Dads

I saw this program on a "self-erasing" videotape sent to me by a marketing firm in June of 2006. The printed materials that came with the tape suggested that this program was "being considered" for network series status. Nine years after it was made? I don't think so! Apparently this pilot is being used as a shill to get recruited audiences to sit through commercials for products like Energizer batteries and Pepperidge Farm cookies. It must have been chosen because it is so utterly non-controversial (and bland) that it made the commercials seem lively by comparison. Its plot, if you can call it that, focuses on three youngish dads trying to support each other through divorce, their kids starting preschool and other mildly interesting mini-crises. I can see why it was never picked up for broadcast. A cookie-cutter "cute" show with some of the most obnoxious child actors I've ever seen, it even featured a bad performance by Rue McLanahan (with an on-again-off-again German accent) as the preschool's headmistress. Not worth watching, even if you ARE getting paid to do so!!

Yes! The terror is now worldwide. Same selling technique, but now in DVD, has arrived to Spain. Same awful chapter, full of commercials in the middle (two times, like 7-10 minutes every time). Some questions you have to answer about the show the next day when they call you home and you're supposed to be "rewarded" with some gifts, they thank you for your "collaboration with this new TV show". Oh? New? Really? I was expecting something like the 6th "The Wire"season or "The sopranos" Special comeback... bad luck! Thank you very much, IPSOS ("...a company of inquiring minds and passionate people giving a voice and shape to the thoughts of millions of individuals around the world..."eeeerr What?) to make my girlfriend & me waste some 35 precious minutes of our lives watching this lousy DVD.

Anyway, the worst TV show EVER!

When I was in Beeston, UK getting groceries I got stopped by a nice polite canvasser. She gave me the video and all the paperwork. I took it home and watched it, all the way to the end. When the caller phoned me the next day, I lied to him and told him someone else watched it before I had the chance to. He sent me another one through the post. If you take the magnet out, rewind the tape, record over the tape til the end, you'll find the tape counter is around and hour and a quarter long. Now I have two brand new blank videos thank you very much!! Trouble is, they keep phoning me, and I'm ignoring the phone. Ringing me every half hour from 8am - 8pm.

Yes, 'Dads' is back from the dead as a market research tool. You're asked to watch this "new" sitcom to help with its development on a "self-erasing" tape, then drilled for 45 minutes about the commercials. Beware! Audience Responses, Inc. is truly evil, because this is quite possibly the worst sitcom I've ever seen, and they make you watch it under completely false pretenses. It's got acting from the "Three's Company" school, child wannabe-stars who make you want to commit infanticide, Rue McClanahan with a "German" (drunk/Southern/Russian) accent ... ack. Vile. But "Mr. Lizard" holds a special place in my heart.

So: get on board with this movement. Get the sitcom, rip out the magnet that erases it, mess with the market researchers' heads, upload it to YouTube, write fan mail to the child actors... do what needs to be done.

Headrazz has the right idea. I got the tape like he did and I have to say it was one big waste of a half hour. The sitcom wasn't really bad, it was just totally uninteresting. It had archetype characters who were the typical lovable buffoons who can't do anything right but have a heart of gold and the maturity of 16 year old. The kids were heartbreakingly typical too, making wise-guy light hearted comments to there parents in a way that strikes me as trying way too hard to be cute. The plot is borrowed from countless other sitcoms too: three struggling dads trying to raise their kids and getting into all the old shenanigans. Even the teacher was the tough German matriarch who's motherly criticism to the dads even I could have written. All in all, I'm very glad this show never made it. It wasn't terrible but it was nothing new, nothing interesting, and nothing you wouldn't see on a different show. The only difference is the writers' angle of centering the show on three divorced dads: the immature playful dimwitted mechanic, the nervous sarcastic businessman, and the normal one. Kinda sounds like Joey and Chandler from friends with Mr Normal to balance it out.