First Look: DADS (FOX)

From Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, the creatively outrageous minds behind last year’s highest-grossing feature comedy, “Ted,” and FOX’s hit animated series FAMILY GUY, DADS explores the often treacherous terrain of the father-son landscape. This new multi-camera comedy series follows two successful guys – and childhood best friends – now in their mid-30s whose relatively stable lives get turned upside down when their pain-in-the-neck patriarchs move in.

ELI (Emmy Award winner Seth Green, FAMILY GUY, “Robot Chicken”) and WARNER (Emmy Award nominee Giovanni Ribisi, “My Name is Earl,” “Ted,” “Avatar”) are the co-founders of a successful video game company. Warner is married with two kids and a beautiful home. Despite his success, he’s a bundle of nerves, constantly worrying that his next paycheck will be his last. He and Eli came up with the idea for the company while stoned in college, and Eli has remained stoned ever since. In contrast to Warner’s picture-perfect life, Eli’s is a bit messier, with brief stabs at self-improvement. What he lacks in courage, he also lacks in moral fiber.

Although Warner and Eli are at very different places in their lives, they are so close, their friendship is more like a marriage. And that relationship is more complicated now, as their dads invade their lives. Warner’s neuroses likely stem from having grown up in a family whose fortunes fluctuated wildly from year to year, due to the failed get-rich-quick schemes of his father, CRAWFORD (Martin Mull, “Two and a Half Men”). A self-described “businessman” (in wine-stained khakis) and a perpetual optimist, Crawford still firmly believes the next big opportunity is just around the corner. Now living with Warner and Warner’s beautiful, hotheaded wife, CAMILA (Vanessa Lachey, “True Beauty,” “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Crawford continues to spend beyond his means, making well-intentioned grand gestures that he can’t afford and that Warner ends up paying for.

Eli’s dad, DAVID (Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Peter Riegert, “The Good Wife,” “The Sopranos”), is a towering monument to negativity. Equal parts cheap and cranky, David relishes disappointment and has always prepared his son for it. After hitting hard times, David turns to Eli, who reluctantly agrees to let his dad move in – even as he continues to blame David for his own shortcomings, including his inability to settle down. In fact, his longest relationship with a woman remains the one with his cleaning lady, EDNA (Tonita Castro, “Go On,” “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World”).

Trying to help both Warner and Eli through their myriad life challenges is VERONICA (Brenda Song, NEW GIRL, “Scandal”), their witty and entitled assistant, who is a force to be reckoned with.