American Dad: 5 Greatest Roger Personas
1. Sidney Huffman- The One That Got Away
"That gentleman has the wrong Sidney, or he's dyslexic and angry at Disney"
Meet Sidney Huffman; he's a teetotal bible manufacturer who looks after the communal garden to his one bedroom apartment in his spare time as well as feeding under-privileged pigeons, sending gifts to soldiers in Iraq and doting on his shop-assistant girlfriend Judy Panawitz. Unfortunately for Sidney, he's completely unaware that he's just another one of Roger's personas who's taken a life independent of Roger in a bizarre take on dissociative identity disorder.
Originally, Roger created Sidney to charm the hapless Judy into surrendering her keys to a pair of ten dollar gloves he wanted to steal from her store. When he felt guilt at her getting the blame for his theft however, Roger's mind kept Sidney on as a separate personality to cope with the trauma of caring about someone other than himself. By day he was the sweet devout Christian pictured above and by night he returned as the raging alcoholic we all know and love, both blissfully ignorant of each other's existence for months on end.
'The One That Got Away' is the first Roger-centric episode in American Dad and certainly one of my all time favourites. Seeing one of Roger's personas take front and centre was a refreshing change to the rather predictable episodes we'd become used to. In fact, I was so engrossed with watching Sidney's life unfold that I don't remember what the other members of the Smith household were pre-occupied with whilst his shenanigans were going on, nor do I much care.
The episode was also a great reminder of how utterly ruthless Roger is. In the space of twenty hours he burned down Sidney's flat, destroyed his prized garden, cooked his pigeons, got him fired and turned the woefully dim Judy against him in return for unwittingly maxing out his credit card by purchasing an engagement ring for the love of his life. Although Sidney's hiring a contract killer to deal with his saboteur was a very Roger'ish move, the voicemail messages they leave each other with one swearing revenge whilst the other pleads for mercy is probably the best example of the differences between both characters.
Nevertheless, Sidney Huffman is in my humble opinion the best of Roger's personas because he revealed a side to his character that even he didn't realise existed. In addition, his critical reception laid the foundations for his role in future episodes and gave Roger the platform to unleash the depth of characters we celebrate in American Dad today.