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Deadbeat Dads Who Are Still Better Than Your Terrible Dad

Deadbeat Dads Who Are Still Better Than Your Terrible Dad June 15, 2017

Deadbeat Dads Who Are Still Better Than Your Shitty Dad

Father's Day is a wonderful holiday invented by Hallmark to sell more greeting cards to make your dad feel extra special and loved. But let's be real. Not everybody's dad is Father's Day card material. They don't call them "daddy issues" for nothin', honey. As much as these fictional dads suck, they still probably don't suck as bad as your deadbeat dad who left for a pack of cigarettes in the middle of the night and never came back. Or maybe you had the kind of dad who left your mom for a stewardess with a nice rack on a return flight from Vegas. Or maybe he used to smack you around with the buckle end of his belt and called it "character building." Maybe he was always late on his child support payments, or maybe he still pops into your life every few years just to ask for money to take to the race tracks. Whatever the case is, your dad sounds like he sucks, and he probably sucks more than these dads. Cheer up though! You're totally justified to drink a whole bottle of whiskey and call your therapist crying after reading this list. Just don't try to patch things up with your dad. He doesn't deserve your love.

Jack Torrance, The Shining

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Jack Torrance literally drives his wife and son to an all-but abandoned hotel super far away from civilization so that he can selfishly focus on writing his shitty novel instead of caring about the happiness and well-being of his family. What's Wendy supposed to do locked up in the Overlook Hotel all day, huh? Let's also not forget the fact that his son, Danny, is about one imaginary friend away from a full psychotic break, and he doesn't even really notice. The icing on the cake is when he escalates from absentee father to full-blown psychopath and chases his wife and kid around with an axe. Bonus points for making the weird choice to start calling himself Johnny when he morphs into a homocidal maniac - wtf was that about?

Wolverine, Logan

Logan is the kind of dad I've always wanted to be - drunk driving a beat up limo around, and saying grumpy things to his clone-daughter, X23. However, none of those things are the recipe for Dad of the Year. Laura has to work SO HARD to gain his approval, and his last words are all about him. She finally calls him daddy, and all he can say is, "so this is what it feels like." Your death isn't all about you, dude. You're leaving a daughter behind - at least tell her you love her before you pass on to the great Comic Con in the sky.

Ross Gellar, Friends

Remember that episode where Ross leaves his baby with two of his least responsible friends, and then Joey and Chandler literally leave his child on a city bus and can't recognize him when they go to the bus depot to pick him up? Yeah. That was pretty shitty.

Lou Smith, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

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Anybody who makes Will Smith cry like that must be an asshole, but Lou Smith really takes the cake. He basically abandoned his wife and son, and after his wife felt that West Philadelphia wasn't exactly the best place to raise a kid, saddled him with Uncle Phil.

Cullen Crisp, Kindergarten Cop

Cullen Crisp is a literal D R U G D E A L E R who's son just so happens to end up in undercover Detective John Kimble's Kindergarten class. He starts a fire in the school library and holds his son hostage. On top of those things, he's a total pussy - he gets bit in the neck by Detective Kimble's pet ferret and goes down HARD, allowing Kimble to fatally shoot him. It was actually also pretty shitty of Kimble to shoot a guy who has a son, but I guess it was either Crisp or him and his ferret.

Mufasa, The Lion King

This asshole literally gets beaten to death by a stampede of wildebeats. Get your shit together, Mufasa. Talk about a dead beat dad, am I right?

Mufasa, The Lion King

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Just kidding.

Royal Tenenbaum, The Royal Tenenbaums

Royal Tenenbaum literally lies to his children about having cancer so that they'll hang out with him again after he treated them all like shit their entire lives and abandoned their mother. He told Margot when she was like, 11 years old that the play she wrote, produced, and starred in wasn't "believable," and refused to acknowledge that his daughter ahd created complex characters within her show. He also shot his son Chas in the hand with a BB gun and took his grandsons out to a dog fight for fun. Luckily for him, his kids love him enough to forgive him before he dies of a heart attack, engraving his tombstone with the words, "Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship."

Danny Tanner, Full House

WHAT KIND OF A GROWN MAN RECRUITS TWO OF HIS LEAST RESPONSIBLE FRIENDS TO RAISE HIS THREE DAUGHTERS?

Darth Vader, Star Wars

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Before you hit me with that "BUT HE WAS GOOD ON THE INSIDE," crap, let me remind you that he blew up his daughter's adoptive home planet and sliced off his son's hand. Not exactly worthy of a Father's Day card. Although, scratch that, I'd still get him a Father's Day card. That dude could Force choke you from across the room without blinking.

Harry Wormwood, Matilda

This guy is just the actual worst. He's SUPER abusive to Matilda, calling her names and berating her for being more intelligent than him. He basically tries to squash all of the childhood curiosity, imagination, and smarts out of his daughter, which is super messed up. On top of all that, he's also a used car salesmen, and makes his living ripping people off.

Mr. Salt, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

When it comes to spoiling your kid rotten, this guy is EVEN WORSE than Vernon Dursley from Harry Potter. He leads his daughter, Veruca, to believe that she can have literally anything she wants in the world, and that her daddy will always be there to pay for it. Newsflash, sweet pea: Mick Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want, and he was 100% right. Think about that next time you want to chase a golden egg down a trash chute.

Nick Parker, The Parent Trap

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First of all, who the hell would EVER want to marry that smarmy POS Meredith Blake when they could totally be banging the late Natasha Richardson?! Second of all, how do you literally not notice that the girl you picked up from the airport isn't your daughter? I get it, they're twins, but come on, he BARELY questions it when she tells him that she learned to speak French at summer camp. WTF.

Grandpa Joe, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Okay, I get it, he took his grandson to the Chocolate Factory and showed him a great time, but COME ON. He literally laid in bed for 20 years while he daughter slaved away at her laundry business and his grandson barely made enough money on his paper route to afford a loaf of bread. Then, all of a sudden, he can WALK again just in time to take Charlie to see Willy Wonka? That's so messed up. Why didn't that ungrateful brat Charlie take his MOM who slaved over a hot wash basin to provide for him and their entire family? He's a lazy asshole, and on top of that, his muscles would have been so atrophied from the lack of physical activity that he'd never be able to walk all the way through the Chocolate Factory without a walker. He was probably walking around the house just fine for YEARS. Asshole.

Henry Jones Sr., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

"We named the dog Indiana," says it all. Why can't you be supportive of your son's badass nickname? On top of that, he totally bangs Indy's Nazi girlfriend which is NOT COOL. Nobody wants to be tunnel buddies with their dad.

George McFly, Back to the Future

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Before Marty goes back in time and makes his dad cool, George McFly is a total pussy. He barely notices that his marriage is falling apart and that his kids are wildly unhappy, and before Marty intervenes, he's too much of a wuss to stand up to Buford Tannen. Also, he lets his son hang out with a super old mad scientist in his garage, which is really weird if you think about it. How did Marty and Doc Brown even become friends? Why isn't his dad worried about that? Why doesn't his dad tell him to make friends his own age like a normal person instead of trying to invent a time-traveling DeLorean? Get your shit together, George.

Nigel Thornberry, The Wild Thornberries

Home schooling your kids is one thing. Home schooling your kids in a trailer in the middle of the Sahara is downright awful. I get it, Debbie and Eliza get a ton of practical experience in dealing with wild animals, but Nigel Thornberry literally lets his children run around with monkeys and lions and tigers and elephants and other animals that a 12 year old girl should never hang out with under any circumstances. Also, does he not care that Debbie is fucking M I S E R A B L E living away from society and all of her friends? She basically has to miss out on the whole teenage high school experience of dating and going to prom and stuff like that just because her dad is a jungle freak.

Kronos, Greek Mythology

Kronos literally ate his children. Nuff said.

Stu Pickles, Rugrats

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Stu Pickles works really hard to provide for his family, I'll give him that. But his toy inventions suck, and he's constantly disappointed in his life and his career. I honestly don't know how he even makes enough money to put food on their table because his toys almost never sell in big retail venues. Also, the first Rugrats Movie is the story of the time he was supposed to be babysitting Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Angelica, and newborn baby Dil, but the babies manage to escape in the Reptar mobile and end up super far away from home. Stu not only provided them with the means and the vehicle in which to leave, but he also is responsible for losing four children who aren't even his. Dick move, Stu. You deserved that punch Drew threw at you.

Sterling Archer, Archer

Technically, the Wee Baby Seamus doesn't end up being Archer's biological child, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a fucking terrible idea to have his name tattooed on the baby's back. He probably only had like 6 gummy bears and some scotch in his stomach when he made that bonehead call.

Lucius Malfoy, Harry Potter

There were A LOT of bad dads from the Harry Potter universe to choose from - Tom Riddle Sr., Vernon Dursley, Xenophilius Lovegood, and even James Potter for being such a bully, but Lucius Malfoy definitely takes the cake. He's spoiled his son so rotten that if anyone so much as bumps into him in the Great Hall, Draco starts screaming, "MY FATHER WILL HEAR ABOUT THIS!" He also forces his only son to work for the Dark Lord when he's barely reached his 17th birthday, and puts him in a situation where he has to MURDER the most beloved Headmaster Hogwarts has ever known. That whole thing with the vanishing cabinets in Borgin & Burkes? Super messed up. He's also totally abusive to Dobby, and tricks Ginny Weasley into opening The Chamber of Secrets when she's like, 11 years old. How has this guy not been thrown into Azkaban yet?

George Bluth Sr., Arrested Development

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Where do we even start with George Bluth Sr.? For starters, his business wasn't exactly what you'd call legal or moral, he fired his twin brother, Oscar, from the company, he replaced all of his employees with younger, hotter models, and worked with Saddam Hussein. He fakes a heart attack to get out of serving jail time, fakes his own death, and flees to Mexico. He also has Oscar arrested in his stead, and sold a film series called Boyfights that featured his sons beating eachother up. Also, the Cornballer was just a shitty invention. We can all agree on that.

Ego, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

He gives the mother of his child a BRAIN TUMOR just so that he doesn't have to deal with the pain of breaking up with her. Then he kills all of his children on his quest to take over every single planet in the entire galaxy. Just because he tosses the ball around with Peter Quill a little on the planet he built as a god doesn't exonerate him from all the murder he committed. Also, he put a bad spin on Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) by the Looking Glass, which is arguably one of the best songs ever recorded. Fuck that guy.

Michael Banks, Mary Poppins

A cool thing to do is raise your children to become investment bankers instead of encouraging them to foster healthy imaginations. Except, oh wait, it's not cool at all. What the hell, George Banks! He's also incredibly rude to his wife in her crusade to help women gain equal rights, and tries to squash all of the fun out of his kids' lives whenever he can. What a douche.

Albert Manning, DeGrassi: the Next Generation

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This one's a deep cut, but for those who remember watching DeGrassi in middle school, I'm sure you remember how hot Craig Manning was, and how shitty and evil his dad was. His dad gets so abusive that Craig has to move in with his Uncle Joey instead of being raised by his actual parent. It's no surprise that Craig turns to women and cocaine later in life to self-medicate his crippling bi-polar disorder and deep depression.

Charlie Swan, Twilight

What kind of an asshole lets his daughter get so obsessed with an actual vampire that she becomes catatonic and borderline suicidal for MONTHS without taking her to a therapist to sort out her depression issues?? Seriously, you cannot get more clueless than Bella Swan's dad.

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