Greg Universe

"" is Steven's father who runs a local car-wash named "It's A Wash" and was previously involved in a romantic relationship with Rose Quartz.

Appearance
Greg appears as a plump man with a beige beard surrounding his mouth. Greg has taupe hair and eyes, with hair grown past his shoulders, and a large bald spot on the top of his head. He usually wears white tank tops, with long or short gray pants. He has a tan line on his shoulders and feet. (From his slippers, and possibly a shirt he wore before). Greg's skin color is a peachy red color, with the tan line spots being a light apricot color. He wears teal flip-flops, although he tends to go barefoot. In "Winter Forecast", he wears a purple dress-shirt with pinkish plum spots over his tank, a blue baseball cap with a red underside, and brown footwear. When he was younger, he bore a striking resemblance to Steven, but had earring pieces, longer hair that flowed past his waist, a sleeveless black shirt with a star on it, and jeans with light blue sandals.

Description
Greg Universe was once a traveling musician and a one-man band known as "Mr. Universe". Once he played a concert in Beach City, and the only person who came was Rose Quartz. After that they spent all their time together and eventually started a romantic relationship until Rose gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. He has since settled down in Beach City where he lives out in his van and owns a local car wash. Greg is an easy-going guy; his catchphrase is "If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."

He seems to be a little uncomfortable in dealing with Gem powers, which he refers to as "magic stuff." He chooses to avoid magic situations, unless Steven asks him for help. Greg also appears to have some mechanical skills as shown in "Space Race", where he built Steven a "rocket", and also helped Pearl build her rocket, although it should be noted Pearl did most of the work.

Major Appearances

 * "Laser Light Cannon"
 * "Cat Fingers"
 * "Coach Steven"
 * "Ocean Gem"
 * "House Guest"
 * "Space Race"
 * "Fusion Cuisine"
 * "Winter Forecast"
 * "Maximum Capacity"
 * "The Message"
 * "Story For Steven"
 * "We Need to Talk"

Minor Appearances

 * "Bubble Buddies" (Non-Speaking Cameo)
 * "So Many Birthdays" (mentioned)
 * "Onion Trade"
 * "Rose's Room" (Room's magic)
 * "Steven and the Stevens"
 * "Watermelon Steven"
 * "Lion 3: Straight to Video" (On Video Tape)
 * "The Return"
 * "Full Disclosure"
 * "Shirt Club"
 * "Say Uncle" (mentioned)
 * "Love Letters" (mentioned)
 * "Reformed"
 * "Chille Tid" (dream)

Steven Universe
Greg is Steven's father. The two have a good father-son relationship, but Greg seems to be trying to make things up to Steven. This may be because he doesn't believe himself to be the best father. In the episode "Laser Light Cannon" when Rose's old light cannon that Greg supplies to Steven and the Crystal Gems doesn't work at first, he says "It's okay, Steven! We'll figure out something else. Something even better!"

Even though Steven is his son and Greg was in a romantic relationship with Rose, who also had the power of the gems, he is still weirded-out (and maybe even scared) by the magic happenings that occur. However, even with his lack of understanding for these events, he always comes to his son's aid when he is needed (as seen when Steven turns into a cat monster in "Cat Fingers").

Greg isn't the current guardian of Steven. While Steven lives with the members of the Crystal Gems, Greg lives in his van, which remains near the car wash. However, even though they don't live together, Steven seems to visit Greg on a regular basis (as seen in the episode "Cat Fingers" when Steven helps out at the car wash).

Crystal Gems
The members of the Crystal Gems rarely interact with Greg, even though he is Steven's father and the partner of former Crystal Gem Rose Quartz. The reason behind this lack of communication is because even though they think Greg is nice, they think he is, as Amethyst describes it, "kind of a mess." Due to this fact, they advised Greg to stay out of "magical matters," as they were much more capable than him. Greg doesn't seem to mind, as he, like most humans, seems apprehensive, if not terrified, of "magic Gem stuff." However, even with their belief in Greg's questionable reliability, Greg has come to their aid when he is needed (as seen in "Laser Light Cannon") but so far this seems only because Steven asked him to.

Both Greg and the Gems also seem uncomfortable around each other due to the circumstances surrounding Steven's birth, and consequently Rose's "death". In "The Message", it is revealed that Greg is deeply saddened and hurt by the Gems constantly patronizing him, not thinking that he can offer any real help with their "magical matters". He expresses these feelings through a song about how all he wants is their approval and he has a very high opinion of the Gems.

Recently, it seems that the Crystal Gems and Greg have warmed up to each other, especially Greg and Amethyst.

In an in-character interview with Newsarama, Greg notes that "the Gems didn’t know much about raising a baby. That I get, I had that covered. But I don’t know much about being a Gem." This is likely one of the reasons he and Steven no longer live together.

Garnet
"Let me tell you something, Mr. Universe. I think you can do it."

Garnet is the one Crystal Gem who treats Greg with the most respect, although due to her mysterious nature she rarely shows it openly. She has however on several occasions openly voiced her support towards him, often in opposition to Pearl. In "We Need to Talk" it is Garnet who encourages him not to give up on trying to learn how to perform a fusion dance in order to fuse with Rose. The episode strongly implies that she did so because she had seen, with her Future Vision, that while he would never be able to fuse with her, the act of trying would force the two to have a "real talk". This confrontation between him and Rose forced the two to talk about their relationship on more serious terms, and in the end they decided to try their best at making it work despite the difficulties of a human being involved with a Gem. In "The Message" she is the one who convinces Pearl to give him a second chance at trying to decode the message, and she properly thanks him when he is successful, giving him their much desired approval.

Amethyst
"I had someone who was always there for me until she started hanging out with you!"

Amethyst and Greg used to get along very well. Amethyst's immature (by Gem standards) attitude, as well as her love for human activities such as eating and slacking off goes hand-in-hand with his personality. When the Crystal Gems first met Greg, young Amethyst was the least reserved and most curious about him - acting like an excited animal around him.

Their friendly relationship continued throughout the years and they spent a lot of time together doing stuff like watching marathons of their favorite TV sitcom Lil' Butler. However, with Rose's passing came a change in their relationship as it is implied in "Maximum Capacity" that their relationship went sour because of Amethyst starting to hold a grudge against him for "taking" Rose away from her which eventually lead to an unspecified confrontation which resulted in them calling their relationship off. The episode reveals that it involved shape-shifting, and that it caused Greg to be especially uncomfortable around shape-shifting in comparison to other "magical Gem stuff".

The episode leads to yet another meltdown as they are trying to rekindle their relationship, but this time it seems the two seem to reach an understanding instead, hinting at their relationship being mended.

Pearl
"Rose may find you charming, but that's only because you're human. You're a novelty at best."

Greg and Pearl started out as bitter rivals for Rose's love - or rather, Pearl saw Greg as such. Pearl who had always loved Rose, yet have had to watch her go through many, many human "phases" before Greg was very antagonistic towards him. She constantly berated him and made every effort to remind him that as a human, he would never be able to be close to a Gem such as Rose. In "We Need to Talk" she does this through convincing Rose to fuse with her into the fusion Gem Rainbow Quartz only to prove this point to him; as a human he can't fuse with Rose and as such will never be as close to her as Pearl is. Ironically this is what causes him to try to learn how to fuse, which ends up forcing him and Rose to have a "real talk" about their relationship - a talk which the two of them emerge closer than ever from.

In the episodes set in the current time, Pearl still acts condescendingly and resentfully towards him. However, as the show progresses she loses this attitude bit by bit and seems to forgive him more and more. After the events of "Ocean Gem" she is seen fixing his van on her own, and in "Reformed" the two are actually hanging out alone while tinkering with his van. This apparent forgiveness seems to bother her on some level as in "Chille Tid" she has a very mysterious nightmare where Greg (dressed as Rose) thanks her for "fixing (his) van!".

Rose
"I don't know what a magical lady like that ever saw in a plain old dope like me..." Rose Quartz was the romantic partner to Greg before she gave up her physical form to bring Steven into existence. Not much else is known about Rose's relationship with Greg except for they met when she was the only attendee at one of Greg's concerts in Beach City back when he was a one-man band. Greg seems to consider himself very lucky to have met Rose.

We also see that in the episode "We Need to Talk", that his relationship with Rose started off a bit rocky, with Rose not understanding how each individual human worked, and Greg not entirely understanding the Gem species. The two, however, decide that they can and they will work out their relationship despite them differing in many ways.

Mr. & Dr. Maheswaran
"The Maheswarans think I'm a responsible parent, and I got to maintain that image." Greg desperately want to come off as a good, responsible parent in the eyes of Connie's parents and makes every effort to earn their approval, with mixed results: in one possible future in "Winter Forecast" he walked the children home to Connie's through a blizzard because he thought that was what a responsible parent would do. This ended up only angering her parents as Connie caught a cold in the process. In another possible future in the same episode where he did manage to drive Connie home in time, her parents were very welcoming towards the Universes (even inviting them to stay the night to avoid driving home during the raging blizzard) indicating that as long as he doesn't make a mess of things they have warmed up towards him and Steven.

Marty
"Yeah, he's just an old amigo from way back when. He's dead to me." Greg's original manager when he was still the one-man musician "Mr. Universe". He was very exploitative of Greg, deciding every single move he made as a musician, and even taking 75 percent of his earnings. After telling Greg that he was just a "spaced out kid" (while almost crashing Greg's van) they had a falling out and Greg went to Rose, presumably beginning his life in Beach City. While Greg initially bluntly states that Marty is "dead to him", he is glad for their falling out as it made him stay in Beach City, and at the conclusion of his story to Steven he realizes that he has Marty to thank giving him the chance to meet Rose and puts the photo of himself and Marty up on a shelf in the van.

Trivia

 * Despite his reluctance to become involved in Gem affairs, he still seems to know quite a lot about Gem history and their invasion on Earth. This is most likely due to his marriage to Rose and his prior involvement with The Crystal Gems.
 * He was the third human character introduced.
 * Rebecca Sugar has stated that Greg was her favorite character.
 * Greg Universe's catchphrase is "If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."
 * The catchphrase was said 3 1/2 times in "Laser Light Cannon". The last one (4th one) was said by Steven, but Greg cut him off when his van got carried away by the ocean tide.
 * Pearl mentioned the catchphrase in "Ocean Gem" when Greg's van was destroyed including the steering wheel that Pearl was holding.
 * Judging from his catchphrase, as well as his picture with Rose Quartz, his favorite food is most likely hot dogs.
 * This catchphrase was said by Steven again in "The Return" to activate the 4 Laser Light Cannons used to fire at the Gem Warship.
 * The first song we hear Greg sing is "Let Me Drive My Van into Your Heart".
 * It has been revealed in "Maximum Capacity" that Greg doesn't like shape shifting. Although it was previously implied that he was uncomfortable with Amethyst's shape shifting in "Cat Fingers" based on his uncomfortable expression upon viewing it.
 * It's implied heavily that the reason he doesn't like it is because Amethyst has used it to torment him in the past, shown when she shifted into Rose in "Maximum Capacity".
 * His voice actor, Tom Scharpling, also voices Yellowtail, Onion's Dad.
 * He is the second person to perform a duet, "Dear Old Dad", with Steven, the first being Pearl with "Strong in the Real Way" and the third being Amethyst with "On The Run"
 * Greg has a second duet in the episode " We Need to Talk ," this time with Rose Quartz.
 * According to an interview, favorite comic books include many kid-oriented titles published by Harvey Comics, such as Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost, which he has given to Steven, and the more adult-oriented SF comic Heavy Metal, which he says Steven will get when he's older.
 * It is possible that "Greg" is short for "Gregory" as Amethyst calls him that in "The Message".
 * It was revealed in "Story for Steven" that Greg dropped out of community college to pursue his music career, though he ended up failing after he decided to get together with Rose.
 * Greg is out of touch with pop culture, commenting in "Reformed" that he doesn't understand anything anymore when asked if he understood Crying Breakfast Friends.
 * He is the third human being shown using a Warp pad, the first two being Sadie and Lars.
 * He also is the first human to use the Warp pad by his own will.
 * In "Story for Steven" Marty refers to Greg as "Star Child". This may have been a reference to rock singer Paul Stanley, who is also often called the "Star Child".
 * in "We Need to Talk," Greg is the first Human to attempt Gem-on-Human fusion.
 * Greg has recorded at least two albums: Space Train to the Cosmos and Let Me Drive My Van into Your Heart.
 * As of The Message, he is working on a third album, Water Witch.

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