Fictional Guys I Would Least Like to Have as a Father
It is fathers day today. I was lucky enough to grow up with a great father figure. I’ve always had a good relationship with him- we have a lot of interests in common, he’s great to talk to, and as I’ve gotten older our relationship has evolved in great ways.
This morning I was thinking about those fathers day articles that come out every year. “Top Cartoon Dads” and Bob Belcher is always number one despite the child labor. “Craziest Dads on TV” and it’s some combination of guys that includes Peter Griffin, Tony Soprano, and the guy from Shameless.
This got me thinking- what are the worst dads? And after I realized that dead horse had already been sufficiently beaten I got around to thinking about the guys *I* would least like to have as my dad.
Michael Corleone: Imagine this- you get home from school, walk up the driveway, and open the door to the house. Your mother is upstairs doing something and your father, Michael Corleone is sitting at the kitchen table with one of those tiny espresso mugs. You go up to your father- he’s staring banefully across the room. You place your finger in the cup- ice cold- the espresso has been there for hours. You go upstairs to get your mom. You tell her that dad’s brooding again and she shrugs while muttering something about “The Family Business.”
I like to make up certain details about the media I take in. I think the “offscreen time” for a character is a great place for people to make up whatever they want. For example, I choose to believe that Frank and Karl from Succession had all of their meetings in separate beds in the same room, like Bert and Ernie. Nobody cares enough to disprove this so it’s a great time to run wild.
One of these theories is that the scenes in The Godfather series where Michael is staring off all sad and alone are actually a window into what he does for like 16 hours a day. These movies rarely show Michael’s day to day life- I choose to believe he kinda just sits there.
Garfield: If you know me personally you know I talk about Garfield a lot. Garfield is a perfect anti-hero. He’s lazy, he’s a jerk, he’s got enough comments from the peanut gallery to feed a baseball stadium and yet, you root for him. He’s the Tony Soprano of the funnies. We’ve all done menial tasks for our dad. “Hey will you grab that bag of pretzels?” “Hey will you mow the lawn?” You know, standard stuff.
Imagine every time your dad asks you to do one of these tasks it’s “make a whole lasagna,” so now you’ve gotta carve out two hours to go to the store, and make this lasagna, all for this orange fuck to throw the whole thing in the air, unhinge his jaw, and eat it in one bite. And then, chances are he’ll want more! I mean sure you’ll get really good at making lasagna, but that would still be an overall nightmare.
Zeus: Zeus is a pretty popular pick in the “bad dad” articles and for good reason- a lot of the popular myths including Zeus involve him getting something pregnant. It would be a statistical anomaly for Zeus to have as many children as he does without him messing up somewhere. When I think about the issues with being a child of Zeus I think about the sheer difficulty of keeping up with your siblings. Every day you have to send 30 “Happy Birthday” texts because you have 10,000 siblings. You’re at a cookout at your dad’s place and while in line you try to make conversation with your horse-brother and he doesn’t respond because he’s a horse. You can’t have thanksgiving at certain houses because the dog-siblings will counter surf. It just feels like a logistical nightmare that I frankly don’t have time for.
The Dude: Because I’m a white guy in his 20’s I’m contractually obligated to mention The Big Lebowski at least once in everything I write for the duration of my 20s. Despite that though, The Dude is very fitting here. Imagine trying to talk through life stuff, and the only advice your dad gives you is stuff like “you gotta go where the wind blows man” or something like that. I understand he’s wise, but sometimes you need to be direct when talking to a kid and this man is just too abstract. Every time there’s a parent-teacher conference your dad shows up in a bathrobe and flip flops. You spend 4–9 every school night at the bowling alley doing homework and stuff.
Curious George: This is less about the content of his character and more about his ability as a provider. New York City is no place for a little monkey, but a little monkey that is also responsible for a child? Forget it. You’re walking with your dad to the subway, he gets distracted by a fruit stand and now you’re stuck for an hour and you miss your dentist’s appointment. He can’t hold a steady job because he’s too busy with shenanigans to ever work a shift longer than two hours. You walk by the Empire State building and the sun reflects off of it the wrong way and suddenly your dad has scaled half the building looking for the shiny thing. You bury your head in your hands as onlookers record this monkey that is also your dad. Just overall I think this would be a bad situation for all parties involved.
Any 80’s-90’s Sitcom Dad: I decided to group all of these guys together because I would dislike being their child for the same reason- shenanigans. My wacky hijinks meter gets filled up pretty quickly, and I just don’t think I have the capacity for shenanigans that these men did. Even the dads that tended to play the “straight man” role in the family always had a friend or something that made sure shenanigans were gotten up to. Every day you come home from school and it’s SOMETHING- you have to help your single dad through two first dates (that he accidentally scheduled at the same restaurant at the same time… WHOOPS!), or he suddenly decides you are the perfect guinea pig for his new invention (sitcom dad’s love inventing stuff). Just overall seems like a less-than-ideal environment for a child.