American Dad: The 10 Best Characters

6. Barry Robinson

Barry Robsinson A lot can be said about this overweight, ginger-haired boy. For starters, due to the slurred letter 'a' in the American accent, I thought his name was Berry for the first two years of my American Dad experience (and I know the rest of you did as well!). Also, the rare and sudden outbursts of genuine intelligence he exhibits (such as the incredibly random, "Actors killed Lincoln!") make him more of a perplexing character than meets the eye. But as many will know, the reason behind these seemingly out-of-character oddities is that in reality, he is (and I don't want to over-sell it here) one of the greatest and most insane criminal minds in the animated world. I am of course, referring to 'With Friends Like Steve's' €“ the episode in which Barry temporarily comes off his meds, and reveals his true villainous self. Despite being un-medicated for just 14 minutes and 37 seconds of airtime, he manages to bury Francine alive, send Steve off to a camp for wayward youth, eat a whole fly, and get through half a Monopoly game. That's rather efficient. And he did it all with the malevolent voice of 'Gary Oldman' according to Steve (I mean really? Do Americans think every Englishman sounds like Gary Oldman?). Nonetheless, 99% of the time Barry Robinson is the harmless, sweet-natured teenager we have all come to feel a sense of sympathy for, especially since the relentlessly soul-crushing barbs aimed at him by Stan ("Quiet fatty fat fat fatty!"). In essence, he deserves recognition in the form of a place on the list, as God knows he's not going to get it from his parents, because in the words of Barry himself, "They won't care, they never care."
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Occasional writer by day, asleep by night... and sometimes by day. Lives in a place near London no one's heard of.