With Father's Day just around the corner, there's no better time for online parent community Netmums to come out in force and condemn Homer Simpson, and a whole host of other TV daddies for their incompetence.
The website conducted a poll asking over 2,000 voters whether or not TV dads were giving real-life fathers a bad name, and the results were rather interesting to say the least. Not even Peppa Pig could escape the wrath of the mammies and daddies, who were none too impressed with it's "feckless" father figure.
46 per cent of those surveyed said cartoons show dads to be lazy and stupid, while 93 per cent said kids TV shows didn't paint a fair picture of father figures. 28 per cent even went as far as to say the whole thing represented a "very subtle form of discrimination".
"It's never been harder to be a father but good dads have never been more needed by their families", said Netmums founder Siobhan Freegard. "So it seems perverse we are telling men to step up and be involved, while running them down in the media. The type of jokes aimed at dads would be banned if they were aimed at women, ethnic minorities or religious groups. Some people claim 'it's just a joke' - but there's nothing amusing about taking away good role models for young boys."
And it ain't just the cartoon daddies either: Netmums has no love for My Family, Outnumbered or Shameless either. Guess you have to be one of the Waltons or live in the Little House on the Prairie to meet their high standards...
