Roger Codger

"Roger Codger" is an episode of the TV animated series American Dad!. The episode title is a parody of the phrase Roger Dodger.

It also features Patrick Stewart (Bullock), Jason Marsden (Gertie), Mike Henry (Charlie), Jeff Fischer (Jeff), Martin Mull (Father Donovan), and Phill Lewis (Duper).

Plot

Stan is humiliated at work when a new agent, Duper, bests him in an operation simulation. He grows even more bitter when the new guy takes over his more prestigious assignments.

When Stan complains about this at home, Francine suggests that they invite his boss, Deputy Director Bullock (voiced by Patrick Stewart) to dinner, and some bootlicking. Because of that, however, Roger will have to hide in the attic all night. The alien complies, but when he finds himself out of a drink while watching his favorite show, Dynasty, he goes downstairs to get a refill. Meanwhile, Stan's dinner with his boss is going very well, until he sees Roger walk by the kitchen door. Stan makes an excuse, goes in the kitchen and pushes Roger into the bathroom, going in himself to scold Roger some more. When Bullock knocks on the door asking to come in to discuss Stan's promotion, Stan freaks and tries to get Roger to hide in the bathtub. This causes the Alien to get nervous and start gushing his ooze all over the bathroom. When Bullock forces his way in, Roger is already hidden, but the bathroom is filthy, and this costs Stan his promotion.

After Bullock leaves, Stan reprimands Roger on his behavior, which only causes the Alien to get even more stressed, and gush more ooze in the dining room. When Stan finally tells him that the family would be better off without him, Roger feels sick and falls down, seemingly dead. Stan thinks he's just being a drama queen, and tells everybody to ignore him and go to bed. In the next morning, however, as Roger is still lying there, with flies hovering over him, Stan confirms that he is dead. He promises the family to give Roger's body a fitting funeral, but then throws it in a dumpster by a drive-through restaurant. Stan then attempts to recruit Steve into destroying all of Roger's things, thereby destroying any evidence that he ever lived with them. Shocked at his father's behavior, Steve asks Stan if he is remotely sad that Roger has passed away, but Stan scoffs that feelings are for women. Disgusted, Steve calls him a monster and disowns him. Later trying to find a new father figure, he ends up using Klaus as one.

Later, however, Roger wakes up, in a landfill, and it is revealed that he had gone through a stress-induced hibernation. Desperate, Roger finally figures that he can go back home disguised as an old lady, using an outfit he found in the landfill. While on his way, however, he gets confused with one of the senior citizens, who are on their way for a tour in Washington D.C., and gets shoved into a shuttle. In it, Roger befriends an old lady named Gertie who sympathizes with his family troubles. When in Washington, Roger visits the Oval Office, and decides to get drunk in it with his newfound friend. While drinking away, Roger's hat falls off and his alien image is captured by a camera of the internal security system.

Meanwhile, following Roger's supposed death, Francine tries to get her priest to say a word for Roger, her "pet", in next Sunday's service. To her dismay, the priest tells her that only human beings, as well as apes capable of sign language, are allowed into Heaven. Francine is extremely disappointed in a God who would not let Roger into Heaven, and loses her faith, teaching her Bible classes that there is no afterlife. Stan, on the other hand, thinks about what Steve had said to him. He goes to the CIA psychiatrist, where he reminisces his first encounter with Roger: the alien had escaped containment in Area 51 and was running around the base looking for cover. Stan joined the pursuit squad and eventually cornered Roger in a lab where theramin music was coming from. Roger pleads for mercy, leaving Stan surprised, for he was told that Roger would be bigger and with claws. Immediately after, the squad also locates the alien and floods the room with hand grenades. Stan tries to save Roger but bumped his head into a lamp and was knocked unconscious. Roger drags Stan across the room, throwing Stan and himself into the laundry chute just before the grenades explode. The two end up in a laundry transport truck going out of the base. When Stan comes to, he realized that the alien had saved his life and offers repayment. Thus, it is revealed how it was that Roger saved Stan's life in Area 51 and came to live with the family. However, after revealing that he is saddened by the passing away of his 'dog,' the psychiatrist mocks hims for having feelings, as do all of Stan's colleagues (who were watching his session in secret), calling him a "lady".

When joining his team in the briefing room, Stan sees the footage from the White House that shows Roger. Bullock reveals then that they are certain that this is the alien that escaped from Area 51 four years ago, and orders him apprehended, so that they can also horribly punish whoever it was that harbored the alien for the time he has been missing. At every horrible sentence, Stan accidentally spits coffee on unsuspecting co-workers. In order to save his own butt, literally, Stan runs out, determined to find Roger before the CIA does and bring him home. As he is driving, however, he receives a call from a drunk Roger, who is calling from a pay phone in Washington to tell Stan off for dumping him in the garbage. When informed by Stan that the CIA is after him, he threatens to expose Stan and his family as the ones who harbored him. After hearing that, Stan decides that the only thing left to do to ensure his family's safety is to kill Roger before the CIA can get to him.

Roger continues his tour of Washington with his friend Gertie, but he is shocked to find out that his new friend is actually a raging bigot, who hates Abraham Lincoln for having freed the slaves. He calls Hayley at home, asking the family to come pick him up. Hayley drags Steve and Francine with her, without telling the actual reason for the trip. They finally find Roger at the Smithsonian Museum, and upon seeing him alive, Francine's faith is restored, since she believes that a miracle has happened. Immediately after, however, Stan arrives, who knew that Roger couldn't resist a federally funded Dynasty exhibit, and he starts shooting at Roger while pursuing him across the museum. He finally corners the alien in a small room, but his family gets in the way, not willing to allow Roger to be executed. Then, the CIA, led by Bullock himself, knocks at the door, demanding that Roger surrender. When Roger shows a disposition to turn himself in and be killed by Stan in order to save "his family", Stan is hesitant to shoot him and a tear trickles down his face. Although he denies any feeling, Francine convinces him that having feelings does not make him a lady: it makes him human. Deciding to save Roger, Stan has an idea: he strips naked and takes the wig off Gertie and turns her in as the alien. Bullock buys it and takes the "alien" in, promising Stan to remove 'too incompetent' from his profile, and also convinced to put in 'Not a lady'. Back at home, Francine asks Roger how Heaven was. Roger doesn't know what she was talking about until Hayley nudged him, so he fakes how happy he was.

Cultural references

• Hayley's quote "Is this one of those Twilight Phones, but only with horrible, ironic consequences?" is a reference to The Twilight Zone series.
• The yellowish-brown goo that Roger expels is called Xenoplasm; the Greek root "xeno-" [xenos, "stranger"] is commonly applied to theoretical extraterrestrial life [i.e., xenobiology].
• When Roger is lost in the city and trying to find his way home, he exclaims "Where's a trail of Reese's Pieces when you need one?" This is a reference to the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, where E.T. follows a trail of Reese's Pieces.
• Duper's line "Lucy, you got some 'sploding to do" is a variation of Ricky Ricardo's line "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do" on I Love Lucy. Duper even mimics Ricardo's accent while saying it.
• The woman in the picture Father Donovan points to while explaining that self-aware robots don't go to Heaven is Pris from Blade Runner.
• Father Donovan mentions sign-language gorillas, a reference to Koko.
• A Church sign reads "Bring your kids! Don't worry, we're Episcopalian." This is a reference to the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.
• While searching through Area 51, Stan says "I'll check out this lab, where the Theremin music is coming from." The Theremin is an electromusical instrument with a readily eerie swooping sound often exploited in pulp mystery and science fiction films.
• This episodes features the famous Wilhelm scream after Agent Duper throws a hand-grenade.
• When Stan accuses Roger of pretending to be dead, he calls him Ethan Hawke and tells him it's "time to make another awful Richard Linklater movie". And later, "Gattaca 2 finally got its financing."
• The popular 80's television drama, Dynasty, was portrayed with Alexis, and Krsytle slapping and insulting each other repeatedly yelling "Bitch!"... "Bitch!"..."Bitch!"..."Bitch!". He watches another episode, where Krystal and Alexis repeatedly slap each other, saying "Slut!"..."Slut!"..."Slut!"..."Slut!"
• Just as Family Guy's Brian repeatedly asks, "Whose leg do you have to hump to get a dry martini around here?" Rodger says "Who do you have to probe around here to get a Chardonnay?" Both are references to a line from the Broadway play The Boys in the Band, "Who do you have to fuck to get a drink around here?"

Notes

• Roger's history on how he came about to live with the Smiths', as well as saving Stan's life back at Area 51 is revealed in this episode.
• According to the DVD commentary for this episode, all of the Dynasty shorts would've had the women saying "bitch" the whole time, but FOX has a Broadcast Standards and Practice rule that states that the word, "bitch", can only be said seven times in one half hour (There was a MADtv sketch-within-a-sketch from season 11 that made fun of this and other BS&P rules)
• This episode had a viewer discretion advisory before the beginning of the episode on FOX.
• This episode originally aired out of production order.
• There was a yellow ribbon tied to a tree that's in front of the Smith's house showing at the middle part of the episode

Reception

• The original broadcast of this episode on FOX scored a 4.7/7 rating, bringing the total viewers for the episode to 6.14 million.
• The original Sunday broadcast of this episode on Adult Swim received a total of 852,000 viewers among adults 18-34.
• In the U.L it aired on July 13 , 2005 and had 1.3 million viewers. It was 5th in it's timeslot and was #40 for the week.