I agree that the dads in a lot of 1950s-’60s shows (Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show) were strong, morally grounded men - not fools like the dad in Home Improvement. But if you go back further to radio shows of the 1930s and 1940s, some of the husbands, like Dagwood in Blondie, or Fibber McGee, were the foolish ones while the wives were the steady ones.
