Single Laughs, If That

For the new year, Fox International promises a second season of webisodes for Single Dads. The series, ostensibly being internet workshopped for an eventual sit-com, features two fathers, two babies and no moms. It is supposed to take viewers through the hardships of going it alone. Instead, it feels like set pieces that weren't good enough even for Adam Sandler movies.

There is the being thought gay by hot chicks scenario.



There is the "tee-hee" inspiring discussion about having the procreation talk sometime in the future.



And, of course, the minds behind SD found their own two minutes of hilarity going through the well-worn motions of changing a disgusting diaper.



One new year's wish: that at least a few real parents have worked on SD for its second season and that a smidge of respect for the audience works its way into the scripts so it doesn't continue to get the four poop-filled diaper rating.

Do Wah Diddy No Wed

Recently, Sean "P Diddy Puffy Sean John Puff Daddy" Combs chilled with the gals of The View. Discussion turned to what the rap and designer roue thinks of marriage and fatherhood. He revealed a great deal — although there was the evergreen truism that it is better to rich than poor, all other things being equal — by saying pretty much nothing at all.



So the scorecard is six kids, three mums, no marriages and the claim that his strong mother did a great enough job raising him from age 3 on (after his dad was killed) that he knows how a father doesn't have to be in the everyday life of a kid for that child to succeed as he did. He claims he gives his kids oodles of his time, that their orthodontia is completely up to date, and that, "it's more about me being honest with myself and me loving my children and being there for my children," than it is about doing the hard job of staying in the house everyday with his kids and a woman he loves (or loved) only sometimes (or not anymore).

He may well be right ...and he certainly did a great job playing to his audience. However, most revealing was the self-absorption he displayed, proving his main, subtextual point: he's probably not interested enough in others to give all to his kids (or a marriage), but it is very good that he has plenty of money because he'll give all of himself and his money that he can and that will be more than many kids will ever receive.

Waiting On a New King

On his final show, Larry King's youngest son, 10-year-old Chance, did a quick audition to sit in his father's footsteps.



A final decision will not be made until King's five other children (via seven wives) — the oldest and unknown by his father until 2009 Larry King, Jr., Andy, Chaia, Chance and stepson Danny Southwick — all get their turn at the mic. The reality show should be on your television soon.

RIP Mr. C

The Leopard Grand Poobah has passed.



Tom Bosley has passed. Famous in the 70s and 80s as Mr. C, father of faux-50s Happy Days' Richie Cunningham, the on-screen Bosley was stuffed with goofy and love. Like a real-life dad he was a supporting character in his kids' glories and trouble-fixing.  Off screen, father and grandfather Bosley seemed to have been just the same. Adieu Mr. C.

New Father Was Who Now Huh?

"Dr. Who" David Tennant felt a good career move was to become "father huh?" in the BBC production of Single Father. So he moves from science fiction to just fiction — a widower raising four kids and falling in love with his ex-wife's best friend in a world where eventually everything works out okay. It is a good life that comes with a script.

Thus Spake the Father of the Brady Boom

Even when in service to the inane, it is good to see fathers and sons teaming up. So, even though every bone in the WD body screams out DON'T!, we nevertheless put in the plug for Brady, Brady, Brady. Father Sherwood Schwartz (he, previously, of Gilligan's Island) shared his creation with son Lloyd (whose body of work as a producer relies very heavily on riding dad's Gilligan and Brady horses).

The result purports to be "The Complete Story ..." although only a very careful reading through the memories and a couple good guesses will help pass Mental Floss's The Brady Bunch Theme Quiz.

Laughing with (or at) Fathers?

Consumer products monolith Procter & Gamble decided in its behemoth wisdom that the world needs a SAHD site — specifically, its own. Thus, the creation of ManOfTheHouse.com,

The site — apparently envisioned to give un(der)employed fathers something to do when the kids are asleep and they are tired of cruising their home computers looking for jobs and viewing porn — offers parenting hints, blogs, subtle and more obvious pitches for P&G products and features wisdom from among others, the pops of DadLabs. [Earlier: Qs&As with DoDads - Dad Labs].

MotH also showcases the fine line between parody and condescension in pop culture regarding fathers who give care and that P&G may not be the most agile firm at tiptoeing that fine line. As part of its launch, the site features a "lost script" to  Mad Men, the cable television fantasy of the 60s advertising world that coincidentally begins Season 4 in a few weeks. The script imagines manly man character Don Draper as a whingeing, unemployed father who lives without a clue of how to take care of his kids. His haplessness might be funny to some, but it does beg the question of what the site sponsor actually believes about its audience.

Papa As Seen by The Beeb

Fatherhood is not as sexy as sharks. Sorry. True. Sad, unfortunate, not fair, but true ... at least on the telly.

So it seems like a good idea for the BBC to offer a more extended viewing time with The Fatherhood Season (a variety of themed entertaiments and blog) for dad programming rather than try to go mano a animalo against the killers on Discovery Channel's SHARK WEEK, particularly in it's 20th anniversary season. This evening the beeb reminds viewers of a bunch of negative stereotypes about cold indifferent fathers so that they can remind everyone about the warm, (not in)different pops with A Century of Fatherhood.

How Are You Lost, Father?

In the spirit of the finale of "Lost" — the television series that engages those who read their own lives into it and which will be viewable for those who care in less than 48 hours — WD offers two other inexplicable events that mean only what you see in them.

To begin, there are reports that Lindsay Lohan, the actress who celebrates the "dys" in dysfunction, has announced her father, Crazy Michael [Earlier: A Nnoying], arranged for her to lose her passport in Paris (the city, not equally bizarre celeb). As a result, a California judge is likely sending her to prison, unless she pulls a Polanski.

To end, Wisconsin Leslie (actually Shawn Leslie, 39) severed his connection to pops and grandpoppy in a rather violent manner. After driving their ashes around in his car for a couple years or more, he lost the car and his ancestors to the crusher. He parked the car behind a diner; went away for a bit; returned; and, despite some questions abotu who was allowed to do what to whom and how, he is now both orphan and grandorphan.

Of course, what to make of all of this and what was lost in the middle of these two stories is — like the unreality series — completely up to you.

Bucky Gettin' Plucky

It turns out that the eighth place finisher on the fifth season of American Idol can come up with a tear jerker. Country pop's Bucky Covington, released A Father's Love prior to its inclusion on his second album. He says the song just him him in his soft spot.

...He checked the air in my tires, the belts and all the sparkplug wires/
Said when's the hell the last time you had this oil changed/
...I didn't hear it then, but I hear it now/
he was saying I loooooove you, I looooooove you/
the only way that he knew how...

Trust us, it plucks on the heart strings much more effectively in song than in abridged words.

Living Theater

Forty-six years ago, in New York, Martin Sheen was the son. Now he'll be the father in "the show that changed [his] life so thoroughly...," an LA-production of "The Subject Was Roses."

Intriguingly, he began his showbiz career in Julian Beck and Judith Molina's Living Theatre. That (continuing) experiment was supposed to try and break down the fourth wall between drama and audience, something Sheen would probably very much like to put up again, particularly with respect to the troubles of real-life son Charlie whose act and life makes "Two and a Half Men" sound like the number of realities in which he lives.

Meet "Meet the Fathers"

Mamma Mia meets, falls in and out of love with La Telenovela and conceives the Philippines special four-episode "Meet the Fathers," although who the parents are is still something of a mystery.

Vaguely some people are in love, at least one is a dad, marriages and soul mates macking for life with each other (?) are possible. Everybody lives happily ever after. The End.

Zuma Pic: Is Right Right?

Get Hollywood on the phone. Quick! ASAP! Stat!

The pitch: Take the genial goodness of Fred Mac Murray,  the dad in My Three Sons, apply the edginess of Bill Hendrickson (who plays Bill Paxton) in HBO's polygadrama Big Love, and then roll it into a "based on a true story" feature pretending its all the life of South African Prezzie Zuma [Earlier: Polygamy Post] whose XXth son said folks should get off his back about all his wives and children — including his latest, a four-month-old with a woman to whom he is not (YET) married. As XX, Duduzani Zuma, says:  "It is my father's right within the context of his culture to have as many children as he wishes."

To which we can only add that it is "a right" certainly, but that does leave open the moral question for the film — the hook for all the highbrow critics, while the lowbrows will no doubt enjoy the creation of 20-some kids — of whether his right is the right thing to do. We're seeing multiple Oscars.

Yuk Yuk Yecch

How much do we blame the fathers for seven minutes of smooth-but-utterly-vacuous?

Years ago Massachusetts senator-elect Scott Brown's father's Bruce was hired by alleged comedian Jay Leno. The Lenos even had a dog named Bruce Brown. The result these many years later is the painful to watch meeting of daddy's boys:

Babalu Love

Everybody loves Lucy, but it is relief to know that at least his daughter loved Desi, the man often cast in shadows by media historians infatuated by his more famous partner. Luci Arnaz, one of two children of the famous pair, is behind the musical tribute to her father, the man who brought the conga craze to 50s' America. "Babalu: The American Songbook Goes Latin — Featuring the Music of the Desi Arnaz Orchestra" may not make him a hero again to television fans, but it is an extraordinary tribute of the hero status he holds in his daughter's heart.

Where His Dad Sat

Time to move beyond "my/his father's shoes" as the cliche — as in my/his father's shoes are large ones to fill.... Fortunately, we've got just the spectacle to help.

The shoe words and images are pretty well shopworn. In addition to all the bad Hallmark poetry and spiritless obituaries that have dragged it down, we've also lived through the country ditty "Walking in My Father's Shoes," and the made-for-tv snorefest, "In His Father's Shoes."

What's needed is a new way to say or do the same thing. A few years ago Eric Clapton tried working with "My Father's Eyes." Nice, melancholy, but not something that draws attention to itself.

Not like RISKING DEATH in your father's seat. That's the way that Robbie Knievel rolls. [Earlier: Daddy Daredevil] Next May, Evel's son will try and jump London busses, the stunt that ended his father's career. Junior Knievel will even upgrade to a Harley, just like dad. So let a thousand cliches bloom, a million images fly as we praise the son for trying to fill his daddy's seat.

Getting Press

An honorable book published by serious men in time for Veteran's Day is also — unfortunately for what it probably says about WD or pop culture — a somewhat smutty segue to other daddy news.

The serious book, written by father and son Aaron and Nathan Keirns, is Honoring the Veterans of Licking County, Ohio. Although the book was intended to highlight local, military history, there is something in that title that could attract some out-of-state attention.

Of course, the attractive element is the idea of a licking county, which is the unfortunate segue to the news that a man who isn't the biological or in situ father is claiming fatherhood in order to sell his new book. You might think that the provocatively outrageous Miss J (Alexander Jenkins of America's Next Top model) would have enough to attract attention to his new book, Follow the Model. However, he also felt the need to claim 7-year-old Boris (the son of a French lesbian via the sperm of J's ex-partner) as his own son in order to get some media attention. Apparently, being a dad is the new black.

It's Off to Work We Go

While the standard work flow is from father to child — or great-grandfather to grandfather to father to son, as in the case of the baseball-playing Muellers of Missouri — there are certainly plenty of cases of fathers finding their job through their children. Famously, now, we can add hack Mitch Winehouse [Earlier: Drugs and Dads], about to debut his show.

Winehouse, father of singer Amy, will be interviewing celebrities in "Mitch Winehouse's Showbiz Rant" from the front of his London cab. Hopefully his new job goes well and he makes his daughter proud ... not something that can always be said about his premiere guest, David Hasselhoff. [Earlier: Some S/B in Custody, Others Should Have It and Dadelusions]

There's a Soup in My Mouse

Television folk often seem like the family. They're not. They're folks who have family of their own. Today, as we say ciao bello to Milton Supman — video anarchist (nihilist?) Soupy Sales, who passed this past Thursday — we also remember his Top 40 hit, this week's objet d'eBay, Do The Mouse.



But the man of The Mouse is also father to two sons, Hunt and Tony Sales, who became the legitimate musicians (although in rock, not his father's beloved jazz) that it seemed daddy Soup always wanted to be.

Here's to part of the Soupster's legacy, Hunt



and Tony Sales.

Heartthrob Times

Little boys grow up. Even the cutest. Often they become fathers, but rarely do they ever live up to the dreams as fathers/husbands that little girls have about them.

All that blather is inspired by this week's objet d'eBay, a 1972 comic book featuring one-time heartthrob David Cassidy. Cassidy, the son of comic Jack Cassidy, is also the half-brother of Shaun, the man behind his current comeback vehicle, the family affaired Ruby and the Rockits. On the show he plays an estranged father and faded rocker, perhaps not that far from his real life as star of the county fair circuit and father of two (from three marriages), son, Beau Devin Cassidy and daughter/actress Katie Cassidy.