American Dad!
Disproportionate Retribution in this series. Klaus: You're going to kill five people over $20?!
Roger: Are you really asking that to the guy who just last week killed six people over 19 dollars?
Roger: Are you really asking that to the guy who just last week killed six people over 19 dollars?
- Roger is the epitome of this trope, committing extremely intricate plots for Revenge that traumatize or outright destroy the life of a fellow that commits some minor offense towards him. He managed to convince Steve he was adopted after eating a cookie he claimed was his, he labeled Francine a former mental patient to houseguests for compromising one of his dress-up acts (he did not study Economics), and once tried to destroy the entire planet over an insult issued from Stan (though admittedly didn't get far with that one). And this is just for petty offenses; for the more criminal act of buying an expensive ring using his credit account, Roger actively proceeds to destroy the perpetrator's life in every manner possible, performing acts that cost him his job, his girlfriend, and later attempting to destroy all his possessions. This leads to complications when said perpetrator turns out to be a Split Personality formed from Roger's few redeeming aspects — and when said split personality hires an assassin to kill Roger for ruining his life.
- Roger proceeded to exaggerate this trope in the season 7 episode "Virtual In-Stanity" where he kills five people (and, as collateral damage, everyone on a flight). Not because they were obnoxious jerks, but because they didn't pay him over $20 for limo service. During the episode, he mentions that the week before, he killed six people over $19.
- On at least one occasion, Roger did this to help someone else. In "A Ward Show", Steve got beat up by three teachers, so Roger, currently his legal guardian while Stan and Francine were out of town, planted bombs in their cars (And inside one of them) instead of just reporting them to the school board.
- Roger was also the victim of this in "Frannie 911". He spent the first half of the episode acting like one hell of a Spoiled Brat but spent the second half acting very well-behaved in order to redeem himself, only to reveal that he has a biological need to be a Jerkass that slowly poisons him if not acted upon. (A few much-needed scathing insults to Steve restore his health in the nick of time.) Despite what he just went through to redeem himself, the Smith family still felt his earlier behavior warranted a beating from Stan. One wonders if this could be a Freudian Excuse for his later sociopathy. The episodes after "Frannie 911" even had members of the Smith family continue to chew Roger out for his behavior even though he has to behave that way in order to live, implying that when he said that any form of empathy or altruism is toxic to his species, they either forgot or didn't believe him but the latter is suggested. Such examples include when Hayley tested Roger to see if Roger had altruism in him by buying his home star and pretending to be its queen, which results in Roger slaughtering a goat Hayley donated to an African family and then feeding it to her for dinner to get back at her for forcing him into that test. Another example also had Steve chew Roger out and call him selfish with that episode involving Roger attempting to prove Steve wrong by teaching underprivileged kids with Steve falsely doubting Roger and getting Roger fired from his job by framing him for drinking on the job.
- Roger also falls victim to this from time to time. The way Stan punishes Roger a lot in the series is simply by beating him up, which technically does count as assault but Stan overlooks this due to Roger not being human. Compared to how Stan punishes Steve and Hayley, which is usually by grounding them the way Stan punishes Roger could be seen as abusive as he often does it even at times when Roger does not really deserve it. Such an example can be found in "Not So Desperate Housewives" when Stan beats up Rogers and throws him through a wall just because Roger was bonding with a dog named Fussy, which bonded with Stan but left him for Roger.
- It is heavily implied in "Lost In Space" that Emperor Zing had Roger banished from his homeworld because Roger cheated on Zing with another man. What makes this disproportionate was that Roger initially thought that he was sent to Earth on a mission to decide that planet's fate but later found out that he was sent there as a crash test dummy through a cruel letter that was written and taped to his ship. Of course, Roger was devastated because of this, not knowing why his own people would do such a thing to him, which implies that Zing never told Roger that he was banished and instead disguised the whole punishment as a mission for the sake of revenge. It would also explain Zing's further behavior in the episode he appeared in and why Roger pushed Jeff into the spaceship as Roger probably figured out why he was sent to Earth as a test dummy by this time.
- In "Shallow Vows", Roger, as Valik (one of his personas) goes as far as stabbing Steve for not buying Francine and Stan a wedding renewal present he found acceptable. Not only this, but he pursued the clearly frightened Hayley and Steve through Mexico.
- In "Great Space Roaster", the Smiths trick Roger into coming to a roast. Heartbroken, he pretends to turn over a new leaf before repeatedly attempting to murder them, escaping when they send him to a maximum security prison in Thailand and following them when they get onboard a space station. It's heavily implied in that episode that Roger wanted to be roasted literally for his birthday and didn't have any idea what a comedy roast actually was, meaning that the events of that episode were caused by a huge misunderstanding.
- Steve also exacted revenge on three of the most popular girls in his high school when they slandered his girlfriend's reputation and had the lead cheerleader win the student body president because of it. Steve goes out of his way to do the following:
- Tie the school's buffalo mascot on the pole of a traffic light so one of the popular girls would drive under it while giving the animal a huge amount of laxatives, causing it to dump its "load" all over her.
- Distract a surgeon giving liposuction to one of the girls so he can put the procedure in reverse, causing her leg to swell with excess fat so she looks like a freak.
- Steal the lead girl's teddy bear, pay a hooker to do sexual stuff to it, and then return the bear so the girl contracts herpes.
- Steve ends up a victim of this at the end when Principal Lewis (the father of one of the girls) organizes the entire school to give Steve a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. His friends are also granted the same punishment for actually framing the girls for the slander (being jealous of Steve's girlfriend) and thus angering Steve to commit the acts in the first place.
- One episode shows Stan taking Francine to a hypnotist for 20 years to make her forget everything she wanted to do just so he can avoid having a meaningful discussion with her. The hypnotist snaps and decides to make Francine remember everything he had made her repress all because Stan never offered him a sandwich in the 20 years he had been seeing him.
- When Stan is talking about his childhood, he says: "When my parents wouldn't let me have a fourth cupcake, I burned down their summer home. When caught, I framed my favorite grandfather. I don't know why I did it."
- In one episode, Stan finds a new best friend who is an Atheist. Stan, refusing to be friends with someone who denies God, starts ruining his entire life behind his back in the hopes he'll turn to God, doing things such as forcing him to have a near-death experience, brainwashing his wife to become a lesbian who then leaves him and takes the kids, and destroying his business, all of which drives him to suicide. He pulls through, but reveals he temporarily died and went to Hell for the sin of suicide, vowed allegiance to the devil, and became a Satanist, causing Stan's whole plan to backfire.
- Another episode "Season's Beatings" features Stan acting out this kind of retribution again after he tries to audition in the mall's Christmas play for the role of Jesus but instead gets rejected from that role because he's too fat and is forced to become a mall Santa. He soon finds out that Roger got the role of Jesus and taking into account the fact that Roger is technically an atheist and not Christian combined with his hedonism, makes Stan consider the role Roger has taken to be an act of sacrilege. As a result, Stan beats up Roger again (and he does this in public while he and Roger were still in their costumes). Stan gets excommunicated from his church as a result because he created a scene that looked blasphemous due to the costumes... along with the fact that Stan shouted at Roger, "You don't deserve to be on that cross, you lazy, wine-loving bisexual!" Even after all of this, Stan fully blames Roger for the entire ordeal and forces him to help Stan get back into the church that has happened even though the whole incident was partly Stan's fault too since Stan let his anger get the best of him in public and he fails to acknowledge that it was his anger that got him in trouble with the church in the first place.
- Pretty much most of the things Stan does is this. Still, the worst example is his actions in "Four Little Words" where he went through great extremes to the point of framing Francine for murder and covering up Bullock accidentally killing Francine's friend for the entire purpose of Stan not wanting to hear Francine tell him "I told you so".
- In "The Unincludeds", after Roger and Hayley get food at a restaurant, he goes on to hatch a plan that culminates in him scalping the waitress all because she complimented Hayley's order and not his.
- Santa Claus has also done this to the Smiths. Being horrified about being shot and buried in the woods is one thing, but instead of letting them explain, his first thought was revenge. Since then, he's been making threats to them non-stop.
