Calvin's father

Calvin's father
Canonical information
Relatives	Calvin's mother (wife) Calvin (son) Uncle Max (younger brother) Calvin's grandmother (mother in law) Calvin's grandfather (father in law)
First appearance	November 18, 1985
Last appearance	December 3, 1995
Alter egos	Calvin's father's alter egos View Reclining alien Scary conversing aliens The Bog Monster Yukbarf Zarch
Physical description
Gender	Male
Hair color	Black

“	Don't get discouraged, we got the same result after working on you for 6 years.'	”
—Calvin's dad

Calvin's father is a main character of Calvin and Hobbes. Like many other characters in the strip, is a relatively down-to-earth and sensible character whose attitudes serve primarily as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior.

Both parents go through the entire strip unnamed, except as "Mom" and "Dad," or such pet names as "honey" and "dear." He first appeared in the very first Calvin and Hobbes strip, though he was the only parent shown until a few days later, when Calvin's mother was introduced.

The appearance of Calvin's father is actually an illustration of Bill Watterson himself back when he was drawing the strip.

Personality

Calvin's father is generally mild-mannered and calm. He steadfastly believes in the value of hardwork and tries to instill this within his son via chores, to little success; he is often shown telling Calvin that certain things (often negative) "build character." An avid outdoorsman, he loves riding his bicycle whenever possible (even riding it through the snow on one occasion), and often tries to teach Calvin to ride his bike. He is the only member of the family to enjoy their annual camping trip; he is shown to enjoy drawing or painting nature scenes when not fishing or swimming, and always tries to get Calvin out with him.

Several strips imply that Calvin's father was a party animal in his youth. On one occasion, Calvin goes through his college yearbook and asks if his father is the guy "...with the keg and the 'Party Naked!' shirt?" His father reacts quickly and defensively, implying that the picture is indeed of him. On another occasion, when Calvin asks what "the old college try" means, his father tells him it means when you get friends, beer, and pizza, and forget about tomorrow. Looking at another picture, Calvin asks who the "bimbo" in the picture with him is, and his dad angrily answers "That 'BIMBO' is your mother!," suggesting that his mom may have been a party animal as well.

He is patient to a degree, but gets annoyed with Calvin's antics faster than Calvin's mom does. Calvin's dad, however, has been shown to delight in abusing his parental authority to make up ridiculous explanations to many of Calvin's difficult questions, such as where babies come from (telling Calvin there are assembly kits at Sears and K Mart) or how people calculated the load limit for bridges (telling him that they build the bridge, run trucks over it until it breaks, then weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge). In another strip, Calvin's dad fed him the lie that the sun was no bigger than a quarter and set in Arizona every night. Mom, however, intervenes at times when she feels that they should be focused on more important issues, such as Calvin's poor performance in school, and she may believe these stories are a contribution as they are messing with Calvin's mind. Another time when Dad made one of his jokes how they will not celebrate Christmas like other families do, Calvin was shocked by this. Mom chastized Dad for this, considering this joke as crossing the line into being outright nasty to do to someone as young as Calvin.

He is shown on occasion to have a cynical streak in regards to commercialism and new technology, preferring a quiet, simplistic lifestyle (Hobbes comments that "[he]'s going into the future kicking and screaming"). Despite often being aggravated by his son, in some story arcs his gentler parental nature is revealed, showing that he truly loves and cares for Calvin by consoling him in times of crisis. Notably, in one strip he is working when Calvin asks him to play outside; he originally says that he is too busy, but gives in to temptation and runs outside to join his son, and the two build a snowman together.

Although Calvin's father has repeatedly suggested (jokingly) that he's not actually related to Calvin, his answers to Calvin's questions show a sense of humor and playfulness quite similar to his son, suggesting that he was actually quite similar to Calvin growing up. It is clear that his father gives Calvin his sense of humor and his wild imagination. Calvin's dad has helped him build snowmen, suggesting that Calvin got his skill at creating snow sculptures and snowmen from his father.

Relationship with Calvin

Calvin's behavior often causes his father annoyance, sometimes provoking him to yell at Calvin. In fact, Dad never wanted a kid in the first place - he wanted to buy a dachshund (this was said during an argument, however). Nevertheless, he sometimes gets out of the house, but when he and Mom hire Rosalyn to babysit Calvin, it's another story. He is sometimes regarded as being unloving and mean towards his son, but in two "serious" story arcs, he consoles Calvin and holds his son while letting Calvin cry. One dealt with the difficulty of accepting death when the raccoon Calvin found died the next morning. Another arc was where Calvin broke a pair of binoculars and confessed to doing so. Dad is at first furious and shouts angrily, but then calms down when Calvin is contrite. Dad admitted that he was right to be upset, but the tirade was an overreaction, Calvin admitted his wrongdoing upfront rather than having to be tracked down, and it was a pair of binoculars, which was not much in the grand scheme of life.

Calvin's father was once put to the test when Calvin's mom fell sick and it was revealed he could not cook. Despite annoying him, he indeed loves his son.

Behind the Scenes

The actual image of Calvin's father is a self-portrait of Watterson himself. Watterson has said that he identifies more with this character than with Calvin. The character is more closely based on Watterson's own father, who is also a patent attorney, and often told his family that unpleasant things "Built character." 

Gallery

Trivia

• When Calvin's dad tells him that negative things "build character", what he means is it builds *good* character, implying he needs some to balance out his overabundance of bad character.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Calvin and Hobbes. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with The Calvin and Hobbes Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.