Stan Smith (American Dad!; Fox era)

Stan Smith "Good morning, USA!" Gender: Male Type: Bad-Ass CIA Agent Age: 40 Species: Human Portrayed by: Seth MacFarlane Status: Alive Media of origin: American Dadǃ

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 making sure that America is safe from danger.
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, although this would happen less and less in the TBS era of the show.
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-most of season 2).
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 sacrifice himself for the good, thanks to how clever he can be at times, despite his idiotic and corrupt behavior that incited him to do bad things.
8. Stan has a wonderful singing voice, most notably, the song "Ollie North" is arguably his singing voice at his best.
9. Despite his poor treatment at times as both a husband to Francine as well as a father, he's still cares deep down.
   • In "Can I Be Frank With You", Stan beats up Frank (who in reality is Francine although he isn't aware of this) and after he misheard Frank and thought he did something terrible to Francine, he beats him up while explaining that Francine is the best thing to happen to him. When he later finds out that it was Francine inside the suit, he explains that he still loves and cares for her.
   • In "Stannie Get Your Gun", he and Hayley begin to grow an actual bond together after Stan is accidentally paralyzed when Hayley shoots him with a gun.
   • Most notably, in Season 8's, "The Kidney Stays in the Picture", he's arguably at his best in this episode as after Hayley is put in the hospital for kidney failure as well as being told that he might not even be Hayley's father, after initially being angry at Francine, he gives one of his kidney's as he tells Francine that he doesn't care whether he is or isn't Hayley's father and that all that matters is that she's doing well.

Bad Qualities

1. Even before his flanderization in seasons 11 onwards, just like with Peter Griffin, the way Stan is 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 times he's portrayed as a cowardly and idiotic 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 awful moments or is just fully an unlikable idiot in episodes such as:
   1. "Surro-Gate" as he forbids gay marriage and didn't want Francine to give birth to Greg and Terry's baby. He goes even further by kidnapping their baby, and then proceeds to kidnap more children from a lesbian couple. Not only is Stan coming off as homophobic but he goes that far to kidnapping children due to his hatred of the LGBTQ+ community. Thankfully, he receives his comeuppance where he's not only punched by Terry but also has a restraining order placed on him where he can't be near the baby at all.
   2. "Bully for Steve" as he constantly torments and bullies Steve because he wants to help him grow as a man. While it's understandable that Stan does want his son to be strong and able to protect himself, his execution is terrible. Thankfully, he got his comeuppance for his actions as he is beaten up by Stelio Kontos.
   3. "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. Thankfully, he redeems himself by rescuing Francine after she's kidnapped by the Anti-Christ.
   4. In "Oedipal Panties", he would kidnap all of his mother's girlfriends and ship them off to a deserted island because he only wants to be with his mother. This comes off as childish to Stan as he still acts like he's the only important person to his mother. Granted, due to his father Jack leaving both Stan and his mom at a young age, it makes sense why Stan is overprotective of her.
   5. 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.
   6. 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.
   7. 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.
   8. 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.
   9. In "Choosy Wives Choose Smith", he fakes his own death in order to decide whether Francine will move on with Travis, a man who she thought died from a plane crash and would marry Stan afterwards. This proves how insecure Stan is and how he risked his and Roger's life over something not too serious.
   10. In the episode "When a Stan Loves a Woman" after Francine divorces Stan in order for him to have meaningless sex, he ends up making a relationship with a woman named Joanne. After Francine regrets her decision, she tells Stan how uncomfortable she is with their relationship and when she wants everything to go back to normal, Stan tells her that he's married, which leaves Francine devastated and heart-broken, as well as upsetting Hayley. What's worse is how Stan hardly cares and he even proceeds to have sex with Joanne, FIVE TIMES which stuns Francine who is betrayed. It's not until the end of the episode where he finally reaches to his senses that he stops himself from continuing his relationship with Joanne to return to Francine. Most of all, he loses half of the Smith possession in his divorce.
   11. He was at his absolute worst in the infamous episode "American Fung", where he crossed the moral event horizon by acting like a neglectful and malicious jerk towards Francine, as he forgets her anniversary, and has the nerve to lock her up in an asylum, almost causing her to get LOBOTOMIZED. To make matters worse, he didn't get any comeuppance for his horrendous behaviour in this episode, making him an Idiot Houdini.
3. He was badly flanderized in season 11 and acted a lot more like Peter Griffin to the point of acting like a man-child, similar to Cleveland Brown's flanderization, read here for more and became a complete moron to his family, only caring about himself, commits even more crimes such as locking his own wife in an insane asylum, acted like a complete idiot, and has caused everyone else's lives to be like hell.

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