer, Seth MacFarlane.

Why He Was an American Dad and a brave patriotic hero of the United States

 * 1) He’s a very caring father to Hayley and Steve Smith, a great friend to Roger and Klaus, and well-meaning husband to Francine as in these seasons, he always wants to protect his family from danger. In season 1, it is extremely evident that he wants to keep them safe. Hell, he has a lot of normal items in the house as guns so then nothing wrong would happen. In the pilot episode, he said that if terrorists arrive, he will keep them safe.
 * 2) He is a faithful man to the United States as shown in the series theme song in which he sings with passion about his love for the country. He loves protecting his family and loves
 * 3) Even though he has his flaws and wrong doings, he‘s shown to learn from his mistakes and he will try to make the right happen.
 * 4) Seth McFarlane does a fantastic job at providing his voice much like Peter, Stewie, and Brian Griffin and brings the character to life.
 * 5) He is well animated like many of other Seth MacFarlane shows and has a great character design, especially his chin (apart from season 1).
 * 6) Whenever he makes a bad decision, he will get his comeuppance and he will own up to his mistakes and like the show, could even send a moral to adults. A good example is that in "Rapture's Delight", even though he acts like a total jerk to Francine, causing her to break up with him, he did regrets his actions and wanting to fix his actions, leading to a nice ending.
 * 7) He has excellent action scenes in this show. During his CIA missions, he proves how skilled he is and how he will sacrifise himself for the good thanks to how clever and smart he is.
 * 8) Stan has a wonderful singing voice, most notably, the song "Ollie North" is arguably his singing voice at his best.
 * 9) Stan has no filter and just says things and when he's in trouble he always manages to get out alright. Speaking of filter, he's not shy to tell people if they are wrong or acting like idiots.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Even before his flanderization in seasons 11 onwards, the way he's written and portrayed is all over the place. He's supposed to be a brave patriotic hero to the United States, yet a lot of the time he's portrayed as a cowardly villain on the show with the amount of heinous crimes he has committed, such as hiding Roger from the CIA (though, he was trying to protect Roger).
 * 2) Even before his flanderization, he has his share of unlikable/awful moments or is just unlikable fully in episodes such as:
 * 3) "Surro-Gate" as he forbids gay marriage and didn't want Francine to give birth to Greg and Terry's baby. This makes Stan come off as homophobic because of this.
 * 4) "Bully for Steve" as he constantly torments and bullies Steve because he can't seem to accept the fact that he will never be like Stan. Thankfully, he got his comeuppance for his actions.
 * 5) "Rapture's Delight" (partially). He acts like a total jerk to Francine just so he can get sent to heaven, and because of his actions this what makes Francine to break up with him.
 * 6) In "Oedipal Panties", he would kill all of his mother's girlfriends because he only wants to be with his mother. This comes off as childish to Stan and he needs to accept the fact that his mom can have different people.
 * 7) In "Shallow Vows", he admitted to Francine that he only married her for her looks and didn't care for her personality. It shows how shallow he can get and it's worse that he purposely made himself blind because he saw Francine ugly.
 * 8) In "Homeland Insecurity", he comes off as racist in this episode towards his new neighbors who are Iranian and immediately suspects that they are terrorists. To make things worse, he makes a camp for those neighbors because he thinks that everyone from that country is a terrorist. It doesn't help that he didn't even learn or care for his actions.
 * 9) In "Stan of Arabia", he acts sexist in this episode as he sang a whole song about how he wished women didn't have as much rights as men and when he arrived in Saudi Arabia, he was happy that women were treated horribly.
 * 10) In "Four Little Words", he framed his wife for murder of her own friend because of the fact that that he didn't want to here her say "I told you so." He basically traumatizes Francine and lies to her fully, even though Bullock killed her by accident.
 * 11) He was badly flanderized in season 11 and acted a lot more like Peter Griffin, similar to Cleveland Brown's flanderization, read here for more and became a complete moron to his family, only cares for himself, commits even more crimes such as locking his own wife in an insane asylum, acted like an idiot, and has caused everyone else's lives to be like hell.