Thursday, June 07, 2007

Who's Your Bad Daddy? Our Worst Fictional Dads

Thanks to a creative crew of Park Bench readers, we've got our list of Worst Fathers in preparation for the big Hallmark day next week. We've got go-kart drivers on the list, ET-lovers, platinum blond magicians and a blocked writer -- the scariest one of all!

DARTH VADER / Star Wars
Let's face it -- he may have blown up a few planets, cut off his son's hand, bifurcated his mentor and given asthmatics a bad name but we all kinda love him. It's the little kid Darth Vader that rots our socks. Friends with Jar Jar? That puts him on the list right there.

GEORGE BLUTH / Arrested Development
He built model homes for Saddam Hussein, poisoned people with muffins, invented the skin-blistering Cornballer and drove his poor responsible son Michael crazy. His worst crime though? He joined the Blue Man Group. Oh George....

JACK TORRANCE / The Shining
All work and no play made Jack a crazy frickin' lunatic but he sure was entertaining. Equally dexterous with a baseball bat or an axe, Jack still found time to crack jokes while going insane and tormenting his family in that haunted hotel in the mountains. And admit it -- you kinda wanted Shelley Duvall gone too, didn't you?

LUCIUS MALFOY / Harry Potter
This pure blood wizard lovin' father of widow-peaked Draco Malfoy never fails to look stunning with his flowing white hair and blistering stare. Sadly, this stunner is bewitched by Voldemort and known to be a Death Eater. That'll be a bitch for Draco to explain at Career Day, although I guess it's no worse than the old man always trying to kill Dumbledore.

KING OF ALL COSMOS / Katamari Damacy
Our one and only video game dad, this greedy devil accidentally destroyed all of the stars in the cosmos. Oops. Now he's instructed his son to collect all of the objects on Earth (cows included!) and turn them into replacement stars. Speaking of clumsy, he also accidentally caused a tsunami. The French porn star mustache is apparently on purpose though. Double oops.

HUMBERT HUMBERT
/ Lolita
Got married to a woman so he could get "close" to her underage nymphette daughter. That's not good. And in the movie, he killed Shelley Winters. No one messes with Shelley in my book. (I'm looking at you Poseidon Adventure!)

CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN / The X Files
Jeez, what didn't ol' CGB Spender do? Lemme see. Conspired to allow aliens to colonize the Earth. Check. Tried to murder his son Jeffrey. Check. Orchestrated Scully's kidnapping. Yup. Ordered Krycek to kill Bill Mulder. Check. Had an affair with Mulder's mom. Eww and check. May have had an affair with Mulder's ex girlfriend. Ewww times ten. Was a heavy smoker, bad novelist and may have killed Kennedy. At least he wasn't lazy.

CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD / Lost
Booze hound and resident undead guy, he fathered Claire so there's one strike. He fathered Jack. There's two big strikes. Add in the "had an affair with Jack's ex-wife" and the killing of a few patients, and it's pretty clear he's not going to get many "World's #1 Dad" mugs.

ROYAL TENENBAUM / The Royal Tenenbaums
It's hard to tell with Royal if he's intentionally a crappy dad or just the world's most socially inept man over 50. He fakes cancer to get back into the family fold, intentionally shot his son Chas with a BB gun and stole from him (but seriously, who hasn't wanted to do that to Ben Stiller from time to time) and constantly tells his daughter she's adopted. But he's played by Gene Hackman so you've gotta love him just a little.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK / Star Trek
Khaaaaaaaannnn!!!!!! Sorry. I can never resist. The dude forgot he even had a son, even though it was that geeky kid from Square Pegs. How could you forget something like that? You'd have to be a major league self-loving ego maniacal girdle-wearing crazy to forget you had a...oh wait.

5 comments:

Shan said...

Wow. What a collection. I have to say, life just isn't the same without George Bluth. (Thank you G4 for reruns!) Plus, don't forget the valuable "life lessons" taught by J. Walter Weatherman. And while I hate what happened to Scatman Crothers, I probably would have done the same to Shelley Duvall. Lucius Malfoy gets his comeuppance from all the money he has to spend on conditioner. Obviously, Gene Roddenberry envisioned a future without palimony, because I think there were probably more "young Kirks" out there than David (and some of them possibly green. We know how those Orion girls are). But the galaxy as we know it (or will know it) would have ended hundreds of times over without good old James T. Jeffrey Spender was a good argument for birth control. But since you posted a picture of "actor" Jake Frakkin' Lloyd, I'll go with that for WORST dad.

All Blog Spots said...

nice blog

Liz said...

Thanks!

Liz said...

Shan, you crack me up about Gene Roddenberry and his palimony-less future. I'm sure that was part of his vision, as was that three-breasted woman idea he had for TNG. Somehow, I don't think Gene and I would have had a lot to talk about... :-)

Winnie said...

I can think of a few annimated dads:
Homer Simpson
The dad on the Family Guy
and ......
Dr.Evil of course....
Well I'm Canadain..so Mike Myers tops the list!