Families on Television: How Much Should They Look Like Each Other?

Some family members bear a strong resemblance to each other. Some do not. When it comes to television families, viewers undergo a suspension of disbelief. This suspension of disbelief is helped by the apparent randomness of genetics. It is truthfully entirely conceivable that Alex P. Keaton's 6'4" father (Michael Gross) and 5'7" mother (Meredith Baxter) would produce a 5'4" son (Michael J. Fox). In fact, the entire Family Ties family is  believable.

This is true of Tim Allen's many TV and movie families. But to a large extent, the audience allows for a genetic relationship because the show says so--this ability to accept the "givens" continues even when a character is played by more than one actor.

Still--I have to give enormous credit to Frasier for its casting. Not only do Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce bear a remarkable resemblance to each other, but John Mahoney, their outlier father (behavior-wise), bears genetic markers in common with his "sons," such as a slight cleft in the chin and high forehead.

To complete the intelligent casting, Niles and Frasier's mom was a tall, slender woman (as we see in flashbacks). The combination of Martin (father) and Hester (mother) can account for the difference in height between Niles and Frasier.  

A Frasier episode "Father and Sons" presents David Ogden Stiers as a possible father to Frasier, and he could pass for a cousin or uncle! But the resemblance is mostly behavioral.

This confusion over parentage is a common trope--the argument that non-related people bear more resemblance to each other than to members of their family by blood. Hence, the Golden Girls episode where a family shows up with a tiny daughter they claim got switched with tall Dorothy at birth (of course, Dorothy is the spitting image of her maternal grandmother!).

Such episodes almost always resolve with the characters stating that it doesn't matter whether or not there is a blood relationship; all that matters is the care and affection that created the parent-child bond.

Leave it to Frasier, again, to at least be honest about the issue:

Roz: Hey, what is the worst case scenario? If you found out you weren't their father, would you love them any less?

Martin: No, no. Well, yeah, a little maybe, at first. But no, I... I'd feel the same about them as I hope they would about me.

Roz: Which they would. And you know that.

Martin: Yeah. I mean, you'd still love Alice if you found out you'd gotten the wrong baby at the hospital.

Roz: Sure.

Martin: And as a cop, I've seen that happen more often than you'd think. Especially at Seattle General.

Roz: I had Alice at Seattle General.

Martin: Oh, sorry. But the point was, that you'd love her just the same, so who cares who her real mother is.

Roz: I'M her real mother!

Martin: Okay, geez.