Theatre
has had many purposes over the past few thousands years - To entertain,
to teach, to mystify. It still has these purposes today, and the people
who work in the film and television world understand this. No matter
what type of show you’re doing - Action, mystery, fantasy, sitcom, your
characters need to live up to reality. Even if the situations are
ridiculous and completely non-plausible, you need characters who at
least seem human in their personality and values. A value that millions
ofpeople can appreciate and relate to is family, and some shows on
television bring the concept of family into the foreground of the plot
fairly often. In these shows you get to see the good and the bad the
honest and the devious. But few things bring more happiness than an
honest, fun, and hard working Dad just trying to do right by their kid.
Of all the Dads on television today, I’ve compiled my list of my five
favorites.
1. Phil Dunphy - Modern Family
The very name of this show implies it’s about family, and throughout every episode no matter how frustrated or upset the characters get, they’re always there for each other at the end of the day. Phil Dunphy, the father of three children, Haley, Alex, and Luke, tries everyday to be a great father. Whether it’s helping his son with a science experiment or taking his daughter on college tours, he has an enthusiasm that makes you wish you could love life as much as he does. Everything from his nerdy impersonations to his embarrassing habits is lovable, and from time to time he brings it up to a serious level to show how much he cares.
One example of this is in season 4, episode 12, “Party Crasher”, where Haley starts dating a much older guy to annoy her parents. Claire tries to ignore it, knowing that if she pretends to go along with it Haley will get bored and dump him on her own. Phil, however, struggles throughout the entire episode and at the end when she goes off to get a hotel with this guy Phil runs after her.
Seconds after he gets on the elevator, however, Haley gets back off the second elevator and yells at her mother, saying she can’t believe she was going to let her go with him. She goes onto say that Dad doesn’t care either, and it feels like forever since he’s ever showed he’s cared. At this moment Phil comes back from the elevator to get the keys and says, “Give me the ticket to the car. I’m going after her, this little chicken game may work for your dad but it doesn’t work for me. That’s my little girl. I need her to know that no guy on Earth is good for her, let alone some slimy middle aged jeans salesman. “
On top of this he always helps his kids when they’re in trouble, even if it means wading into the moral gray area, and he’s insanely faithful to his wife. This man has everything down from the bad Dad jokes to the look of an attractive middle aged father. He’s basically the man.
In an early episode of Modern Family, Jay Pritchett says that most of being a Dad is just showing up. Phil Dunphy shows up time and time again. Though I don’t necessarily ever plan on having kids, if I do I hope I have the understanding and the spirit that Phil Dunphy has had throughout his entire adulthood. He never left that spirit behind in childhood, but rather embraced it and is still capable of being happy and excited about so many things. That’s the type of parent that I would like to be.
2. Bill Compton - True Blood
Although it could go unnoticed, Bill dedicates a lot of his time and energy to keep Jessica safe and teach her to embrace her vampiric ways. The best thing Bill ever says is in season 4, episode 7, “Grey Light Of Dawn”, when they are silvered together in the basement to protect themselves from a curse that will cause them to walk into the daylight. During this time, Jessica confesses that she feels she can longer love anybody because she broke Hoyt’s heart. She knows how much he loves her, but she doesn’t feel the same way.She says that she is incapable of loving and that she does not have a human heart. Bill replies, “Yes you do, if you’ve fallen out of love with him it does not mean you’ve lost your humanity.”
Bill does not tell Jessica what she needs to do or that she needs to apologize, but simply that falling out of love is as human as falling in love is. He reminds her that even vampires are, at their core, human. This is what a parent is supposed to do. Not many people are evil, or attempt to hurt others. Yet we do it anyways. We don’t mean to, we certainly don’t want to, but it happens. This scene is to show that even the sweetest of people, even the most put-together of people, are capable of hurting others.
3. George Altman - Suburgatory
Suburgatory is the story of a girl and her father who move from the city into the Suburbs, Chatswin, NY to be exact. A fictional town that lays outside the city. Why did they move, do you ask? Her Dad found condoms in her room and thought the city was corrupting her. Despite this overreaction, George Altman is overall a really good guy.
His daughter is the most important thing in his life. He puts her before everything - Sex, his job, a social life, where they live. She’s the most important thing to him and he’ll do anything to guarantee she’s safe and happy. On top of this, the relationship they have is a ridiculously mature one. Despite the fact that his daughter, Tessa, is 16, they’re able to talk about most things like two rational adults. Sure, from time to time George will go a little overboard (Like freaking out over another box of condoms) and Tessa will have to call him out on his bull****, but for the most part they get along really well.
Tessa’s Mother walked out on them when she was a lot younger, so George had a lot of slack to pick up. Being a single mother is the hardest job in the world, and the second hardest job is being a single Dad. But TV and movies are filled with great single Dads, like Bob Sagot on Full House and Marlin in Finding Nemo. George takes the feminine teach you need to be a good single Dad and exemplifies it, right down to rocking the Mom jeans in one episode. He goes all out on decorations for halloween, goes overboard with christmas, and gets involved in the town and at the school. He’s an all around great guy, and one of TV’s best single dads.
4. Michael Bluth - Arrested Development
The shows is about a family who lost everything, and the one son who tried to keep them all together. Or this is how Ron Howard describes it in the opening intro. Arrested Development is known for many things - It’s randomness, hilarity, well writing and topical references. Though as this is a show that is inherently about relationships, it’s easy to recognize the relationship that the main character Michael (Jason Bateman) shares with his son, George-Michael (Michael Sera).
Even though Michael is trying to get his father out of prison, keep the family from falling apart, keep the Bluth Company afloat and constantly helping GOB get out of his huge mistakes, he makes time for his son. Sometimes he does get sidetracked, but he always recognizes it and tries to rectify it. He does everything from Saturday morning bike rides to visiting his son at school to helping him be motivated to do well. Like all parents, he can get a little too intense at times, like when George-Michael brings home an A- on a test and Michael tells him he can do better. He realizes his mistake later in the episode, however, when he tells George-Michael to close his textbook and go have some fun.
Overall George-Michael is a good kid. He’s painfully shy and has an incestuous attraction to his cousin, but he always tries to do the right thing and be honest. He doesn’t want anybody in his family to be sad or disappointed and overall he always tries to do the right thing. Remember when I mentioned single Dads in the above post? Michael Bluth is also a single dad, his wife died years earlier. All of George-Michael’s moral values were instilled in him by Michael. For being the president of a defunct company and the leader of a dysfunctional family, he does a damn good job at raising his kid.
5. Ted Mosby - How I Met Your Mother
Ted Mosby is the most relatable character on television. If you argue with this point, you are either stubborn beyond the point of reason or you have never watched How I Met Your Mother. The guy is exactly what most people are like at that age - Unsure, nerdy, weird, socially awkward, and even at times hurtful and mean. He’s well-rounded, and we as an audience like that. So we know he’s going to be a great dad, but we can see how great of a dad he is by how his kids are: They don’t look drugged out or like they want to kill themselves, they’re happy and respectful. Though they tolerate that their dad has been telling them this story for 9 years they don’t interrupt or walk out. They’re good kids.
We can see from Ted’s personality in the episodes that he would be a good dad. He even says it in the first episode that he sucks at being single, but being a good boyfriend, a good husband, and a good father are the type of things he can do. He wants to instill in them all his nerdy wisdom (As he does in season 8 when they flash forward to 2015 and you see him watching Star Wars with his infant daughter). Dads are known for being nerdy, embarrassing, and rocking the bad jokes. Ted does all of these things. He’s ready to skip to the end and be done with the search for his true love, but without all of the stories and experiences that get him there it wouldn’t mean anything.
So in the future it’s assumed that Ted Mosby becomes a successful architect, has a loving marriage and loves his kids a lot. He has a big house, a great friend base that he never lost touch with, and I’m sure his kids’ friends love him too. He’s a likeable guy, and spent his whole life imagining having kids. So when he finally had them, he did everything he could to not screw it up. He tried, and when he failed he tried harder. Ted Mosby is the model of a great father, and overall a great guy.
