"Who's the world's favorite TV Dad?" Andy Taylor with his homespun advice, or Cliff Huxtable with is humorous teachings? Did your favorite Dad make the list?
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#1 Charles Ingalls
TV Show: Little House On The Prairie
Played By: Michael Landon
Year Show Started: 1974
Based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's series of "Little House" books, this drama series revolved around the 1870s adventures of the Ingalls family -- father Charles was the glue that held everything together on the prairie. He always managed to give sage advice and make sure his family survived the brutal hardships.
#2 Andy Taylor
TV Show: The Andy Griffith Show
Played By: Andy Griffith
Year Show Started: 1960
Andy Taylor is the widower sheriff of the small, sleepy North Carolina town of Mayberry. Andy and son Opie live with Aunt Bee, who takes care of the family. As the sheriff he is busy but with his son and Aunt, he always seems to be the rock they come to lean on.
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#3 Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable
TV Show: The Cosby Show
Played by: Bill Cosby
Year Show Started: 1984
Dr Huxtable was known as the worlds FATHER in the mid 1980's. The Cosby Show was the epitome of family values and real life at the time. Cliff, as the father, was the one who everyone turned to when push came to shove. Usually with a wild sense of dry humor.
#4 Ward Cleaver
TV Show: Leave It To Beaver
Played By: Hugh Beaumont
Year Show Started: 1957
Ward and his wife, June, are often invoked as archetypal suburban parents of the babyboomer 1950s. The couple are the parents of Wally, a thirteen-year-old in the eighth grade, and seven-year-old ("almost eight") second-grader Theodore, nicknamed "The Beaver". Ward's principal dramatic function in the series is to end each episode with moral instruction for one or both of his errant sons.
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#5 John Walton
TV Show: The Waltons
Played By: Ralph Waite
Year Show Started: 1971
Family patriarch John, called Daddy by his children, is a hard-working, industrious man who runs a small family sawmill on his property on Walton's Mountain, who is also the main character of the series. Sometimes called brash, even towards his children and wife on occasion, and when greatly stressed, he is prone to overwork to the point of "workaholism." World War I veteran John will do anything to protect his family, and his kids always eneded up coming to him for life advice.
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#6 Steve Douglas
TV Show: My Three Sons
Played By: Fred MacMurray
Year Show Started: 1960
While the three sons were always central to the storyline, Steve Douglas was the real star of the series. His dedication to raising his sons on his own, as well as working as a aeronautical engineer, date, and put up with maternal grandfather Bub, he was one of televisions top dads.
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#7 Ben Cartwright
TV Show: Bonanza
Played by: Lorne Greene
Year Show Started: 1959
Bonanza was considered an atypical western for its time, as the core of the storylines dealt less about the range but more with Ben and his three dissimilar sons, how they cared for one another, their neighbors, and just causes.
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#8 Robert ‘Rob’ Petrie
TV Show: The Dick Van Dyke Show
Played By: Dick Van Dyke
Year Show Started: 1961
Rob Petrie was the funniest dad ever. His job was a hilarious romp, and between his wife Laura and son Richie, he had his job cut out for himself. The show was actually a spin-off from a rotating cast show called American Dad, which had the same actors playing different characters each week. Rob Petrie caught on, and the show was born.
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#9 Mike Brady
TV Show: The Brady Bunch
Played By: Robert Reed
Year Show Started: 1969
The top TV dad in the 70's, Mike Brady was an architect who usually worked from his home office. Good thing though, as he had 3 of his own boys and three of his wife's girls to tend to.
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#10 Jim Anderson
TV Show: Father Knows Best
Played By: Robert Young
Year: 1950's
Based on the radio series, this show featured Young as dad Jim Anderson. He always had problems with his 3 kids and usually cleared every mishap with his authority and common sense. The show tended to blur comedy with drama, and was a favorite for many years.
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#11 Tom Bradford
TV Show: Eight Is Enough
Played By: Dick Van Patten
Year Show Started: 1977
He had EIGHT kids! What more needs to be said. By shows end, his kids had kids, and he had a new wife. Tom Bradford was the dad everyone wished they had. he was cool, hip, non judgmental, and always empathetic to his children's behavior.
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#12 Danny Williams
TV Show: Make Room For Daddy
Played By: Danny Thomas
Year Show Started: 1953
Another sitcom that blurred dramatic story lines with humor, it also came from radio. The show's premise dealt with Danny rarely having time to spend with his family and Margaret dealing with the children on her own. Margaret often felt neglected by her husband and on several occasions felt like leaving him. However, in the end, he always came through and did his job as DAD.
#13 Jason Seaver
TV Show: Growing Pains
Played By: Alan Thicke
Year Show Started: 1985
Dr. Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist, works from home because his wife, Maggie, has gone back to work as a reporter. Jason has to take care of the kids: ladies man Mike, bookish honors student Carol, and rambunctious Ben. A fourth child, Chrissy Seaver, is born in 1988. Jason was always the soft spoken, yet firm father, as his kids often got into the troubles of the times.. meaning 1985.
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#14 Steve Keaton
TV Show: Family Ties
Played By: Michael Gross
Year Show Started: 1982
The show was originally to be focused on the two hip and cool parents, but the audience quickly took to the three kids, and the plots changed. The move in the United States from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s, was the focus and was particularly expressed through the relationship between young Republican Alex P. Keaton (portrayed by Michael J. Fox) and his ex-hippie parents, Steven and Elyse Keaton
#15 Reginald “Red” Forman
TV Show: That '70s Show
Played By: Kurtwood Smith
Year Show Started: 1998
The typical father from the 1970's. Red was rough, set in his outdated ways, and unwilling to embrace the future. He still managed to make sure his family, and the kids wacky friends, were kept in line. Just don't cross that line.
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#16 Frank Costanza
TV Show: Seinfeld
Played By: Jerry Stiller
Year Show Started: 1989
Why wouldn't Frank be crazy with a son like George? Utterly deranged and very quick to anger. Former cook in the Army and detests removing his shoes in other people's homes. Because of his work as a businessman traveling to Korea, he speaks Korean. He invents the holiday Festivus, as a reaction to cultural commercialism of Christmas, and of which George has few fond memories. He has a phobia of spending silver dollars. His lawyer wears a cape.
#17 James Evans, Sr.
TV Show: Good Times
Played By: John Amos
Year Show Started: 1977
Living in a poor, black neighborhood in inner-city Chicago. Florida and James' Evans had bad times more than Good Times. James was always the rock of the family, hard working and honest. However, by season 3, he had conflicts with producer Norman Lear, and was killed off.
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#18 Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor
TV Show: Home Improvement
Played By: Tim Allen
Year Show Started: 1991
Tim is a stereotypical American male, who loves power tools, cars and sports (especially the local Detroit teams). He is a former salesman for the fictional Binford Tool company, and is very much a cocky, overambitious, accident-prone know-it-all. Witty but flippant, Tim jokes around a lot, even at inappropriate times, much to the dismay of his wife. However, Tim can sometimes be serious when necessary. The show is based on Tim's stand-up show and features him with 3 sons, all of whom cause a lot of major havoc in the Taylor household. Tim always comes through after getting advice from his wife or neighbor, Wilson.
#19 Danny Tanner
TV Show: Full House
Played By: Bob Saget
Year Show Started: 1987
Who didn't love Danny Tanner? He was a single dad raising his girls with his brother in law and best friend. He won the hearts of America with his lovable and touching advice and humor.
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#20 Phillip Drummond
TV Show: Diff'rent Strokes
Played By: Conrad Bain
Year Show Started: 1978
The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, two African American boys from Harlem who are taken in by a rich white Park Avenue businessman and widower named Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain) and his daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato), for whom their deceased mother previously worked. he series made stars out of child actors Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, and Dana Plato and became known for the "very special episodes" in which serious issues such as racism, illegal drug use, and child sexual abuse were dramatically explored. The lives of these stars were later plagued by legal troubles and drug addiction. Drummond handled everything with grace and love.
#21 Tom Corbett
TV Show: The Courtship of Eddie's Father
Played By: Bill Bixby
Year Show Started: 1969
Not the Incredible Hulk in this show. Bixby played Tom Corbett gently and lovingly. The show centered on Tom , a handsome, thirty-something magazine publisher and widower from Los Angeles. Following the death of his wife Helen, Tom is left to raise his mischievous, freckle-faced son, six-year-old Eddie (Brandon Cruz). Eddie wants a new mother. To that end, he cleverly manipulates his father's relationships with women, sometimes even trying to set his father up to fall for women Eddie knows and likes first.
