10 Best American Dad! Characters Only In One Episode
5. Emperor Zing
The only glimpse we ever get of others of Roger's species comes in the brilliantly tangential episode, 'Lost in Space'. After being abducted when Roger kicks him into a tractor beam, Jeff Fischer winds up on a spaceship designed like a huge shopping centre.
If he can prove his love for Hayley in a test designed by the ship's leader, Emperor Zing, then he will be returned to her. But what he can't know is that the test is rigged by Zing to be unwinnable, for the Emperor holds within him a dark and distressing secret.
Zing was in love once. When he caught his lover (Roger, not so surprisingly) cheating on him, he set out to deprive all others of their loved ones - the old "if I can't have it, no-one can" thing - and turned the ship into a mall to satisfy his habit of therapeutic shopping.
His secret exposed, the slaves aboard the ship form a rebellion, and Jeff, along with the ghost of comedian Sinbad, leave the ship in an escape pod.
Considering that Roger's backstory is largely unexplored, and that Zing is one of the only known beings he associated with before the Smiths, it's peculiar that the Emperor never made a second appearance. Then again, with the series still going strong, there's always time.