TV / Movies The best cartoon dads!

Two of my favorite things are dads and cartoons. Another of my favorite things is dads in cartoons! Who are your favorite dads from cartoons? I may or may not be using your ideas of who the best dads are for personal research in improving myself...

So, I have two favorite cartoon dads who come to mind right now, and the first is Spike the Dog from old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Spike is the big bulldog who pays opposite to Tom and Jerry in some episodes, and who is almost always hanging out with his son Tyke. And Spike is always doing a great job of interactively teaching his son essential skills like being a good pet to a human, grilling, carpentry, and keeping that darn cat in line. And he is an incredibly fierce protector of his son! Any time Tyke is in danger (and since Tom is nearby, that's always), he comes down with great vengeance and furious anger upon those who would do harm to that pup! Seriously, he's the best dad of the entire mid-1900s at least.

My other favorite cartoon dad is Greg Universe, Steven Universe's dad. Real talk, I only got around to watching Season 1 of Steven Universe last year, and when I first met Greg I thought he was kind of a deadbeat bum. Of course his son lives with Greg's late wife's friends, all the man does is lay around at the car wash all day and get sunburned! Until I found out that literally his only shortcoming is that he can't support his son money-wise, and the reason he can't do that is because he's overflowing with love for his son and love for the world around him and love for life itself. He may not be the teacher or protector that Spike is, but his love makes him a great dad in a show that's pretty much about "moms are cool", and I wouldn't ask to change a single thing about him.

 

No! I just finished the arc with Bondrewd last week and no no no! Worst dad ever! He only pretends, and does a great job of pretending, but he only pretends! Don't believe Bondrewd's traumatizing lies! Irredeemable!

However, Giovanni, I never saw that side to him. I think his connection to Silver (or any family at all) only came up momentarily in the games as an event in HGSS, so anything outside of that I would be entirely unfamiliar with. I am pleased to see a villain who is a father not turn out to be a dirtbag. Comparing him to Handsome Jack, another worst dad, who honestly believes he is being protective of his daughter, truly is still a terrible person through-and-through. So much good content in the mangas we don't get to see in the games.

I'm separately reminded now of Uncle Iroh from Avatar TLA. Even though we don't get to see him and his son interact very much, he's a better dad to Zuko than Ozai ever was. As royalty in a culture steep with nationalistic pride and honor, he still loves his nephew more than he is loyal to his nation. He loves his nephew as he is, with his flaws and his mistakes and his sins and his strengths, and though he embraces Zuko and all his bad, he never stops cultivating him to be the glorious prince he was destined to be.

 

When I was little, I thought Mufasa was kind of mean for shouting raising his voice at Simba once or twice, but now that I'm older I see very clearly that Mufasa was not being mean. Simba was reckless and endangering his own life, and Mufasa just needed to channel the power of James Earl Jones to tell Simba that it was not okay to be risky like that. Really props to him, and Marlin is as hard-working as Batman is, and stopped at nothing to keep his son safe! The only way he could have done more would be if he hunted the barracuda down directly and got revenge! But this is Pixar, not Punisher, and that's just fine with me.