Single Dad Sitcom With No Help

Cafe Society
#1

I was trying to think of a sitcom past or present that featured a dad who was single (divorced, widowed whatever) and had no help. We have had shows like Alice and One Day At A Time that featured a single woman raising a child or kids on her own with no help, but I can’t think of a father doing this.

The Great Gildersleave, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Diff’rent Strokes, Family Affair and Bachelor Father all had housekeepers or “manservents” to help them.

My Three Sons had a grandfather, then an uncle help. My Two Dads needed not one but TWO fathers to raise that little girl and of course Full House had not one, not two but THREE dads (effectively) to raise those kids.

The only sitcom I can think of that had a dad raising kids with no help was Hello Larry. Were there anyothers?

#2

Are you kidding? Who’d do the cooking and laundry?

(I’d imagine the kitchen burning down every week can only go so far before continuity errors crept in.)

#3

I don’t know about sitcoms (I thought I saw a preview for a new show for the fall schedule that would fit, but I could be mistaken) but in the comics, there’s The Humble Stumble

#4

What about Precocious Girl and Son Who Was A Closet Alcoholic and the other kid and the dad was a musician? Blossom? Did they have a housekeeper?

#5

the other kid was “teen heartthrob” (gotta have a teen heartthrob) Joey “Whoa!” Lawrence, and I do not recall a housekeeper/maid/what-have-you. Blossom did a lot of the housework, tho, didn’t she?

#6

Does Punky Brewster count?

#7

“One on One” is a show about a single father and his teenaged daughter.

#8

Yeah, I think she did a lot of the work, but she wasn’t “outside” help, which I think the OP was referring to. (Of COURSE the daughter would do the housework. While the one brother drank in the closet and the other one “whoa’d” his way into the hearts of millions…to step outside the traditional gender roles woulda been…you know…kinda “commie” or something.)

#9

Ned Flaunders on the Simpsons

#10

There was a British sitcom Me And My Girl widower brings up teenage daughter, with a little help from mother-in-law.

#11

Nick on Blossom, whose wife left him to find fulfillment in Paris. He was raisng a now sober alcoholic/druggie son, a total idiot of a son, and Blossom, the only normal one.

#12

Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) on “The Rifleman”?

Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) on “Bonanza,” maybe (though his sons were grown men, and you might regard Hop SIng as a “manservant”).

#13

Disney’s **Hannah Montana ** has Billy Ray Cyrus as the dad of two teenagers. I have only seen parts of it a couple of times; but, I haven’t seen where there is anyone else around helping with the parenting.

#14

I’m not sure housework was the point of Blossom, especially when exchanges like this would happen every week:

Blossom: I could have sex with my boyfriend anytime I want! I’m a grown woman! But I’m not going to today!
Ex-Drug Addict Son: Did you know I used to be a drug addict?
Six: My name is six because my father drank six beers the night he and my mother…
Joey: Whoa!

Every week man, every week. Who has time for laundry?

#15

Mr. Stewart (aka the dad) is a widower. Mostly he takes care of the kids on his own, and I think they both pitch in with the housework. Occasionally some country music singer will guest star as a visiting relative from Tennesee or wherever the family’s from, and will dispense some down-home wisdom while they’re there. Plus Miley/Hannah has a female bodyguard who shows up once in a while to do responsible-adult-type-stuff and make the dad look like an idiot.

I would like to thank my daughter and nieces for watching this show so damn much that I inadvertently picked up all this from casual viewing.

#16

Sanford and son

Supernatural

#17

“My Two Dads” had two single dads and no domestic help.

I don’t recall a housekeeper on “The Patty Duke Show” but I haven’t seen that many episodes. Ditto for “Gidget.” That William Schallert sure was self-sufficient.

#18

He has God’s help.

#19

The Patty Duke Show featured a mother, Natalie, played by Jean Byron.

#20

There was an old sitcom from the 70s called “Max and Me” that meets the OP’s criteria.