Steve Smith (American Dad!)

Steven "Steve" Smith is a fictional character on American animated series "American Dad!". He is Stan and Francine Smith's only son and Hayley's brother. Steve is voiced by Scott Grimes.

Personality

Steve is portrayed as a social outcast, although he is very clever, intelligent, and confident to the point where he can sometimes be seen as arrogant. Steve is far-sighted (which he seems to get from his father, shown at the end of "Bullocks To Stan"). To Stan's horror and dismay, Steve spends his time with his friends playing Dungeons and Dragons, pretending to be the characters from "Star Trek" and other such "geeky" behavior. Despite being selectively dyslexic, he can read Elvish, use Morse code, and is able to communicate with dolphins. He also seems to do karate according to "American Dad VS Family Guy Kung Fu II Turbo! Hyper-Mega Edition," and although this is not featured in any episodes and may not be canon to the series it might have improved his fighting ability such as shown in "Irregarding Steve" when he beats up various people. Although highly intelligent, Steve also tends to be immensely naive; he can be tricked into believing outrageously implausible lies. Usually it is Roger who tricks Steve, when he is annoyed or angry with Steve for some reason, or because he is simply bored. On one occasion, Roger made Steve believe he was not really Stan and Francine's biological child; on another, Roger tricked him into believing he was an adolescent wizard and a drug dealer's house was a wizard's school (Steve assumed the laboratory to make drugs was "Potions Class.")

Stan tends to be frustrated that Steve is not an athlete and is not popular, but is in fact unpopular, spends most of his free time with science fiction and fantasy and is in fact a "geek" (although it is revealed that Stan was also a geek at Steve's age.) Francine seems to care little about his social standing; she views him as her "baby" and tends more towards overprotectiveness and to treat him like a small child. Hayley and Steve don't share many interests and generally ignore each other, although she often mocks his pretensions, dreams and schemes to become popular and get girls, or simply mocks him in general.

Steve frequently masterminds unusual schemes in order to improve his social standing. For example, in "Threat Levels", he plans to make a video in which girls "go wild" and market it in late-night television so he and his circle of friends could afford a Gamestation console video game.

Steve is a freshman at Pearl Bailey High School.Steve's brown hair comes from his mother Francine, who actually dyes her hair blonde. He believes himself to be "ginger haired" which leads to speculation he might also be colorblind, as does his father. However we can clearly see it is medium to light brown.

Friends

Steve seems to have four best friends:
*Roger, a space alien, and is one of Steve's oldest friends, because Stan brought him home as a present for Steve when he was 10 years old. [cite episode
title = A.T. The Abusive Terrestial
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
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credits = Written by Dan Vebber. Directed by Joe Daniello
writers =
network = FOX
station =
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airdate =
began =
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season = 2
number = 35
minutes =] They usually come up with schemes together and get advice from each other. They also enjoy playing video games together. Still, Steve's tendency to inflate his own ego, combined with Roger's easily irritated and vindictive nature, often lead to Roger playing a prank upon Steve or otherwise harming him in some way as retaliation for some sort of perceived slight or insult.

*Snot, a teenager with curly hair and bad acne. His character seems to be based on Booger from "Revenge of the Nerds". He once had an affair with Steve's then-girlfriend, Gretchen. [cite episode
title = Con Heir
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series = American Dad!
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credits = Written by Steve Hely. Directed by Albert Calleros
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network = FOX
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season = 1
number = 11
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*Barry, a British overweight maniacal genius who is inexplicably hated by Stan. He takes "vitamins" to inhibit his evil genius and desire to hurt other people which cause temporary mental retardation. Without the pills, he also seems to have a British accent, with Steve comparing him to Gary Oldman. [cite episode
title = With Friends Like Steve's
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Erik Durbin. Directed by John Aoshima
writers =
network = FOX
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began =
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season = 1
number = 22
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*Toshi, a multilingual Japanese teenager. Although he seems to understand English, he has yet to speak it (with the exceptions of "Finances with Wolves", where he yells "Werewolf!" in unison with Snot and Barry, in "Francine's Flashback" where he yells "Godzilla!" as Jewel approaches) and in "The Magnificent Steven" singing with Steve and Barry, though you can't hear his voice. When he speaks Japanese, Steve believes he can understand him, though he really does not. Toshi has spoken Russian [cite episode
title = Of Ice and Men
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Brian Boyle. Directed by John Aoshima
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 2
number = 30
minutes =] and speaks Spanish when talking to Francine. [cite episode
title = Irregarding Steve
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Chris McKenna and Matt McKenna. Directed by Pam Cooke
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 2
number = 31
minutes =] Toshi's style of character is very similar to that of Ling-Ling from "Drawn Together"; both characters speak with subtitles and are misinterpreted by others.

Romance

Steve is obsessed with women and sex, yet, he knows very little about sex. [cite episode
title = A Smith In Hand
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series = American Dad!
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credits = Written by David Hemingson. Directed by Pam Cooke
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network = FOX
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number = 9
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] He seems to be particularly fond of female breasts. In the episode "Tearjerker", Steve plays a scientist named S, whose gadgets only make women's breasts grow. [cite episode
title = Tearjerker
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Jon Fener. Directed by Albert Calleros
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network = FOX
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began =
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season = 3
number = 10
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] In episode "Big Trouble in Little Langley", Steve tries to use firecrackers to impress a girl so that she will let him touch her breasts. [cite episode
title = Big Trouble in Little Langley
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits =
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 3
number = 4
minutes =] He chases attractive girls from school, usually cheerleaders, such as Lisa Silver from the very first episode, or other girls that Hayley has described as out of his league. He has been able to get with some girls like Chuck White's daughter. However, in "Con Heir" Steve meets an elderly lady named Gretchen with whom he bonds over the memory of Steve's "fake, dead grampa", Lou, and then shares a passionate kiss. Although it appears Steve is very much smitten, Gretchen cheats on him with his friend Snot, claiming that monogamy should be left to the 60-year-olds. Steve and Snot agree to never let a girl come between them again. Seconds later, however, they both chase after an old lady with an oxygen tank. [cite episode
title = Con Heir
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Steve Hely. Directed by Albert Calleros
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 1
number = 11
minutes =] In the episode, "Stannie Get Your Gun", it is implied that if Hayley was not his sister, Steve would probably be romantically interested in her; he French-kisses her when he thought he was adopted. [cite episode
title = Stannie Get Your Gun
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Brian Boyle. Directed by John Aoshima
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 1
number = 14
minutes =] (In Meter Made he apparently masturbates with a naked picture of Hayley that Roger made, not realizing until later that it was a picture of her.)

Steve met a slightly overweight, goth girl named Debbie, with whom Steve immediately was smitten. Though he broke up with her during the episode, they got back together at the end. [cite episode
title = The American Dad After School Special
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Dan Vebber. Directed by Pam Cooke
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 2
number = 25
minutes =] She was seen again in the episode "Iced, Iced Babies", though she reportedly and inexplicably breaks up with him by the end of the episode.

In "Lincoln Lover" Steve displays a strong homophobia, learned from his father (although he never displayed homophobia in another episodes and possibly only did that because his father also did it, saying to him "But you told me we hate the gays"). Roger remarks upon seeing Steve and his friends having a "grope fest" with girls from school, "You won't truly appreciate the awkwardness of this moment until you're fondly reminiscing as a 35-year-old homosexual", [cite episode
title = Failure Is Not a Factory-Installed Option
episodelink =
series = American Dad!
serieslink =
credits = Written by Etan Cohen. Directed by Rodney Clouden
writers =
network = FOX
station =
city =
airdate =
began =
ended =
season = 2
number = 26
minutes =] although Steve has not displayed any signs of being one (possibly Roger was referring to what happened to himself).

Also, in the episode "Camp Refoogee", he falls in loves with a young refugee named Makeva. After she was kidnapped, he participated in the Camp Olympics to get her back. At the near end, she falls in love with the leader of the rebel band. Steve asked why she liked him and she replied saying that she was a crazy chick then she kisses the leader.

In "The Vacation Goo" while on a cruise with the family, Steve becomes involved with a staff-member named Becky, which ultimately leads to her accidental death while being chased by "hunters" and shortly after being eaten by the Smith family, as they are trapped and have no food, only to later find out that the hunt was all meant to be a fun game and that her dying, and them consuming her was all for nothing, leaving Steve and the rest of his family with a dark secret.

In "Spring Breakup" Roger starts a Spring Break party at the Smith house while Francine is away visiting her foster parent’s house and Stan is too preoccupied reliving the fun and romance he had with Francine with a new college girl to notice. Meanwhile, Steve realizes how easily girls will consent to have sex when drunk and attempts to lose his virginity to the drunken college girls, which he surprisingly almost accomplishes only to switch targets from a typical college girl to a celebrity known as "Carmen Selecta" whom he quickly falls in love with. The rest of the episode Steve uses his typical methods to seduce Carmen and actually succeeds; the day before the end of Spring Break Carmen agrees to have sex with Steve. Surprisingly though, since Steve often resorts to desperate measures in order to seduce girls to sex, he has one preference; Carmen must fax him all of her medical reports to ensure she has no STDs (although this wasn't needed if Steve used a condom). Carmen admits she wants Steve’s virginity “mostly because [he] made [her] work for it,” however Steve still won’t have sex with Carmen because she has breast implants. Carmen attempts to crown Roger the king of Spring Break yet he is reluctant to accept his crown. She then claims she had her boob implants removed so she could sleep with Steve when suddenly the upper level of the porch Roger apparently built just for Spring Break falls down and kills her. To make the moment even more ironic for Steve various members of the party comment “If only she had some sort of cushioning or flotation devices on her breast she could have withstood the impact.”

References