The Story of Fathers & Sons

 Ray Richmond

Jun 17, 1999

Family Special

ABC; Thurs. June 17, 8 p.m.

 Television doesn't get a whole lot more visceral, or more genuinely moving, than does this supremely poignant Father's Day-themed hour that (however briefly) gives the term "reality TV" a good name. Following in the footsteps of a similar moms- and-daughters hour that premiered in 1997 (and repeats on Thursday night), "The Story of Fathers & Sons" is practically impossible to dismiss as merely maudlin. It did, in fact, inspire the eyes of this critic to visibly moisten, an event that last occurred following the reading of the verdict in the first O.J. Simpson trial.

Doesn't it just figure that the most affecting hour ABC is likely to put on all year gets blown off on a Thursday night in the middle of June? Oh sure, they timed it to coincide with Father's Day, but they could have run it just as easily on a Wednesday or a Friday. This is a program that deserves to be seen -- and cherished.

Far from being the sappy interlude that the title might denote, "Story of Fathers & Sons" scarcely chimes a false note. It joins several dozen demographically diverse, racially mixed, spectacularly ordinary dads and sons (and many who are both) along with a few celebs -- Edward James Olmos, Shaquille O'Neal, "Home Improvement" kid Zachary Ty Bryan -- who are blended so seamlessly that their status is no more consequential than that of their fellow anonymous guyfolk.

What these boys and men reveal, in waxing eloquent about the job of dad and son, is almost staggering in its candor. It seems as if producer-directors Gary Weimberg, Catherine Ryan and Judith Leonard have slipped these "storytellers" some sort of sensitivity serum. Rarely do males allow themselves to be captured in so raw and sincere a state, making an airtight case for the uncanny strength of the father-son bond.

Program is also unique in its simplicity. It uses no narrator, for one. For another, director of photography Kevin O'Brien and his team shot the hour on video, setting the assortment of talking-head interviewees against a stark black background to create a mesmerizing moody texture. Other dads and sons are captured at play, at work, at home and at wit's end.

Broken into "chapters" that catalog the oft-complicated tales chronologically from birth to childhood to adolescence to manhood and finally to old age, "Story of Fathers & Sons" does not shrink from the painful, the angry or the sad. Contrasting with the soft fuzzies of beatific dads nuzzling their cooing newborns is a man, still shattered, discussing how his son died of SIDS at the age of two months.

"I wonder, do I tell people that I ever had a son?" he asks, choking back sobs.

An incarcerated young man laments having missed his baby son's first words, his first steps, his first birthday and Christmas. A 16-year-old Latino teen with a pregnant girlfriend and bleak job prospects vows to "become something my dad never was -- a real father."

A yuppie dad on the fast track acknowledges, "My dad was always too busy to come to my baseball games, and now I'm doing it, too." A boy of perhaps 7 observes of his father, "I saw him walk out on my mom."

And in what is surely the show's most devastating segment, a father with a son so severely mentally deficient that he can neither walk nor talk and whose development will forever be stuck at age 2 summons the courage to declare on camera to the uncomprehending boy, "I will always be with you. Instead of walking with you, I will crawl with you. But I'll be there by your side."

Playing opposite that, however, are inspiring stories like that of Olmos, whose divorced father was limited to one weekly visit with him by court order during Olmos' boyhood. "But every day I played baseball, my dad would come. Every day. I started playing seven days a week. He was always there."

A graduating high school senior trumpets with pride, "My father's taught me how to be a man." A pre-adolescent boy boasts of his pa, "He's a really nice person. He taught me how to be loving and respectful, and how to fix a faucet." And a gay man who came out of the closet with his father illustrates the relationship's complexities in noting, "(My admission) caused an enormous rift between us. But he showed that he wanted to work on this relationship."

We see the two embrace warmly.

From a frazzled dad toting his toddler to a first tantrum-filled haircut to troubled men escorting their aging fathers into the sunset, "The Story of Fathers & Sons" spans the paternal universe. That it manages to do so with such heartfelt conviction and depth is an unanticipated treat.