Are your parents funny or interesting? Could you please tell me a bit about them?

[minorbird]

Hi, I'm a bit of a writery type - working on a sitcom pilot. I've come a bit stuck on a characters mum and dad. I really want to create a couple unlike whats been seen before... Mumsnet is brill for ideas... so I just thought I'd put this out there. (I put it in this topic - so it doesnt dissapear off the radar...)

Just to get started... I'll throw mine into the pot... My mum has a touch of undiagnosed OCD and has to walk the dog and go in the bath at a certain time or her whole world is thrown into dissaray. My step dad pulls stupid pranks all the time and is more annoying than anything else... Can you add to this?

Thanking you in advance...

Should you not be paying to advertise ??

My MIL has her hair done every week at the same time-no matter what. She has been going to the same hair dressers since 1974.

Do you mean paying you for your ideas BVC?

Thats funny Lynette... since 1974! wow!

My mum buys Singer sewing machine parts on the internet, cleans them up and sells them on e-bay.

Her boyfriend wears cloggs and has a beard.

My mum is fab - really laid back, but has an awful tendency to say things rather more loudly than she realises - i.e. when pointing out someone's dress style etc!

My dad is the most wonderful and generous dad, but he is very uptight- so total opposites. He also has an awful tendency of eyeing up women in the street etc which makes him seem a bit pervy - this could not be further from the truth!

No paying for the fact that you are advertising.

Personally I think you can get away with not paying for advertising. This thread will humour us all.

You would have got the same response form people minor bird if you hadn't said it was for a sit com...now we can all wonder if that character were are wathcing is based on our own mum.

My dad hates emotional situations and freezes if you cuddle him.
My mum is like a surrogate mum to loads of mine and my siblings friends, she can feed 20 people at the drop of a hat.

oh no! It hasnt even been made yet! I am in the very early stages of my career! I was just being upfront - I wasnt advertising! Just nicking your ideas! And I did think it could be a hoot of a thread... I did one ages ago about infamous mumsnet comedy moments and it was a corker...!

My father looks/sounds and acts just like Manuel from Faulty Towers so he has been done before.

He however is extremely good looking and has buckets of charisma. Once upon a time his football team were playing against Millwall back in the day when they used to board up the local drinking establishments and he (left us outside with some fizzy pop and bacon frazzells) waltzed into a pub full of supporters and yelled at the top of his little lungs "you fuckers are going to lose so who wants a drink then innit?"

I was crying and my poor brother couldn't talk as we thought my dad would come out headless or worse.

Half an hour later he came out on the shoulders on a big Millwall supporters shoulders and they were carrying my dad (with us in tow) to the football ground.

I have a million stories about him.

God I miss him.

My mum is great fun and is the life and soul of any party until it is past her bedtime then she sits and sleeps on the couch with her mouth open. Whether we are at home or visiting, does not matter. We don't bother to take photos now.

My dad tells us in excruciating fascinating detail what he has done/eaten that day. "I had the salmon as a starter, on toasted white bread with creme fraiche and dill, then the chicken, done in red wine, there seemed to be a bit of rosemary in there, but it might have been thyme or perhaps even parsley, after that I had chocolate mousse made with Belgian chocolate and crispy bits of caramel"

my parents own a camper van and take a long weekend off work every month to hit the road...

my mum dyes her hair and it is always a bit of a guess what colour it will be on any given day - my friend still remembers the time my mum turned up on her doorstep with platinum blonde hair and trainers. she didn't know which end to stare at the most.

my ex used to say that my mum knew when the cauliflower was cooked because it had gone pink.

my dad is actually a cross between richard briers and david brent, so he's been done before.

if he reads an article he disagrees with in a paper, he can never buy that rag again. he is currently only reading the free local paper.

LOL thank you mnetters! These posts are hilarious! Keep em coming.

My dad is a "shed" man. He has every tool imaginable, anything you could EVER possibly need he has. He has any size nail or screw, any length of timber you might require, he can produce a spare tyre for any car you might be driving at the time, he can fix anything, make anything, build anything, he builds model remote-controlled aeroplanes in the shed and they hang from the ceiling and there is roughly a foot square space on the floor where he stands. He is also a wood turner and makes bowls and candlesticks and you pretty much know now that if it's your birthday you will get a bowl, engraved on the underside. Family members fight over them and I have about six in my house! He listens to Alan Bennett tapes in the shed and you can hear him laughing from the kitchen!

My mum is an artist, pianist, knitter and crocheter. She has knitted a pram blanket for every baby born into the family for the last 25 years. She is the calmest most patient and serene person I know and never has a bad word to say about anyone. She has to go out everyday, even if it's just to the library. She loves baking but then gets up in the night to eat it all so consequently has stopped baking!

My parents are rather odd
They have been divorced for 30+ years but live next door to each other

On what would have been their 25th wedding anniversary (had they stayed married) they went out to dinner to "celebrate" with their respective new husband and wife.

My father is an obsessive collector. He has boxes and boxes of labelled shite valuables. I was recently there and he had somehow acquired 200 rolex boxes which were sitting in his garage. Ditto every meccano magazine from C1920 to 1960 (or something like that) His house is like a museum.

My mum can get anyone's life story out of them in five minutes flat, she doesn't do it on purpose, it just happens. She once gave a colleague a lift lasting twenty minutes and got three generations' worth of life stories out of her (they'd all married bigamists, and would make worthwhile fictional characters in their own right).

My dad is in no way funny or eccentric, but he is enormously handy and a lovely grandfather, so I would feel disloyal not mentioning him.

My dad talks about engines. In great detail.

My Mum is small, stupidly helpful and can make friends with anyone.Bar in Japan.My Mum was 'talking' to the man from the Japanese sake factory. No shared language they bought each other alcohol and had some sort of conservation.

My father tells repetitive stories that we all dutifully laugh at, but the most interesting time in his life - he used to be a spy - he is reticent about. My brother & I choked with laughter when learning what his work colleagues call him behind his back, in his now very ordinary job - "the smiling assassin" - some traits obviously never leave you! He has a more adventurous love life than me or my siblings.

My dad acts as a magnet to people who are lost or hurt and rescues them and sets them back on course without even appearing to notice he's doing it. I vividly remember him stopping the car one Sunday when I was about 12 to bundle in a drunk, unconscious man he didn't know off the pavement. All four of us had to budge up while the man was brought home, sorted out and set on his way again.

Every boyfriend we've had between us has left the family disenchanted with us but declaring to everyone before and behind them that they want to be my dad when they are older. All our DHs worship him.

When DS was born. No, I'll stop there. Megglevache--your lovely post reminds me to tell my dad just how much he is loved.

He looks disconcertingly like an Irish Chris Tarrant which could solve any casting problems. I adore him

I'm not sure I want to mention my mother, as she really can be painfully embarassing.

When trying to break the ice with someone she has just met she will say something like "Every one is a shape/tree/animal what shape/tree/animal do you see yourself as?"

My mum with verbally shred someone then get huffy when they tell her to stop it. She will allow the dogs to loll on the sofa while her offspring stand, unnoticed. She has a hugely fat Jack Russel. She buys the DAily MAil for the puzzles in it, and buys a notebook a week which she fills with anagrams. Unusually for her age, she has long hair, which suits her.

My dad's girlfriend rings him every single evening to find out what time he will be home from work, and he has to give the time to within 5 minutes. No 'sixish' for him - if he said six and arrived at ten past, their dinner would be sat on the side, congealing, and she would be sat on the sofa, fuming sans dejeuner. If he so much as looks at a pint glass, she makes jibes about him being an alcoholic (he's not at all). His dog is an elderly German Shepherd who refuses point blank to get back into the car after a walk, and has to be lifted in, the very picture of passive-aggressive, drooping in his arms. As she weighs about 4 stone, this is no mean feat and is the subject of much sweat and cursing. He is dreadfully forgetful, and often tries to carry on conversations with one daughter that he started with the other.

My dad is a professor of ancient greek, possibly the cleverest person I know, but not intimidatingly so. He's fun, entertaining, charismatic, compassionate, and obsessed with cricket. Our bedtime stories were TS Eliot poems, songs were World War I songs. He's also a hypochondriac. He didn't go to a doctor till he was 19 but when he did, he took a list.

My mum very bright too. Conversations between them can, for example, contain references to Rousseau/Nietschze/poetry where normal folk refer to eastenders. Also very kind, caring, often about 'unfortunates' who aren't her own children. Bit flighty. Very pretty still at 67. Has had several boyfriends in a few years. Unconventional, deep down an anarchist. Used to take us on CND/anti-racist marches in our pushchairs.
They split up years ago but are still v close. We have 'family' xmases with them and their respective partners, plus respective partners' ex-wives/husbands.

Here is another one:

Mum and Dad are incredibly welcoming. One time they met a German couple in the park near there home and got talking. They discovered that the couple were from a town not far from my DH's hometown so invited them for a BBQ that evening.

At some point in the evening the couple mentioned that they were travelling in a camper van which was great fun, only they had to head for a campsite or a swimming baths every other day as they had no shower in their van.

Mum promptly produced a key to the house and told them to come back the next day, let themselves in and have a shower.

Thankfully the couple were lovely grateful people who rewarded my Mum's trust by buying some beers for the next evening spent together and not by clearing out the house.

Forgot to add - my mother will nod and make noises while you tearfully describe a dreadful situation, and upon being called for her opinion, will blink vaguely and say "Umm. Turning worms gather dust in French - eight letters. Any ideas?"