6 TV fathers we wish were our dads
For Father’s Day, we’re honoring the TV patriarchs we always wished to call “Dad” ourselves.
Remember Uncle Phil of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Tony Micelli of “Who’s the Boss?” and Dan Conner of "Roseanne?” They weren’t just hilarious and entertaining archetypes — their diverse socioeconomic statuses, gender beliefs and family structures taught us that no household looks the same.
“TV shows about families that are ‘found’ and created versus traditional (are) important for kids to see,” Benjamin Morse, a visiting lecturer in New Media at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, tells TODAY.com. “Not everyone has a nuclear family.”
Morse says that nonconformist TV fathers may have guided modern dads who are more involved parents, according to Pew Research Center. That’s compared to generations exposed to orthodox TV fathers such as Mike Brady of “The Brady Bunch” in the 1960s and 1970s.
Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University tells TODAY.com that interesting TV dads “work through their own complex identities and (find) where masculinity fits into that.”
Learn more about our favorite surrogate TV dads. Adopt us, please!
The alpha dad
On “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” (1990 to 1996), Will Smith’s namesake character moves in with his wealthy Uncle Phil (played by the late James Avery), Aunt Vivian and their three spoiled children in Bel Air, Los Angeles, for a better upbringing.
“Uncle Phil is a buttoned-up man who keeps his house under control (in contrast to) Will’s clownish, youthful energy,” says L’Pree. She notes that Uncle Phil’s successful, assured character was the opposite of working-class TV dads painted “as failed men who we love to adore and laugh at.” We're looking at you, Homer Simpson.
L’Pree adds: “There’s an important class narrative when we think about these fathers and how socioeconomic class falls into issues of masculinity.” Basically, we take Uncle Phil seriously as a dad and husband, in part because he can provide for his family.
Uncle Phil was famous for his temper — he constantly (and literally) threw Will’s bestie Jazz out of the house, terrorized his daughters’ boyfriends, and his creative ideas for discipline were scary. Phil, however, always defended his children, even when they were wrong. He was wise enough to know that sometimes “parents just don’t understand.”
When Will’s absentee father Lou showed up with promises of a father-son bonding trip, Uncle Phil said no.
“The hell with your father!” yelled Phil. “He waltzes in here after ... 14 years and acts like nothing has happened! Wake up, Will. This is the same guy who didn’t think enough of you to pick up the damn phone!”
Lou inevitably flakes on Will and Uncle Phil comforts him in the series’ most powerful scene.
The helicopter dad
Tony Micelli (Tony Danza) is a former New York baseball player from who works as a housekeeper for single mom and advertising executive Angela Bower in “Who’s The Boss?” (1984 to 1992).
Tony was tough but very overprotective of daughter Samantha, and a father figure to Angela’s son Jonathan. With Jonathan’s birth dad absent, says L’Pree, “No one could undermine Tony’s unique masculinity.”
“Here we have a working-class man managing the home of an upper-class mom ... so the gender roles are flipped,” says L’Pree. “The joke was the title of the show because men are ‘supposed’ to be providers, but Angela is clearly the boss because she pays the bills. Viewers empathize with Tony’s struggle to hold an arguably feminized job and he provides this paradox of masculinity — he is attractive, muscular and a homemaker.”
“Who’s the Boss?’” says L’Pree, “was ahead of its time.”
Yes, Tony overthinks and overreacts: He nearly has a heart attack when Sam gets her first bra and her first hickey — and he waits until the eighth season to romance Angela — but his heart was in the right place.
The supportive dad
Johnny Rose, the wealthy CEO of a video store chain in “Schitt’s Creek” (2015 to 2020) didn’t pay much attention to his flamboyant wife Moira and their bratty children Alexis and David before they went broke.
When the family loses their mansion in a business scam, they flee to a remote town called Schitt’s Creek, which Johnny (Eugene Levy) once bought as a joke for David (played by Levy’s real-life son Dan Levy).
Stripped of maids, private jets and their celebrity circle, the Roses must confront each other — and themselves — for who they truly are.
Johnny makes up for lost time, organizing family activities, patiently (but lovingly) enduring Moira and her expansive wig collection and learning about his kids, even if he doesn’t know Alexis’ middle name.
It’s Johnny’s total and casual acceptance of David’s pansexuality that made him a dream dad.
“I just want you to know that I endorse all your sexual encounters,” Johnny told a mortified David when crossing paths with him and Stevie, an intermittent fling.
In the 2020 documentary “Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt’s Creek Farewell,” Dan Levy, who co-created the series with Eugene Levy, cried when receiving a joint letter from 1,800 “mama bears” of LGBTQ kids who were grateful for the show’s sensitive and respectful plot.
The girl dad
On “Full House” (1987 to 1995), Danny Tanner is a widowed single dad to daughters DJ, Stephanie and Michelle. Danny has a parenting “village” with best friend Joey and former brother-in-law Jesse.
“Danny was a fish out of water, raising three girls after losing his wife,” says L’Pree, who points out, “The joke was that men don’t know how to take care of children, much less little girls.”
No one laughed at Danny, though.
“Instead, we were triggered to empathise with Danny and laugh at the situations he found himself in,” L’Pree says.
Danny is sentimental, hilarious and obsessive when it comes to a clean home and a neat outfit. And we all deserved his gentle parenting.
When Stephanie calls for a ride home from a boy-girl party, Danny says, “You did the right thing. Calling home showed good judgment. You got yourself in an uncomfortable situation but you took control of it.” And when DJ embarked on an extreme diet, Danny reminded her, “Honey, people come in all different shapes and sizes.”
The no-nonsense dad
Dan Conner of “Roseanne” (1988 to 1997) is the sarcastic and involved father of Darlene, Becky, DJ and eventually Jerry.
Not only did Dan strive to be an equal spouse to Roseanne, he was her loyal defender. "There wasn’t any question about his sexual attraction for Roseanne, despite the public discourse around her physique as ‘unattractive,’” says L’Pree, invoking working-class TV dads with more conventionally attractive wives (for example, Al Bundy of “Married with Children” or Doug Heffernan of “King of Queens.”)
Dan was happy to play the “bad cop” parent and he shone as a protector when he beat up Aunt Jackie’s abusive boyfriend Fisher.
A parenting lesson was never wasted on Dan, whether he allowed an underage DJ to sip beer (“Remember that,” he said, when DJ winced at the taste) or doled out fatherly advice.
When Becky worried about not bonding with her premature baby, he shared: “Do you know all the awful things we did to you as a baby?”
Dan added, “Once, we left you on a bus and you went all the way to Navy Pier. We used a stroller we found in an alley and it folded up on you. And we laughed because we were high. The point is, you still love us, don’t you?”
The goofball dad
“I’m a cool dad, that’s my thing,” Phil Dunphy of “Modern Family” (2009 to 2020) once said. “I’m hip, I surf the web, I text ‘LOL,’ laugh out loud, ‘OMG,’ oh my god, 'WTF,’ why the face. I know all the dances to ‘High School Musical.’”
Phil, played by Ty Burrell, is a lovable, dorky dad to Haley, Luke and Alex, who prides himself on his unique parenting method: “Act like a parent, talk like a peer. I call it peer-enting.”
Sometimes it boomeranged, especially when he attempted to solve his children’s problems.
Phil’s coolest dad move is creating a book called “Phil’s-Osophies” to give to Haley when she leaves for college. The hardbound book held pages of life lessons such as, “If you get pulled over for speeding, tell the policeman your spouse has diarrhea” and “Dance until your feet hurt. Sing until your lungs hurt. Act until you’re William Hurt.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
