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Home › Articles › Special Features › TV Dads: Have They Really Changed That Much?

TV Dads: Have They Really Changed That Much?

By Felicia Hodges

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Ozzie Nelson. Andy Griffith. Rob Petrie. Mike Brady. James Evans. Heathcliff Huxtable. Even if you aren't really a television buff, these names are probably a little familiar to you. They are all TV fathers who have doled out love, advice and a little bit of punishment whenever it was necessary to their sit-com families over the last few decades. We got to see them do their thing each week -- and again now as syndication and Nick at Nite reruns -- right from the comfort of our own living rooms in stereo and full color (or digitally-enhanced black and white).

A lot has changed since Ward Cleaver sent the Beaver to his room for stretching the truth a bit too much. Children today can get into a lot worse trouble than ruining a Sunday suit by washing it in a whole box of laundry soap. But have television dads really changed all that much?

The Seventies
Can you remember sitting in your family room in the La-Z-Boy staring at the tube and thanking the powers that be that neither Archie Bunker (of "All in the Family") nor George Jefferson (from "The Jeffersons") were your father? Sure, we laughed, but talk about dysfunction! We know they had children (Gloria and Lionel respectively), but we wondered how they ever grew into adulthood with such narrow-minded fools helping rear them.

And Fred Sanford (remember "Sanford and Son?") was no different. No matter how old you were when you first heard that opening theme and watched that raggedy truck drive down the street, somehow you knew that dads like Fred definitely had their own thing happening. It wasn't the junkyard or the constant hypochondria-induced heart attacks. It was just him. Didn't you wish that Elizabeth would come get him already?

It's a shame we had to go back 50 years or more (to "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie") or make jokes about real poverty (in "Good Times") to find decent, hard-working, self-respecting dads who didn't have such warped ideas about the world around them. We knew they loved their families and, although their discipline was tough, we trusted their judgment and appreciated their respect for their surroundings.

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