TV dads. From the Brady Bunch guy to Bill Cosby to Bob Saget to Al Bundy, we can all agree that most of them suck. And that I don't remember the character and/or actor names. But, some TV dads etch themselves in our memories by being good enough dads to really EARN that annual tie gift, or being bad enough that they need to go to extensive Dad Camp and be forced to wear sweaters and make lame jokes until they are deemed competent enough to get their children back. Today we're counting down the best and the worst of the TV dads.
A few disclaimers before we begin:
-This isn't a comprehensive list. I don't watch everything in the world, ok, so this is only shows I have watched extensively. I would never presume to talk about things I don't actually know about, like the internet trolls who like to complain about the declining quality of a show they haven't actually watched in 20 years.
- This is only going to encompass comedies, horror-comedies, and dramedies, not dramas. I mean, how much fun would it be to write about a dad who has a slew of daughter-wives, a dad who forces his children into unwanted marriages, sentences his son to death, and then sleeps with his son's lover, or a dad who burns his 11-year-old daughter at the stake because a hot redhead told him to? We're sticking on the non-murdery side of things today. (And if you're upset about Game of Thrones spoilers, you're really late to the party.)
- These are not lists of my favorite and least favorite dad characters; I am judging them by how good or bad they are at being dads. So don't bother to ask, "Where are some of your all-time favorite characters, like Homer, or Hal from Malcolm in the Middle?" Well, they just didn't hit my good dad or my bad dad radar. Homer pretty much parents when Marge nudges him to, and Hal pretty much parents when Lois allows him to. You ask, "But Mandie, surely Peter Griffin will make the bad dad list for his treatment of Meg." To which I reply, come on, it's Meg.
Also I probably forgot a lot of dads because I wrote this list at 2 a.m. Anyway, without further ado, let us play good dad bad dad.
Bad Dad #5: Joseph Sugarman (BoJack Horseman)
Joseph Sugarman was the father of Beatrice, BoJack's mother. I don't believe BoJack ever met him, but we see him in Beatrice's flashbacks.
"Well, he's just a product of his time," you might try to excuse him. "There were lots of wealthy, standoffish, misogynist dads in the 1940's." Sure, maybe he couldn't entirely help being the way he was, but he did ruin the life of a daughter who could have been better.
After Beatrice's brother is killed in World War Two, her mother has a meltdown, and Joseph has her lobotomized so that he doesn't have to deal with women's hysteria. This leaves him to raise Beatrice alone, which consists of loveless grooming so that she can marry a wealthy suitor. From restricting what she eats (when pushing her to marry Corbin Creamerman of ice cream wealth, he suggests she could have all the ice cream she wants to ... serve to the men) to forbidding her from reading or independent thought (reading takes up space in women's brains that is better spent on hips and breasts), he makes Beatrice the miserable cynic that she is. It is because of Joseph that Beatrice feels the need to rebel, so she sneaks out of her own debutante party to sleep with a local nogoodnik and gets pregnant with BoJack.
This leads to an even more miserable life for Beatrice. Ironically, from the brief glimpses we get of Corbin, he actually was a good guy who would have treated her well. BoJack's father is nothing of the sort, and their resentment-filled marriage produces the hopelessly messed up character of BoJack. So, I guess, say what you will about Joseph; if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have a show.
Good Dad #5: Kyle Carson (BoJack Horseman)
Two BoJack Horseman characters in the same list? What is this, a crossover - oh, wait, that reference doesn't really work here.
Who wouldn't want a dad like Kyle? He appears in only 3 episodes, but he gets his own theme song. "It's, Kyle and the ki - ids, Kyle is the dad, and Charlotte's married to him" When BoJack decides to go find his long-lost crush Charlotte, he is dismayed when Charlotte tells him she can't wait to introduce him to Kyle and the kids. ("Please, tell me that's the name of a band you're in.")
Kyle is the ultimate stereotypical lovable dad. This is a family that eats dinner together every night, and Kyle believes it's not dinner until he gets there with his repertoire of dad jokes. He considers himself the comedian of the family. He's always happy and enthusiastic about things like phone surveys on cable service (he's been rehearsing a set for this one) and the implausible, greeting-card-inspired TV show "Birthday Dad" ("No, Birthday Dad! Don't cross the international date line! It won't be your birthday anymore!") And he's determined to be a goofy, lovable part of his kids' lives. When his daughter Penny is upset because she doesn't have a date for the prom, Charlotte and BoJack try to comfort her while Kyle immediately dons a tuxedo and a bouquet. However, BoJack has already agreed to take Penny to the prom. And, so, like the prior entry in this list, Kyle is a very minor character who plays a very major role in the show, sort of. If he'd gotten that tux on a little faster and he'd taken Penny rather than BoJack, then BoJack's life wouldn't have been ruined by the series of events that precipitated from ... you know what, I'm not going to spoil this show for you. It's worth watching and watching to the end, not like Game of Thrones where only one of those things is true.
Bad Dad #4: Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty)
It was tough to put Rick on this list because he's a great character and he really does love his daughter Beth, but that doesn't make him a great father.
Beth's mother dies when Beth is very young, due to a freak Rickcident, so Rick is left to raise Beth alone. Except, he doesn't, really. It seems he pretty much neglected his brilliant young daughter to go off and do space stuff, even though it's obvious she wanted to grow up to be just like him. He even created a rainbow-colored pseudo-reality called "Froopyland" he could shove her in to get her out of the way and distract her from her own mad scientist ambitions. It's evident that by the time Beth got pregnant at 17, Rick was pretty much totally absent.
Then, 17 years later, Rick is back and wants to be a part of their lives, which means that he is going to eat their food, constantly insult Beth's husband and children, and use Beth's son Morty as a sidekick on all his space adventures, which he continues to leave Beth out of because she's a boring mom now. Yet Beth continues to worship her father and is grateful for any attention he gives her.
A great example of this is the famous episode "Pickle Rick." Beth is trying to take the family to therapy, and Rick gets out of it by turning himself into a pickle. His plan backfires, leading to a series of bizarre misadventures that somehow drops him, in pickle form, right into the therapy office. Summer and Morty immediately realize that Rick turned himself into a pickle just to avoid therapy, but Beth refuses to believe that of her dad. When the truth is finally revealed and Rick is injected with anti-pickle serum to return to his human form, all is immediately forgiven when Rick asks Beth if she wants to go out for a drink. Beth is thrilled and forgets all about her attempt to get family therapy.
Is Rick a terrible father? No (we'll get to some of those later), but his crash-landing back into his adoring daughter's life after 17 years of absence and taking over what was probably previously a very boring, normal little family is not a dad-of-the-year move. But, without it, we wouldn't have a show.
Good Dad #4: Clancy Wiggum (The Simpsons)
Springfield's worst cop is also one of Springfield's best dads. He's kind of alone among adult animation dads in that fatherhood never seems like a chore to him. He's proud of his little Ralphie, encouraging all of his interests, even his imaginary friend, Wiggle Puppy. Sure, threatening to put a boot on Ms. Hoover's car if Ralphie didn't get cast in the school play was not a great move, but we know Clancy would have been there for Ralph whether or not he got cast, or whether or not he'd have to issue a gentle "Get off the stage, Ralphie" from the audience. Clancy's aim is always to keep his boy safe and happy. Just take a look at his voicemail message.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w63fEaWtM0Y
Another thing setting Clancy apart is that he's always shown as the parent taking care of and advocating for Ralph. We rarely see Sarah Wiggum (though we did finally get a Sarah-based episode in the last couple years, and might see more now that she's voiced by Megan Mullaly). The Wiggum boys are pretty much a perfect duo. They even walk alike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhu0agKDQYE
Bad Dad #3: Bill Ponderosa (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)
Who doesn't love the Ponderosas?
Siblings Dennis and Dee Reynolds decide they're going to try to make things work with their respective high school crushes, Maureen and Bill Ponderosa (also siblings). Things look like they won't work out when they meet up and realize Maureen is a cat-obsessed, unemployed buzzkill and Bill is married with two kids. Don't worry, though, that doesn't stop the two couples from hooking up. And, it turns out Bill isn't too concerned about the fact that he has kids. When they invite him to a "squashing our beefs" dinner under the pretense that his kids will be here, the conversation goes kind of like this:
Bill: ... My kids aren't really here, are they?
Mac and Dennis: ... no ...
Bill: Thank god, lets get wrecked
The best example of what kind of a dad Bill is is probably this clip from when Bill is attempting to drink himself to death at the bar and the gang seeks out his family to try to have an intervention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxxM3zrJ_gY
In a later episode, we find out that Bill's son is his drug dealer.
So, Bill should not be a father, but, as he admits in the episode where they try to figure out who is the father of Dee's baby, he is a sex addict that doesn't like condoms and may or may not be lying about having had a vasectomy. So there may be any number of little Pondys out there. Oh well. Possibly he's trying to build up a good dealer base.
Good Dad #3: Cleveland Brown (Family Guy, The Cleveland Show)
I'm a big fan of all three of the major MacFarlane animated comedies, and each has its own appeal. Family Guy is great if you want to watch a dark-humor sendup of the classic family sitcom, American Dad is great if you want to go on a madcap adventure, and The Cleveland Show is possibly the best equivalent to a "comfort food" show because it's about a family that actually loves each other.
Unlike his drinking buddies Peter and Joe, Cleveland is actually invested in his role as a father. He'll skip hanging out with the guys for obligations like their weekly family day or their inexplicable Christmas routine, spending the entire day listening to "A Very Slow Christmas" with Peabo Bryson. Like so many a Wiggum before him, he's dedicated to supporting and advocating for his socially awkward son. He also jumps right in to help father his new stepchildren, Roberta and Rallo, and even offers to take in the Griffin children when Peter is deemed an unfit parent after almost killing Lois with a deep fryer.
So, yeah, he's a MacFarlane dad, so he's going to do stupid things, but, as he sings in his now-canceled theme song, "Through good times and bad times, it's true love we share."
Bad Dad #2: Luther McDonald (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)
We are now getting into the territory of dads that never cared even a little about their offspring. Mac idolizes his perpetually incarcerated father, though none of the other characters understand why, as evidenced in the below clip:
Early in the series, after trying to coerce Mac and Charlie into some ... drug smuggling activities, Luther scares them so badly that they attempt to fake their own death. Yet Mac continues to long for his dad's love and approval. But this is a dad who gave his son the name "Ronald McDonald" just because he thought it was funny and still does, a dad who stands up and walks out of the room when his son tries to come out to him, a dad who multiple times has made his son fear for his own life. But, I don't know, maybe he's redeemable. Maybe they'll have that catch one day.
Good Dad #2: Joel Hammond (Santa Clarita Diet)
What do you when your realty business is struggling, your wife has turned into a semi-dead creature that craves human flesh, and your teenage daughter is playing hooky from school?
If you're Joel, you tackle every problem with equal dedication, no matter how nervous it makes you, no matter how much you can't stand the sight of blood. Whether you're sneaking into a morgue, taking care of the still-alive disembodied head in the basement, or going on a potentially lethal mission to share a strudel with a potentially undead man, you'll reluctantly throw yourself into the mission. And, the whole time, be concerned about your family's everyday lives. Is Sheila finding fulfillment at work? Is it possible Abby doesn't really want to go to college? Does she like the boy next door?
Joel manages the near-impossible task of being a loving husband and father while keeping the zombie apocalypse stemming from bad clams at bay. He ultimately joins the Knights of Serbia, an order devoted to ridding the world of the undead, specifically so he can keep his wife safe. It's almost a no-go when he finds out his daughter would be his heir upon his death and takes up his mantle. But, as the good dad he is, he realizes he can only protect so much before he listens to what Abby actually wants to do, and allows her to be his heir. The Hammond family is such a great unit. Shame they only got three seasons.
Bad Dad #1: Cal Jacobs (Euphoria)
While it's not typically my thing, I did get drawn into two raunchy high school soap opera type shows that aired over the past couple years: Sex Education and Euphoria. I think I watched Sex Education first, and Euphoria is Sex Education's less British, more controversial (there is sex but there is also drugz, which Sex Education lacks), vastly more popular cousin. Both shows feature a minor antagonist who is a dad that pushes his son so hard that the son is constantly unhappy and bullies others. But Euphoria's Cal Jacobs makes Sex Education's Mr. Groff look like a complete saint.
Hurt people hurt people. Nate Jacobs' one redeeming trait is that he might only be a monster because of his father, Cal. And when we finally get Cal's back story in season 2, we find out that the cycle of demanding, abusive fathers goes back at least one more generation. In the flashback, we see that teenage Cal was, like his son, a popular athlete under a lot of pressure, mostly from his father. Cal dated a popular girl just to keep up appearances, but his true feelings were for his best friend Derek. Cal and Derek did share one magical night together, only to wake up the next morning to a call from his girlfriend saying she was pregnant. Hence Nate.
Cal and Nate's relationship is one of the most effed-up father-son relationships I've ever seen. They clearly hate each other, but also are incredibly defensive of each other, possibly out of a need to protect the Jacobs name. The whole family must know Cal is having rendezvous in hotel rooms and sometimes taping them without the other person's consent, and Nate choked and traumatized his girlfriend, but still there is the need to keep up appearances.
The mutual protection ends the night Cal goes back to the bar where he and Derek first kissed, is kicked out of the bar, and then comes home and proceeds to pee all over the front hallway while laughing maniacally. Here we get one of the show's darkly funny moments; as Cal starts to unleash a lifetime's worth of pent-up words at his family, his wife and sons are fixated on asking him to put his **** away. Once he puts his **** away, things don't get much better. He tells Nate that he is the worst thing that he's ever done.
Is it ok that Cal did this because he had a shitty dad? No. Is it ok that Nate does the things he does because he has a shitty dad? Also no. One of the things I like about this show is that it gives characters backgrounds and motivations without necessarily redeeming them.
I guess the moral of this story is, don't be a shitty dad. Don't pay it Cal, pay it forward.
Good Dad #1: Bob Belcher (Bob's Burgers)
And we arrive at the winner of the dad award. Bob is a good dad almost to a fault. His passions on the surface are cooking and keeping the family restaurant in business, but deep down he's a family man more than anyone else on this list. I've blogged before about how I don't see how this restaurant could possibly stay open, and Bob is the only person in the family who seems to share my concern, but he will still always cave and close the restaurant to go on whatever zany adventure his family wants.
I get a lot of crap for this, but Linda's not a great mother. She's not going to make my bottom five moms if I ever write that blog I know you're all clamoring for, but I feel like she encourages her kids' weirdness and coddles them to a point that it is actually stunting them. Bob is the sane parent, but no less caring than Linda is. He listens to his children and tries to help them find practical solutions to their problems, unlike his wife, who seems to think the best solution for any problem is to let your freak flag fly and maybe even perform an impromptu song about it. I have no doubt that if it weren't for Bob, the restaurant would not exist and Linda and fam would be institutionalized.
Even though Bob is sometimes quietly frustrated with his children's ineptitude, he is still willing to do whatever he can to make them happy. He takes a second job and even shaves off his mustache so Tina can have the perfect birthday party, he pretends to be a My Little Pony superfan, infiltrates a convention, and even gets a partial tattoo so that Tina can get her favorite toy back, he gets his legs waxed so Tina won't be afraid to ... hmm, a lot of these are things he does for Tina. Is Tina grateful? Not really, she never really thanks him for the party, says she doesn't really like that horse toy anyway, and decides she actually likes having leg hair. But, Bob at least kind of enjoys the waxed feel. See, this is a guy who can find the positive in everything.
So, in conclusion, while this show would rank medium on the scale of animated comedies I've enjoyed, Bob is a freaking saint. And also kind of got me into veggie burgers. Hmm. I sure could go for a Father Knows Cress or a Make Shroom for Daddy right now.
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