The 10 Best (And 10 Wonderfully Worst) TV Dads of All Time

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The 10 Best TV Dads Who Earn the Title

10. Carl Winslow (Reginald VelJohnson) from Family Matters
We love him because he was a good, albeit tubby, cop. We love him because he took in his mother and his sister and his sister’s child when they had no place else to go. We love him because he was a good biological father to Eddie and Laura, and a great stand-in father for their friends, one of whom he eventually adopted. But most of all, we love Carl Winslow for the nine seasons of pure annoyance and deep mortification he endured as the next-door-neighbor of TV’s most iconic nerd: Steven Q. Urkel.—Corey Humphress

9. Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) from Friday Night Lights
Coach Taylor one of the best examples of a realistic father on TV. He had a good job in a good school before he was replaced and thrown to the East Dillon Lions. He and his wife are obviously in love but they don’t try to hide the fact that their marriage isn’t prefect (especially when their daughter plays the part of the ungrateful teenager all too well.) With two daughters, he’s also a father-figure to the kids on his team: Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.—Maggie Connor

8. Martin Crane (John Mahoney) from Frasier
John Mahoney’s Marty Crane was just a regular guy who loved his filthy green recliner, his dog Eddie and turning Antiques Roadshow into a drinking game (with cheap American lagers, of course). Most importantly, though, he loved Niles and Frasier, despite his inability to understand their collective penchant for fancy coffee drinks, overpriced belts and climbing the social ladder.—Ani Vrabel

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7. Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) from Modern Family
Phil is obsessed with trying to be the “cool dad,” but underneath it all, he’s just a well-intentioned dude who really loves his wife and kids. An ultra-competitive early adopter with little self-awareness, he’s Michael Scott with kids. He’s an everydad for the 21st century—the head of the appropriately named Modern Family. Honorable mentions go to our favorite gay dads, Mitchell and Cameron. —Lindsay Eanet

6. Dan Conner (John Goodman) from Roseanne
Dan deserves a place on this list for providing an easy-going counter-balance to his firecracker of a wife, working hard to put food on the table and a smile on his kids’ faces.

5. Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) from Happy Days
Mr. C. had the honor of marshalling the generation gap onto TV as the hardware-store owner scratched his head at the antics of Richie’s friends, always maintaining a warm spot even for the Fonz. We’ll give him a pass for seemingly losing track of Richie’s older brother, who disappeared from Cunningham lore with no explanation.

4. Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby) from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
We love “Mr. Eddie’s Father” not only because he worked in magazines, but the Harry Nilsson-soundtracked opening credits alone were a picture of father-son love.

3. Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon) from Little House on the Prairie
It says a lot about a man that he was mostly just known as “Pa.” The father of four welcomed three more adopted children into his family in Walnut Grove.

2. Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) from The Andy Griffith Show
We’d be hard-pressed to find more to ask for in a small-town single dad than Sherriff Taylor, who takes his young Opie fishing, plays him the guitar and provides all the wisdom and warmth a boy needs to eventually become a famous director.

1. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) from The Cosby Show
Funny, wise, and an outstanding example of appropriate tough love, Cliff Huxtable is our favorite TV dad. Of course, the racial meta-dynamic of the show basically dropped a black family right into the upper-middle-class circumstances TV had previously reserved for whites—successful doctor & lawyer for parents, kids going off to college, etc. And Cosby’s recent remarks challenging blacks not to accept low standards hint that The Cosby Show was an even more pointed commentary than anyone realized at the time, as Cosby himself created the show.—Nick Purdy