It’s important that TV Dads totally bring it. TV households are full of drama and excitement and it is up to the Dad to raise the roof and be totally awesome at all times. Shows usually start out thinking that the kids will be the stars but really it’s the Dads that are the pacesetters. If Bart Simpson was the focus of “The Simpsons” do you think that show would still be on TV? Of course not. The most bringingest dads in recent history are, without a doubt, stalwart Sandy Cohen from The OC and upstart Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights. This will be a compare/contrast/which one is awesomer piece written by myself, BG. Because it’s Sunday and I’m waiting for the tide to come up, that’s why.
As you can see by Sandy’s pair of thrusters and his ambiguous “Smith’s” hoodie, Sandy is quite the alterna-jock. You could always count on at least one scene where he would be coming back into his beachfront law office with wet hair and a longboard under his arm talking about “how great Swamis was today” because that is the way that he rolls. Unfortunately, Sandy and his willowy wife gave birth to the neurotic Seth Cohen, which meant that rather than dominate sweet beach breaks Sandy had to spend the majority of each episode dispensing pearls of wisdom to the downtrodden and emo-loving Seth. Seth turned out to be pretty much the anti-Sandy…sure, he always had that one surfboard in the corner of his room but I don’t remember him ever waxing that thing up. Sometimes Seth would venture to downtown Newport without Atwood in tow (which virtually 100% of the time ended up in a beatdown) on his skateboard but he pretty much pushed like a girl so I’m not counting that. To his credit he did star in the Oscar winning for best-everything major motion picture Grind, so at least some of Sandy’s good sense rubbed off on him. Sandy was a wizard in the courtroom but unfortunately a failure at home. It’s true, Sandy–you were put in a terrible position so your stats look good based on the situation, sort of like Kevin Martin in Sacramento…someone’s got to put points on the board.
Eric Taylor is more of your traditional jock dad. While palling around with the Dillon Panthers in redneck Texas may not be as fulfilling as chest-high Swamis, Coach Taylor more than holds his own in the battle of the amazing TV dads–in the two-point-five years he has been head coach of the Panthers he has one State Title to his credit and is now threatening a second and consistently managers to get the most out of players, turning Boyz II Men in every episode. Who would have thought 5’8″ QB2 Matt Scaracen (fantastic young actor–he is Adam Brody v. 2.0) would be able to replace the paralized Jason Street? Coach Taylor, that’s who. Who would have thought Tim Riggins would return for a seventh Senior year? Coach Taylor, that’s who. Who has the hottest daughter on network TV? Coach Taylor, that’s who. The more I compare the numbers the more I realize that this VS isn’t even close–it’s Taylor in a landslide. Sandy Cohen, while a visionary and a genius, got pretty much all of his money from Kiki and Cal (bastard) but you know that Coach Taylor had to work his ass off just to get where he is now. Yeah, he jumped ship at the start of season two but his heart was never in TMU or whatever fake school it was and the whole time you knew that he was coming back to Dillon. God bless you Coach.
