Idiosyncratic animated family The Simpsons lead the field in a poll to discover the best-loved TV household, it was revealed this week.
Homer and the rest of the yellow-faced crew pipped other screen families including EastEnders’s Slaters, too-good-to-be-true relatives The Waltons and the Larkins from Darling Buds Of May in a Radio Times poll.
Hot on the heels of the cartoon quintet were the Trotters from Only Fools And Horses with the Royle family and Frasier’s Cranes coming in third and fourth respectively.
Despite the favour they found with the 6,000 television viewers who were polled, experts say that none of those who top the list are very good role models. Condemning the Simpsons as “a very poor example of family life,” Glasgow University psychology lecturer Cynthia McVey, who analysed the poll’s results, added: “Discipline, for example, never seems to happen.”
She went on to describe the Trotters as “a classic example of assumptions regarding the first-born child within the family. Rodney looks up to Del Boy because he’s the oldest brother, whereas in fact, everything Del does is shady and stupid”. Also in the running but failing to make the grade were Coronation Street’s Battersbys, the Ozzy Osbourne gang and US TV soaps' Carringtons, Ewings and Colbys.
