This week, Buzz Adams posted a Mount Rushmore of great tv Dads in honor of Father's Day. What about the screwed up ones?

Never has the call for equality and inclusiveness been louder than in these last few weeks. With that in mind, how about some props for the "bad" dads? Come on now, fair is fair. if someone is the best at something, then someone else is the worst. There must be a balance in the universe, much to my first Dads' chagrin.

  • Darth Vader. He may understand balance in the universes but, he doesn't seem to want it. Big Daddy Darth wants it all tipped his way as evidenced by the fact that he had his own daughter kidnapped, roughed up, and imprisoned solely because her political views differed from his. Then he cut off his sons' hand in a similar disagreement.
  • Peter Griffin. The Family Guy Dad may be a cartoon but, his Bad Dad skills are on point. He's an ignorant, self-absorbed neer do well who coddles a lazy and equally ignorant son, mentally and (somewhat) physically abuses his daughter all while routinely berating and embarrassing his poor, downtrodden wife. His free time is spent drinking too much with a sex addict neighbor and the family dog.
  • Al Bundy. This guy set the bar for Bad Dads back in the late '80s on Married With Children and is still the undisputed king of Bad Dad-dom. Watch any episode you choose and you'll see multiple examples of what I'm talking about. It's no wonder his wife, Peggy Bundy, left him for a show with the next 'Faulty Father".

There are spoilers in this one if you haven't finished all the episodes, just saying.

  • Tig. On Sons Of Anarchy, Peggy Bundy (as Gemma) has a new bad dad, Clay Morrow. He's no poster boy for good behavior but, he doesn't have kids of his own so he's off the hook here. (Though he does try and murder his stepson at one point and his stepdaughter in law at another.) This show is a case study in bad parenting on both patriarchal and matriarchal grounds. Anyway, I'll give the Mt. Rushmore honor to Tig. He's left two daughters adrift in the world, one with drug problems. Although he seems to care about them to some degree, he only sees one when she's begging him to help the other; and only sees the other when she's begging him for drug money. And, when she's being burned alive over something he did.

So there, with respect to my brother Buzz, is the other side of Mount Rushmore for you.

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