My Show’s Dad is Better Than Your Show’s Dad
I thought becoming a dad would make me like the fathers I watched on television as a kid. Fathers used to be represented on television by straight-talking, reliable, sturdy, pipe-smoking and cardigan-wearing stalwarts of society. Men like Mr Cunningham in Happy Days (you know you’re a father when your first name is ‘Mr’); or Ward Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, who always had great advice for the boys and was patient, but did nickname his son after female genitalia.
Ben Cartwright, the father, or ‘Pa’, in Bonanza, was a white-haired bear of a man living on a huge ranch with his three grown sons, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe (who left the ranch, grew a mullet and became Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie). Also on the ranch were a male Chinese cook (Hop Sing) and a ranch hand called Candy. That’s six grown men, thousands of cattle and not a woman in sight. I don’t think I’d call that a bonanza.
Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons was quite a big movie star in the fifties and sixties, and to get him for television they had to film all his scenes early in production, so that he could go off to his ranch. This meant that in all those heartfelt scenes between the father and his three sons, the boys were actually talking to a broom head.
The older style of TV fatherhood must have made it incredibly hard to be a father in real life. There is no way to be that understanding, even-tempered and generally omnipotent, except in the constructed imaginations of a script writer. The old TV fathers were created in a period when the whole family used to sit down to watch TV together. Later, it was discovered that women and children ruled the TV, so programs were assembled for their consumption. This could be one of the reasons that fathers became more foolish and laughable. This isn’t a bad thing, as it takes away the pressure of having to be a square-jawed wise man, or, more importantly, having to wear a cardigan.
More recently, Bill Cosby in the aptly titled Bill Cosby Show was a doctor who punished with the velvet glove of humour, leaving no marks except internal ones. But Homer Simpson is the most honest representation of fatherhood on television, because he loves his family but doesn’t have all the answers (Homer: You can’t keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on). Most people see Homer as a lazy slob, but let’s look at some of the facts: Homer Jay Simpson, six feet tall, 239–263 lbs, born 1955–56; husband to Marge, father of three (Bart, Lisa and Maggie); safety inspector in a nuclear power plant; likes to lie on the couch watching TV and drinking beer; hangs out at Moe’s bar; has been a football mascot (Dancing Homer), been to space on the shuttle, stopped a nuclear meltdown, invented a cocktail (Flaming Moe) and a car, run a snow-plough business, had a triple bypass, got a Grammy (thanks to his barbershop quartet), went to college; and became a vigilante, a bowling champion, a novelty act in Lollapalooza and an artist. Homer’s not lazy – he’s a legend.
Fatherhood in real life is a crap shoot for which the only learning is experience, and that’s why I love Homer. TV dads also used to have full heads of hair and a solution to every problem, and Homer Simpson broke the mould with his hairless dome and an honesty that is a lesson to fathers everywhere:
Homer: I promise you kids lots of things. That’s what makes me such a good father!
Lisa: Actually, keeping promises would make you a good father.
Homer: No, that would make me a great father.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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