Pam--While this is not directly responsive to your request, perhaps it will give some ideas. I believe the single father sitcoms you have noticed are part of a broader motif, extending beyond simply either television or comedy, making a fundamental statement about Hollywood's typical construction of gender importance and family needs. Whether the sitcoms and others mentioned, or dramas, or countless Disney films, we are presented with an "essential" family that consists of father-and-children. Mothers and motherhood are simply absent, rarely even considered; these basic father-and-children families find themselves entirely self sufficient without even considering the possibility of feminine influence.It seems a way of reducing the feminine even beyond a subordinate role until it vanishes altogether.Ironically, this seems most frequent in entertainment directed at children (ie, Flipper), and I recall being struck as a child myself in the 60s by the prevelance of this theme. Almost never, at that time, did I see a reversal that concentrated on the single mother. This also seems to go beyond the possible budgetary consideration of minimizing the number of cast, since a long-running series needs fuller relationships. Forgive the informality of these ideas, without supplying titles and annotations. Brian Taves, Motion Picture Division, Library of Congress Tavesmail.loc.gov My ideas do not reflect the Library or Division.