Top 5: Single Dads on TV

I've been tossing around the idea of writing a Top 5 about single parents on TV, and with Father's Day this past weekend, it seemed like the perfect time to showcase some TV dads. There have been lots of single parents on the small screen over the years, from The Andy Griffith Show to Gilmore Girls, but I'm only going to cover shows that have run during my lifetime, and that I've seen, which admittedly narrows it down, but write what you know, right? So these are my Top 5 TV Single Dads.

5. Alan Harper, Two and a Half Men

Alan (Jon Cryer) is a single dad forced to move in with his brother Charlie (Charlie Sheen) after a divorce from his son Jake's mother. He's the intellectual type with a propensity towards awkward social skills, particularly with women. He really wants to be a good dad but struggles to connect with his son, who is arguably one of the dullest tools in the shed. Despite a ridiculous ex-wife, a rich womanizing brother, and an uppity domineering mother, he's the most level-headed in the bunch and tries hard to be a stable and loving father.



4. Jimmy Chance, Raising Hope

Jimmy (Lucas Neff) is a 23-year-old kid who finds himself raising a baby girl after impregnating a one-night-stand who drops the child, Hope, off on her way to jail for murder. It's a weird premise, and continues to get weirder. Jimmy lives with his kooky parents Virginia and Burt and his grandmother Maw Maw (Cloris Leachman), who suffers from Alzheimer's and barely makes sense. The family is at the lower end of middle class, scrounging to make ends meet by working as pool cleaners and grocery baggers, but they always put family first and want what is best for baby Hope. Jimmy is always trying hard to give his daughter a good childhood, even if it means the rest of his life is a disaster.


3. Chaz Finster, Rugrats

I watched a lot of Rugrats as a kid, and unlike now, most shows I watched growing up featured a set of happily married parents. Now if you turn on a kid's channel you'd be hard pressed to find married parents - if you can locate parents at all. For some reason a lot of shows feature kids living with siblings or off at boarding schools, which is weird to me, but I'm not 12 anymore, so maybe that's acceptable? Looking back, this show featured a lot of adults who were pretty oblivious, but Chaz, the widowed father of the loveable red-haired Chuckie, was always there for his son. He hugged him when he was scared, tended to him when he had the sniffles, and in a particularly touching episode, told him stories of his deceased mom. Chaz, like Alan Harper, is rather square and awkward, but it works out for him - before the end of the series, he remarries a woman from Japan and adopts her daughter, Kimi.

2. Burt Hummel, Glee

I'm not a huge Glee fan, but I have to give props to single dad Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley), father of glee club member Kurt. Burt is a mechanic and lover of sports - your basic small-town "man's man" - raising a gay son. Despite not understanding his son most of the time, Burt is supportive of Kurt's lifestyle and often stands up for him and encourages him in his singing and acting career. He's a caring dad trying to figure out how to raise a homosexual teenager who's temper sometimes gets the best of him, especially when it comes to Kurt. There aren't a lot of parents like him on television today.



1. Danny Tanner, Full House

Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) is the quiniessential TV single dad. Raising three girls after the death of his wife, Danny works hard to provide for his kids while enlisting the help of his brother-in-law Jesse and best friend, Joey. The three guys becomes best friends and band together to help out Danny and his daughters. While the series is full of outlandish storylines and way too many sappy morals (what my sister and I call "overripe banana moments" for being so mushy it's disgusting), we all watched the show and rooted for the single dad taking care of precocious girls during the 90s. He'll probably go down in history alongside Bill Cosby as one of the greatest TV fathers.