Who’s America’s Favorite TV Dad?
Celebrate Father’s Day by taking a look at TV viewers’ favorite fictional fathers
Photo: Fox
With quarantine preventing us from making physical contact with our loved ones — especially those older than ourselves — this Father’s Day is going to be a tough one. We’ll miss cookouts, tense conversations about politics, and playing a little “catch” in the yard without needing to sanitize the ball every time we toss it back. So there’s never been a better time to watch TV and fantasize about the dads on the screen being our own! That’s exactly the reason we very presciently created our list, “Which TV Dad Do You Wish Was Your Own?” back in 2012.
This list has been voted on by over 5,800 people across the country, and the #1 answer has been decisive: people wish they had a dad like Sheriff Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show. But while America for the most part agrees on Andy, that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of disagreement to be had over who else deserves an honorable mention.. Here’s everything we know about the fictional dads America loves most.
Age 29 and Under:
Photo: HBO Max
Young people (anyone below 30) have The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s Phillip Banks at the top of their list of TV dads — despite the fact that he’s better known as “Uncle Phil.” We figured people wished they were cool and carefree Will, but it seems they’re more envious of Carlton for his not-so-cool-or-carefree father.
Age 30 to 49:
With middle-aged voters, Sheriff Andy didn’t face any competition. The Andy Griffith Show features multiple iconic episodes that pretty much define the idyllic American childhood, along with Norman Rockwell paintings. It’s amazing this character from the very early days of TV dads still has such a grip on people’s imaginations.
Photo: CBS
Age 50 and Over:
Photo: CBS
Voters 50 and up favored a dad from a more recent TV show: Howard Cunningham of Happy Days. Funnily enough, the same group of voters picked Howard’s wife Marion as their ideal TV mom. Clearly this show had a big impact on the Baby Boomer generation!
Women
Tony Danza’s iconic character from the 80s sitcom Who’s The Boss tops the list of potential dads for female voters. Danza’s status as a sex symbol at the time makes us question if it’s really a dad that women were looking for when voting up Tony Micelli, though.
Photo: CBS
Men
Photo: TBS
A parody of the kind of all-American male who usually fills the role of TV dad, American Dad’s Stan Smith is the favorite of men everywhere — whether they’re in on the joke or not.
The West Coast
Many of the votes from this list were collected in the years leading up to revelations about Bill Cosby that eventually landed him in jail. The Cosby Show made such a tremendous impact on people that the years of disgrace that followed the comedian weren’t enough to undo the upvotes the character of Cliff Huxtable built up starting around 2012.
Photo: NBC
The Mountain West
Photo: ABC
The Mountain West region stretches from Nevada to Kansas, then from Idaho to North Dakota. It’s big on the larger than life presence brought by John Goodman to the character of John Conner in Roseanne.
The Southwest
Another iconic TV dad from the early days of television, Ward Cleaver of Leave It To Beaver beat out Andy Griffith in the Southwest, which features Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Photo: ABC
The Midwest
Photo: CBS
John Walton of The Waltons lived in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, but that hasn’t stopped the nearby Midwest region from favoring him over other, more local TV dads.
The South
The South loves a handyman! Home Improvement’s Tim Taylor, played memorably by Tim Allen, tops the list for Southerners. Something about Tim’s over-the-top machismo seems to sit right with this politically conservative region.
Photo: ABC
The Northeast
Photo: Fox
To the North, there’s an even more irascible favorite father figure: Al Bundy. This iconic 80s character was one of the first to present a cynical alternative to the happy, wholesome image projected by most family sitcoms. It seems those on the East Coast don’t mind a dad who’s honest about just how unrewarding the job can be.
Outside the US
Phil Dunphy of Modern Family takes the top prize for voters outside the US, where TV fans are less likely to have grown up watching The Andy Griffith Show. As the father in one of the most popular recent sitcoms to ever premiere, Phil might rise higher and higher on this list as the years go by.
Photo: ABC