Stan attended John DeLorean High School in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Stan was a very unpopular student and had terrible acne. He got pranked by the popular students while at the prom by being crushed by falling pigs which was a parody of Stephen King's Carrie, where pigs blood is dropped from the roof, but one of the pranksters only read "pigs", and not "blood". Because the school is named after John DeLorean, who was born in Michigan, it is likely that Stan is from Michigan, although it has been shown that Stan lived in New York in 1970. 20 years ago, Stan, then a college student, met his future wife Francine. She was hitch-hiking and Stan gave her a ride. As he was driving, he accidentally ran over a raccoon, which he shot and killed to put it out of its misery. Francine thought it was the most compassionate act she ever saw, and he got to kill something. They started dating and got married later that same year. At some point in Stan's childhood, he was given bad advice about sex, leading to Stan's belief that masturbation would lead to hair growing on his palms and his eyes melting, a belief which Stan almost passed on to his son.

• Stan and his daughter Hayley were the first two characters that were conceived and created for the series.
• Stan's voice is based on the announcers of 1950s American anti-communist propaganda films. MacFarlane has said Stan's voice is the most exhausting to perform out of all the voices he's done in both Family Guy and American Dad!.
• Stan has been described as "terrible" at sex throughout the series. In the episode "When A Stan Loves A Woman" Francine claims Stan has "forgotten how to get a boner" (although what happens is not that men forget how to have erections, but there are physical problems that cause erectile dysfunction), and in the episode "Tearjerker" Francine's character "Sexpuntocome" sleeps with Stan for the first time and says "Oh my God, you really are a virgin." Stan replies "What, that's not good?" Francine then says "No, it's awful."
• His First name is unknown. Up to season 4 he is called Stanley; however in One Little Word he is called Staniel, and in Choosy Wives Choosy Smith he is called Stanford.
• In the seventeenth season episode of The Simpsons called "The Italian Bob", Stan, along with Peter Griffin from Family Guy, is seen in the Italian police book. Stan is guilty of Plagiarismo Di Plagiarismo (pseudo-Italian for plagiarism of plagiarism, which is the Simpsons writers' way of saying that American Dad! is a rip-off of Family Guy which is already considered by some Simpson writers and detractors of Family Guy as a rip-off of The Simpsons. However, Family Guy and American Dad are made by the same people). .
• Stan appeared alongside Avery Bullock in the Family Guy episode "Lois Kills Stewie", although this episode turned out to be a computer simulation. In the episode Stewie Griffin calls Stan "Joe" when he first meets him, most likely because he shares many traits with Family Guy character Joe Swanson (like his chin and body type, which is athletic).

• American Dad! on SideReel
• Stan Smith on Wikipedia
• American Dad! on Wikipedia