Surely one of the lamest shows ever to be produced on these shores and thats saying something. Even many of the lead actors didn't stick around for the duration. The fact that it ran for eight years is a sad indictment on the average intelligence and cultural nous of the Aussie viewer. It went round and round in circles, with repetitive gags and poorly-drawn characters. Arthur MacArthur, for god's sake. did they actually pay the writers of this show? I wonder if anyone checked their qualifications. There were tired gags about rural people and second-rate farce situations that were poor imitations of a thousand English and US sitcoms that had gone before. I think that's what I hate about it so much, that it appears no one involved wanted to make it memorable, original or clever, instead opting for the lowest common denominator each time.

Hey dad would have to be the best Australian sitcom they made for awhile it was great all the way through thanks to Julie McGregor who played Betty if it wasn't for her the show wouldn't have been the same i find it much more entertaining then different strokes which i found a big joke glad they stop making that crap i rate Hey dad 10/10 well acted.

As my title says, it started off quite well, but constant character changes and a general lack of material to work with effectively killed the show.Personally the show started going awkward for me when Paul Smith was replaced as 'Simon' - Christopher Mayer was ok but he never quite made it for me. And this was right in the early seasons.Anyway, aside from that, the show was pretty good until in the space of 1 season or so Debbie, Simon and Nudge (practically half the main cast) just disappeared and were replaced. The biggest problem here was not that they were replaced but rather their replacements were almost IDENTICAL to the earlier characters. Ben was Simon with a bit of Nudge thrown in. Arthur was also a bit of Nudge. Samantha was Debbie.Needless to say that after this the show started going downhill quite rapidly. Even the replacement of Martin Kelly was for naught because Greg Russell was (surprise surprise) yet another identical replacement. If you're going to replace characters, please make them DIFFERENT. Making them practically identical to the originals only serves to remind us of how good the original cast was compared to the current one.The only character that stayed with the show throughout was Betty (Jenny doesn't count because she was played by 2 different actresses, who both played her differently), which was pretty sad. Betty may have been funny at first but in the end all she did was mess up everything again and again and again. Was funny at first, but after a couple of years you want something else for a change.In all, the series was enjoyable, but it's best years were 1986-1991 when the original cast (well at least most of it) was in.

But only the first four seasons! Hey Dad is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Sooner or later you'll become addicted to the show and it's very special kind of humor.