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.

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.

The Pre-Disappointment Phase

Some things are so, so much better in the imagination than they can ever be in reality. Among this group — it seems most likely — will reside William Shatner [Earlier: Not Your Father's Fatuous Phrase and Dads with Movie Cameras] as featured performer in the television sitcom being created from the sweet tweets of Justin Halpern. [Earlier: Curses]

Shatner has created a television persona of lovable, completely self-centered, wackiness. Halpern created a twitter persona of his dad as a ranting, teddy bear-like curmudgeon. And now a pilot has been commissioned by CBS with the unlikely-for-TV title of "Shit My Dad Says."

Will this turn out to be more than just another vanilla sitcom? Seems unlikely. No matter how "brilliant" the concept might seem, the media, the audience, the advertisers just won't allow it to play anywhere near as good on screen as it does in your head. Alas ....

Fake Daddies. Real Lessons?

The caring-but-out-of touch-old dad, the oblivious-I-am-your-friend dad and the gay dads. Four actors play pops in the new ABC sit com, Modern Family and so let the competition begin for best dad (or least best lessons to be learned from any dad). Hopefully there'll be at least a few.

The Foot, The Ball, The Variations

The new football season means different things to different people.

It means kicking a ball and not using one's hands to some; unfortunately a group includes a Bournemouth father-of-four named Meadows who was so upset at a referee's decision at his son's school game that he felt compelled to kick the soccer/football out of an opposing team father.

It means the release of themed books, including the kids' book, Family Huddle, constructed around the Mannings, legend Archie and Super Bowl sons Peyton and Eli (and the near-forgotten non-QB Cooper).

And for a very unfortunate few, football is the memory of a sit com's meddlesome father:

30 (dad) Rocks

Alan "son of hoofer Robert" Alda plays a likely father — in real life he has three girls — as the current season of 30 Rock ends. In the episode he needs a kidney from the "son" who went looking for — Alec Baldwin who has his real life daddy issues [Earlier: Those Who Can't, Write]. In parallel plotting, Tracy Morgan — who promises to never be satisfied with only his three real life kids — plays a character who admits he knows his "son" isn't, but that he pretends because it makes them both feel better.

A lot about dads ... a lot of funny ... and all in 30 minutes. And written by a mom — although naturally Tina Fey's comedic development does trace back to her dad letting her stay up late.

Snatching a Celebrity 15

Oy! Vat a conundrum.

On the one hand pop culture brings us the dueling Brown and Fenty dads. (Well, they're not actually dueling and Chris, son of Clinton Brown, hitting Rihanna, daughter of Ronald Fenty, is in no way humorous.) As they battle for the 15 minutes of fame one will surely gain out of this — unless, of course, they somehow manage to share it — Brown expresses his son's remorse, while Fenty offers the more handsoff parenting style of not telling his daughter what to do, but offering the media the opinion that, "If it were me, I'd move on."

On the other hand comes the surprising news of the DVD release of the 80s sit-com My Two Dads. (Who could have imagined there was interest?) Amazingly, the show about a teenage girl raised by two men, only one of whom could be her biological father, although nobody would ever know who (unless someone eventuallly decided to take a DNA test) limped through three seasons.

So, the dilemma is what kind of mash-up to promote celebrity spinoffing do we go with here. Should Brown and Fenty have a reality show where they have to work together as survivors, living a surreal life of celebrity. Or, should they get a sit com, like MTDs, where they have to bring their own styles and "skills" to bear on an aspring celeb?

Surely there's some boob-tube magic to be made here if only someone could offer the wisdom (?) of the right way to go.

Make a Dad (MAD)

It's make a dad day.

Sorta outa Texas Shooter Jennings [Earlier: Tuned In] is releasing Waylon Forever, a duet album with son and band backing daddy Waylon, whose been gone (physically, not musically) since 2002.

Up in Calgary is the premiere of "Hockey Dad: A Play in Three Periods," the dramedy of a fictional pop discovering himself in the locker room the night of a father-daughter hockey game.

Coming in the spring — or sooner if the CW network has fielded too many failing shows in their fall lineup &mdas; is "Surviving Suburbia," a sit-com where stand-up smuttist Bob Saget plays dysfunctional dad (although married) of three instead of angelic dad (while single) of four as he did in "Full House."

Finally, waiting in Minnesota, are kids of all ages whose life will change if into their lives will come men who want to act like dads. The payoff for the men is the chance to make or (re)make their own lives and those of some children who can use father-like guidance and wisdom.

And so we go from make-a-dad to make-a-dad's-day.