When Sitcom Dads Become Badasses While Remaining Dads

I've been thinking about the few remaining pleasures in my life. On one hand, it's easy to recall them, because there are so few of them, yet on the other hand, it's difficult to recall them, because they're buried among, well, other things.

But anyway. One of my pleasures is my Sunday night ritual of watching Breaking Bad. This is a program that I started watching from the very beginning, unlike, say, Lost, for which I had to cram a full first season into a two-week span before the second season started.

ALLOW ME TO DIGRESS FOR A MOMENT
Watching a full season of a network show, especially an hour-long show, can be an endurance challenge. Mrs. The Anthony Show and I enjoyed watching the first season of Lost on DVD because we didn't have to deal with commercials and a week-long wait to start the next episode. On the other hand, after a few consecutive episodes it would suddenly be 12:45am on a work night and we'd be like, "Okay, just one more before we go to bed" and it turns out to be one of the more tedious Season 1 plots when Charlie's stuck in a cave or something for the entire hour.


SO ANYWAY

Before...

Right. I really enjoy Breaking Bad. What makes the show work so well is the casting, obviously, but I don't mean that in just the "Boy, that Bryan Cranston is a great actor" sense. When the show first premiered, most of the news coverage discussed how Cranston went from playing a lovably goofy dad on Malcom in the Middle to a father so desperate that he cooks crystal meth and eventually commits a number of additional acts that make cooking crystal meth look not so bad in comparison.

...after.

You don't have to know Bryan Cranston's acting history to appreciate his performance, but having that knowledge brings a deeper level, at least for me, as I contemplate the many shades of fatherhood, having myself veered from the wacky chaos of Malcolm to the reality-horror (that comes from being a breadwinner who doesn't win a lot of bread) of Breaking Bad. Alas, I don't own a good meth recipe.

MEANWHILE
Another example of this is Michael Chiklis on The Shield. Chiklis was once a doughy actor with male-pattern baldness, whose hairline and waistline made him look 45 when he was only 29, and had moderate success playing a police commissioner on ABC's The Commish.

I don't remember that show very well, but if I remember it correctly, most of the episodes had more to do with his loud family and relationships with others than with actual police work. From the above trailer, you can tell what kind of show it is from the goofy typewriter-style titles font and sax soundtrack. (Also check out the 'do on pre-Party of Five Scott Wolf at the :23 mark!) I also recall confusing Chiklis with Corky, the character with Down's syndrome on that other ABC Sunday night show at the time, Life Goes On.

Corky was a better actor.

Anyway, in 2000, though we were all relieved that the Y2K bug didn't force us to light candles and pump our own water, NBC foisted on its viewers a show called Daddio, which was so forgettable that I can't even find a trailer on YouTube. At least you can find a description on Wikipedia:

Michael Chiklis stars as Chris Woods, a former restaurant supply salesman who decides to become a stay-at-home dad to his and his wife Linda's (Barone) four children Shannon (Cristina Kernan), Max (Martin Spanjers), Jake (Mitch Holleman), and Emily to accommodate his wife's demanding career as a lawyer. Chris loves his new role, but is annoyed by Linda's well-meaning friends Holly (Suzy Nakamura) and Barb (Amy Wilson) who constantly interfere with Chris' parenting. Chris is also forced to defend his new role to his best friend Rob (Kevin Crowley), and his new neighbor Bobick (Steve Ryan), a former Marine.

Must-See TV, right? I remember viewing one trailer for the show, in which Chiklis finds a toy guitar on the sofa and rocks out to it, embarrassing his tweenish son. Here's the Michael Chiklis publicity shot:

Wouldn't you want to be his neighbor?

Yeesh. After Daddio was canceled, Chiklis did some other stuff, including portraying Curly in a Three Stooges biopic:

And you start to get the idea. But along came The Shield, and Chiklis, who shed the rest of his hair along with a couple of loads of body fat, was cast as villainous antihero detective Vic Mackey.

Now. You could watch The Shield without ever having seen Michael Chiklis before, and see a barrel-chested  bullet-headed dirty cop. But if you're familiar with some of his other roles, you take into consideration his previous identities as both a dad and an honest cop, your viewing experience is much richer.

How this theory applies to viewing Chiklis as The Thing, however, I have no idea.