Who's Your Daddy?

Episode 23 (click to play/pause)

Harold and Nicole talk about TV dads through the years, from Ward Cleaver to Cliff Huxtable to Bill Adama and beyond. They also discuss the ins and outs of downloading and streaming the shows they are planning to catch up with this summer -- on Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere.

Comments

[Denise]

The first TV dads I thought of were Bill Cosby, and Bob Saget from Full House. I liked Bob Saget's character because he wasn't one of those stereotypical dads; he cleaned, he cooked, he didn't sit on a chair watching tv with a bag of chips or have a big belly.

Bill Adama is the best currently-on-air father that I can think of. I'm not sure if either of you saw the mid-season finale, but the interaction between Bill and his son there was particularly touching.

[Jennygirl]

The dad from Family Ties. Tony Danza from Whose the Boss. I guess those two are from right before Cosby.
Can't really think of any current dads...the guy from Eureka on Sci-Fi. Actually there are two dads on there, but the main character is a dad and his daughter is on the show from time to time.
Hope you enjoy Damages. Love Glenn Close and the second season should be awesome!

[Liz]

How about Jack Bristow? After Keith Mars, he's one of my very favorite TV dads--terrifying at times (and with a bad record in Syd's childhood), but ultimately totally committed to his kid.

There's also a theme of bad fathers on Lost--it's definitely a thing with JJ Abrams. (Of course, whatever happens over the rest of the series may change that; is it possible that Christian Shephard might redeem himself, dead or alive, at the end?)

Oh, and another really great TV dad: Eric Taylor on FNL, who won my heart with the ping-pong scene in S1.

Mr. Weir on Freaks and Geeks: "You know what happened to him? He's dead!" Hee.

And I'm out.

[Lyerin]

Like other posters said, I thought of the dad on Full House and Family Ties. I also thought of that horrid show My Two Dads and Growing Pains. I think all of those shows were sort of around the Cosby Show time. Those shows were much more oriented on the family and less dad-centric than some of the others you mentioned.

When you discussed TV detective show dads, I thought of The Rockford Files - I recall that Jim Rockford's dad was on that show and in more modern times, Psych. Corbin Bernson's character on Psych is much more in the "tough love" camp than the dads on the more family-centric shows.

[Teresa]

Definitely agree with the Bill Cosby/ John Goodman assessments. Those two were the most prominent in my tv-watching adolescence. I loved the whole Roseanne dynamic, at least in its early years. Plus, I must now grudgingly admit, Bob Saget et al were regular fixtures. But that show was different, because it kind of had three father figures, and expanded the idea of the nuclear family. I don't want to give it credit as being a social pioneer, but maybe I must?

[Denise]

I just discovered something; you can only use Hulu in the US. I'm in Canada, so I wasn't able to use it.

[Elizabeth GM]

I trundled over here recently from the lovely Stash & Burn, and am really enjoying the episodes so far. Your conversations about television are really informed and thoughtful.

When you said that Bill Cosby marked a turning point for the dad as more human/teasing figure, I couldn't help but think: Nuh-uh! The dads on All in the Family and Sanford & Son did that way before The Cosby Show did.

And when you were talking about shows with absent-dad issues, I also thought of Friday Night Lights. (Amazing! Never did I think I would love a show about football so much. Of course, it's not really about football.) On that show, almost every dad is either completely absent or dysfunctional, except for the coach, who acts as a father figure to nearly everyone under the age of 30.

[Jennifer]

Another show buying option is XBox Live.

That's how we caught up with How I Met Your Mother.