Growing Up Ford

It was really weird seeing my dad on TV.

Alright, so J. K. Simmons is not my actual father, but he's playing a character remarkably like him on NBC's Growing Up Fisher.  My dad also wields a chainsaw, kicks ass in the courtroom, and taught me how to parallel park.   And like Mel Fisher, most people don't realize that my dad is blind - at least, not right away.   

I kept texting my sister while watching the pilot.  He has a talking watch!  He runs into the coffee table!  (In our case, it was a piano bench, and we were always the ones who left it out.)  They're playing catch in the yard!  I had to recount all of these little moments from our childhood that I never expected to see played out on TV.

Neither did the show's creator, I imagine.  DJ Nash shared how the series came about:     

"I was telling a story about my dad cutting down a tree with a chainsaw — because I thought that that was not a big deal, I really did — and this other writer had this look like, 'Should I call child protective services five years later?' And I realized there's a show here."

Yep.  It's a bizarre sort of normal that very few people experience, and aren't we lucky to have superhero fathers?   DJ, I doubt you need any further inspiration, but feel free to contact me if you want to swap stories.  I've got some good ones.