When we think of fictional fathers from movies
and TV, we tend to think of the bumbling dad trope, a goofy and dimwitted father who loves
their children but struggles to take care of them. However, disney has a wide range of fathers,
from great dads to evil guardians. For fathers day this year we decided that
itâs only appropriate to rank the most iconic dads in disney animated movie history. To find out whoâs the best and whoâs the
worst. Iâm Kyle with Wicked Binge and this is Disney
Fathers Good to Evil. Before we get started itâs important to
state that these dads will be ranked only on their parenting skills⌠Not their overall morality. So we might be seeing some great people being
not so great fathers or vice versa. Now letâs get started! This time weâll be starting with the worst
of worst and working our way through the and Evil, before getting to the better dads on
our list. Starting with the very worst... Surprising virtually no-one with our pick
for the most evil Disney father; we have Claude Frollo. Frollo is the cruel and manipulative Parisian
justice minister who adopted Quasimodo as an infant. Not out of the goodness of his heart, of course,
but for fear of eternal damnation for murdering the childâs mother and then attempting to
drown the disfigured child. In order to keep the world from seeing him,
Frollo locks the child away to work in the bell tower for his whole life and even gives
him the demeaning name âQuasimodoâ, meaning âHalf-formedâ. He lies to Quasimodo about his past and convinces
him that the only one who would ever show him mercy and kindness was himself. Despite this claim, Frollo doesnât miss
an opportunity to berate Quasimodo, forcing him to call himself âUglyâ and âA Monsterâ. His upbringing causes Quasimodo to fear others
and to have very low self esteem. Itâs only after he is shown kindness by
Esmeralda, that Quasimodo begins to doubt the negative view of humanity his adoptive
father has instilled in him. Unlike the other fathers on our list, Frollo
has no love or even respect for the child he raised, attempting to murder him a second
time at the end of the film. In the end he never redeems himself, falling
into the fire to be punished for his crimes for all eternity. Not only is Frollo a terrible, awful father,
he really has nothing redeemable about him as a person in general. He deserves to burn. Earning himself the silver medal of evil is
Pete from A Goofy Movie. While not the main focus of the film, it is
made very clear that Pete is not a good father to his son PJ. He constantly tries to give Goofy parenting
advice, despite the fact that his own son wants nothing to do with him. Pete acts more like a drill sergeant toward
PJ than a loving parent, barking orders at him and forcing the boy to call him âSirâ. This leaves PJ to feel intimidated by his
father and fear him throughout the movie. He isnât any better in the sequel, even
though he has an even smaller role. He is down right giddy to kick PJ out and
turn his room into a bowling alley. But I guess thatâs not too surprising from
the O.G. Disney villain. While not a straight up villain, our bronze
pick is definitely no angel: Buck Cluck. After Chicken Little, his only son, is shunned
and mocked for believing the sky fell, Buck very quickly turned his back on the little
one. While it is understandable why one might doubt
this claim, itâs pretty rough to see him completely bail on his son and leave Chicken
Little to fight desperately to win back his fatherâs love. Itâs only when Chicken Little hits a homerun
for a ball game that his father finally starts to show pride and acceptance for him. But, when Chicken Little warns the town of
aliens, Buck immediately abandons his son AGAIN. While he does redeem and show he does love
his son at the end, itâs hard to defend him for never standing up for his son while
he gets constantly berated from the entire town for the entirety of the whole film. Itâs no wonder Buck Cluck is one of the
most hated characters. Next up we have the Ape father of Tarzan,
Kerchak. Now he isnât in the bad category because
of his treatment of his biological son, whom he was shown to be very playful and loving
to, but rather for his tense relationship with his adoptive, human son. From the very beginning Kerchak refuses to
accept the orphaned infant as an ape or a son and is very cold towards him. After accidentally causing an elephant stampede,
a young Tarzan is told by Kerchak that he would never be one of them. Facing rejection from the closest figure he
had to a father leaves Tarzan to feel like an outcast in the only place he knows as his
home. This leads him to work every single day to
try and prove that he can be a great ape so Kerchak would have no choice but to respect
him. In Kerchakâs defense, he was only trying
to protect his family from the humans, but these actions still caused a lot of hurt and
turmoil for Tarzan, who only gets his fatherâs acceptance 18 years later, on the gorillaâs
death bed. Better late than never, I guess? Moving along, we have The Great Prince of
The Forest, AKA Bambiâs Father. While his worst crime in the original film
is just being absent, we get a much better view of him as a father in the sequel. However, this is not a good thing for his
case, as the film begins right after Bambi loses his mother, and his father discourages
the fawn from fondly remembering his mother mere hours after her death. The Great Prince often scolds Bambi for not
acting like a prince would. He even goes as far as spending the whole
movie trying to pawn his child off on others and tries to give his son away to another
doe to raise him. This leaves poor Bambi to feel rejected by
the one family member he has left as he tries to work for his fatherâs love and support. His father does end up changing his mind and
really stepping up as a father, but these actions are far too much to put a young child
to go through RIGHT after the death of his mother. Next up is the father of Queens Anna and Elsa,
King Agnarr. Okay, now you may be thinking that this is
pretty harsh but hear us out. As small children, Elsa accidentally strikes
Anna with ice, leading the whole family to seek help from the forest trolls. After cleansing Annaâs memories of Elsaâs
magic, Pabbie warns them of the girl's magic being possibly dangerous in the future. As a response, Agnarr decides that they must
lock up the castle and Elsa until she can learn to control her powers. Yes, King Agnarr loved and adored both his
children but this one choice is responsible for almost everything that goes wrong in the
film. Firstly, it causes Elsa to isolate herself,
not only from the kingdom, but from her own sister as well. She grows up fearing her powers and herself. Her anxiety causes her to even miss out on
her own parentsâ funeral. She wouldnât have accidentally frozen the
entire kingdom and felt the need to run away if her magic wasnât treated as something
to be feared. And the isolation doesnât only hurt Elsa,
because Ana doesnât remember why her sister is locked away, Anna grows up alone, wondering
why her own sister doesnât want to be around her. The loneliness got to Anna too, making her
desperate enough for love and affection that she very quickly fell for Hanz, and we all
know how that one turned out. While none of this was what Agnarr wanted
or expected, one poorly thought out parenting decision ends up hurting both his children
for many many years, and unfortunately, he can never apologize to his daughters. With that, we move away from the bad fathers
and into The Grey Area. Starting the grey area off is Motunuiâs
own, Chief Tui. Despite him loving his daughter and his island,
his overwhelming fear of going beyond the reef puts both in danger. Moana has a deep love and attraction to the
ocean, but is constantly dragged back to land by her father. No matter how hard she works to be the perfect
daughter, she canât ignore her love for the sea, nor should she have to. His desperation for her to stay on land causes
him to even yell at her in front of everyone on the island for suggesting that they might
need to go beyond the reef for food. She thankfully ignores his scolding and decides
to go beyond the reef and save her entire island. By the end, Chief Tui is able to realize his
mistake and change his ways, for the better of the island and his daughter. Next up is Fa Zhou, the father of Mulan. Zhou is a very traditional man, putting him
in conflict with his only child, Mulan, who struggles to meet her familyâs expectations. While he truly loves his daughter and compares
her to a late blooming cherry blossom, he is also strict. He gets angry at her for questioning the fairness
of some of their traditions, including him being forced to join the war a second time
when he is already injured. He shames her for bringing dishonor on their
family for trying to stand up for her father to save his life. Despite this, he refuses to turn in Mulan
when she runs away to serve in the army in his place, saving her life in doing so. Once Mulan returns home with gifts from the
emperor himself, Zhou throws that aside to hug the most important gift, his beloved daughter. Our next entry is The Sultan of Agrabah and
father of Princess Jasmine. Outside of being a classic example of a bumbling
dad trope, The Sultan isnât the best father to his teenage daughter. He was very pushy about Jasmine getting married
to a prince, despite her wanting to wait until she finds someone she loves. He also forced her to stay in the palace walls,
making Jasmine ignorant to what is going on in her kingdom. What saves him from being a bad father is
the fact that he was being constantly hypnotized by Jafar into making many of his choices. He was at least excited by Jasmine falling
for Aladdin, and was persuaded to change the law so she could marry the one she loved. However that leaves the question, if he could
have changed the law the whole time, why didnât he? Oh well, at least he finally gave in at the
end. Kind of a dummy, but he means well at least The true neutral of fathers goes to King Stefan
from Sleeping Beauty. Because of a curse placed on his daughter
by Maleficent, Stefan never got a chance to raise his beloved daughter. Instead, he placed her in the care of three
fairies until her 16th birthday. While this was only for her protection, it
still never gave him a chance to raise Aurora, who never even knew he existed until the end
of the film. King Stefan: Not good, not bad, just there. Next is the father of Prince Charming, The
King. While we never see him directly interact with
The Prince, he is involved in his life, perhaps a little too much. The King is overly eager to have his son get
married and give him grandchildren to love and spoil. In order to rush the entire process, he throws
a huge ball and invites every single eligible bachelorette in the kingdom so his son has
no choice but to find somebody to love. While this is a bit overkill, he at least
cares who his son picks is someone that he truly loves and is more than ok with it being
Cinderella. Pushy? Definitely. But we can cut him some slack for considering
how his son feels. Finally we arrive at the good! The pure! Thankfully, Disney has itâs share of good
dads! Starting out with Belleâs dad, Maurice. With Belle ostracized by the community, one
of the only people who accepts her book-loving ways is her eccentric, inventor father. Belle looks up to and loves her dad, while
Maurice shows that he respects Belle and doesnât think she is odd like the rest of the town
does, and while it is because of him that she ended up in The Beastâs tower, it was
never his intention and he spends the entirety of the movie trying desperately to find help
for his daughter, almost dying in the process. Besides, as we all know, her meeting the Beast
turns out to not be all that bad in the end. Still, although heâs a sweet guy and loves
Belle, we canât help but point out heâs a bit⌠useless. And unable to solve many problems, not to
mention the fact that he kind of creates issues for his daughter. Such as getting himself imprisoned in the
Beastâs castle and eventually being used as leverage when Gaston wants to throw him
in an asylum. Next, we have Goofy from A Goofy Movie. Despite him not being the smartest dog around,
he did a pretty good job raising his son, Max. Itâs clear that Goofy adores Max and does
everything he can to ensure his son has a great life, however he does have a bad habit
of smothering the boy. He tends to be too influenced by outside sources,
such as our second most bad father, Pete, and a tyrannical principal, who both convince
Goofy that Max is close to becoming a felon. A family vacation to go fishing initially
fails because of Goofyâs struggle to relate to a teenage boy. Thankfully, Goofy realizes his mistake halfway
through the movie- Better than most fathers on our list- and shows that he is just misguided,
not malicious. Besides, any father that can manage to get
you on stage with a famous celebrity without getting tased by a bodyguard is doing something
right. Another good father we have to mention is
Chief Powhatan from Pocahontas. We canât deny the love he has for his daughter,
which we see through his advice, as well as when he gives Pocahontas a necklace. He really only wants what is best for his
daughter, even if it isnât exactly what she wants. By the end of the film, he proves himself
to be a very kind and understanding dad and finally listens to his daughterâs pleas. Now we have the king of the sea; King Triton. King Triton is a very strict and stern father
to his 7 daughters, including the rebellious Ariel. He clashes with her because of her interest
in human culture, harboring a deep hatred of humans because of the death of his wife,
Athena. While this grudge is understandable, it does
go too far when Triton destroys Arielâs pride and joy; her collection of human things. This definitely crossed the line, however,
he does quickly realize his mistake when Ariel runs away to be a human. Triton searches night and day for his lost
daughter. He even gives up his freedom and his kingdom
to save his daughter. Maybe not the best political move, but a great
move as a dad, and at the end of the movie he does one of the hardest things a father
has to do, let his daughter go. Really, we cut Triton slack on his overbearing
personality because heâs suffered a great taruma with the loss of his wife. Surely it makes sense that heâd be worried
about something happening to his daughter. And everything he does, both good and bad,
he does to protect Ariel. Willing to sacrifice everything for her at
a momentâs notice. Now onto Pinocchioâs Geppetto. After a wish on a star, the kind and gentle
woodmakerâs puppet comes to life. While many people would probably be freaked
out by this, Geppetto instantly accepts his new role and becomes a father to Pinocchio. He quickly becomes a very devoted father to
the little puppet, answering all of his questions, getting him ready for school, and planning
a huge meal for when he comes home. However, when Pinocchio runs away instead
of going to school, Geppetto spends the whole movie looking for the puppet, even somehow
getting swallowed by a whale in the process, and even when he has lost all hope in escaping
the whale, he still could only think of his child, hoping he was ok out there. Once Pinocchio finally becomes a real boy,
Geppetto rejoices and throws a party to celebrate, but even before this, he still loves and accepts
his son for who he is, wooden joints and all. Our next father is king of the gods and father
of Hercules, Zeus. In this case, we can be glad that the movie
wasnât as accurate as the myth, because the Zeus from Greek Mythology had a lot of
problems to say the least⌠But the Disney Zeus is actually a good father. He has a lot of love and pride in Hercules,
throwing a huge party to celebrate his birth. Unfortunately, due to events out of his control,
his only son is made into a mortal and thus cannot live on Mount Olympus until he reaches
godhood. Even then, Zeus still does whatever he can
to help Hercules, giving him advice and giving him a pegasus steed to help on his journey. Itâs clear that Zeus wants nothing more
than his sonâs happiness, accepting Hercules decision not to live on Mount Olympus, and
instead to live on earth with the woman he loves.~~ Up next is Professor Archimedes Q. Porter. While on the surface he seems like a typical
bumbling dad, it is very clear that he has a close bond with his daughter, Jane. They both share a deep love for gorillas and
connect with this interest. He is also shown to value Janeâs opinion
and enjoy listening to his daughter ramble about her fascination with Tarzan, while still
teasing her a bit for it. But he shows his greatest act of fatherhood
at the end of the film, when he encourages Jane to follow her heart and stay in the jungle
with Tarzan... and even joining them himself. Not many fathers would give up the only world
they know just for their daughterâs happiness, but thatâs what puts Porter so high up on
the list. Moving along, we have the father of 99 dalmatian
puppies, Pongo. This determined pooch was a doting and involved
father to his initial 15 puppies before they were stolen to make fur coats by the devious
Cruella De Vil. He and his wife go on a long and difficult
journey to rescue their babies when they find another 84 puppies at risk of becoming a spotted
coat. Without hesitation, Pongo decides to adopt
the rest to protect them from Cruella and immediately accepts all of them as his own. It takes a lot of love and kindness to adopt
one child, let alone 84 when you already have 15 of your own. Making Pongo not only a very good boy, but
an amazing dad! Now then, the Bronze Medal of Best Disney
Dad goes to Pacha from The Emperorâs New Groove. There is no arguing that Pacha is a great
person; he is hardworking, friendly, and tries to see the good in everyone. Not only that, but he is shown to be a real
family man. We only see him directly interact with his
children twice in the film, but each time he is shown to be playful, fatherly, and loving
with them. Itâs clear that he has a very close family
just from this short interaction. His entire journey in the film is because
of him wanting to protect his home and family, even if he has to face the emperor to do it. Speaking of Kuzko, Pacha even develops a close
relationship with him too, even being close enough that they spend the summers together
with his family. We canât say we would have been that forgiving
after all Kuzko did, so that shows what a noble man and father Pacha is. The Silver medal for fatherhood goes to Tianaâs
father, James. He may not have gotten much screen time but
Jamesâ positive influence in his daughterâs life is felt throughout the film. James had a dream his whole life, to own and
run his own restaurant. He shared his love of cooking with his young
daughter, learning that she had a real gift for cooking. He also encouraged Tiana. Saying that she needed to work for her dreams,
causing her to grow up determined and hardworking. James makes it to the top spot because he
struggled his whole life to take care of his family, working up to 3 shifts in a day, but
never put that burden on his daughter. He always kept a smile on his face for his
child and still raised her with love and care. James unfortunately died in the war before
he could make his dream a reality but as his family says; âHe never got what he wanted,
but he had what he needed. He had love.â Finally, the Gold Medal for best dad is King
of the Pride Lands, Mufasa. From the very first scene, we see the affection
he has for his newborn son. As Simba grows up, Mufasa is shown to take
time away from his work as king to play with and teach his son how to be a great king. Even after Simba nearly gets himself killed
by hyenas, the King is able to keep a level head and explain why Simba shouldnât have
done that. Keeping calm under pressure, especially when
you are angry, is something many parents struggle with. But it is incredibly important when raising
a child, and even in death, Mufasa is still looking after his son, and will always be
there. Really, Mufasa is such a great father character
because we see how much effort he puts into raising his son to be strong and honorable. Not only in life, but after his death as well. And we get to see Simba use the wisdom he
received from his father to not only defeat Scar, but grow into adulthood as well. Mufasaâs death is probably the saddest moment
in Disney history. And itâs made so much more impactful by
the fact that he was a perfect father. He loved his son and taught him with the perfect
balance of care and strict rules; and he prepared Simba for his life⌠And to pounce on any problem that comes his
way. Happy Fatherâs Day, everybody. Make sure to tell your dad you love him. And thatâs our list! Who do you think is the most pure or the most
devious disney dad? Donât forget to hit that notification bell
and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist, where we break down the morality of the characters
in your favorite cartoons. But most importantly, stay wicked.
I love this concept so much!