[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/My_Two_Dads_3901.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:320: ''You can count on me.'']]

->''"This is me, Nicole Bradford.''\\
''This is my dad and this is my dad.''\\
''How did I get two dads? They inherited me.''\\
''One dad who's down to earth and one dad with his head in the clouds."''
-->-- '''''(Edited) opening narration'''''

''My Two Dads'' is a comedy series that ran on NBC from 1987 to 1990.

Marcy Bradford, mother to twelve-year-old Nicole, passes away, leaving Nicole (Creator/StaciKeanan) to live with her father. Trouble is, Marcy was dating two different men when Nicole was conceived, and she never knew which was the father. DNA testing was not yet commercially available, and the blood typing was inconclusive.

The obvious solution is for Nicole to live with both men. This is suggested to be what Nicole's mother wanted, so that Nicole could benefit from each dad's best traits: Michael (Creator/PaulReiser) is sensible and organized, while Joey (Creator/GregEvigan) is artistic and carefree.

A few years into the series, DNA testing became available. Nicole got tested, but decided not to look at the results, preferring to live with both dads and never knowing which was biologically her father.
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!!Tropes:
* ActorAllusion: Variation In one episode, Klawicki intimidates a shady character that owes him money by showing him footage from his (Klawicki's) [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball pro football]] days of him destroying people with hard tackles. Klawicki was played by NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkis, and it was his own real-life highlights Klawicki was showing.
* AllWorkVsAllPlay: The two men initially. Michael is extremely uptight, anal retentive and serious while Joey is carefree, relaxed and irresponsible.
* AndThatLittleGirlWasMe: Subverted. Nicole is worried about going to the prom, and Judge Margaret tells her about another teenage girl who was teased at her prom. When Nicole asks what the girl did, the judge says she destroyed the other girls with her psychic powers.
-->'''Nichole''': Wasn't that ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''?\\
'''Margaret''': It's all I've got. I was really popular at school.
* BlessedWithSuck: In the episode where Nicole is jealous of a classmate's early breast development, Judge Margaret tells her that ''she'' had been the first in her class to develop breasts, and that it was actually this trope. Sure, she was popular, but it was not the kind of popularity that Nicole would want.
* CharacterDevelopment: Over the course of the show, raising Nicole means Michael learns to relax and enjoy himself a lot more while Joey learns responsibility and becomes fiercely protective of Nicole - both of them became better people through the experience.
* ChildrenRaiseYou: Both men, but especially Joey, have to grow up and try and be responsible parents to Nicole.
* ChristmasEpisode:
** "Tis the Season" (Season 1): Michael and Joey go a little overboard celebrating Nicole's first Christmas with them - until they realize that her gloomy mood is because it's her first Christmas ''without'' her mother. Meanwhile, Judge Margaret plays a very unenthused MallSanta.
** "I'm Dreaming of a Holiday Episode" (Season 3): Christmas decorating leads to Michael and Joey to clash over their contrasting parenting styles. Each then has a nightmare about their futures: Joey's free-wheeling nature leaves him an elderly failed artist; Michael is shown almost everyone is better off for not listening to his rigid rule-abiding ways. Both nightmares also end with Nicole's life being ruined in ways that relate to the dreamer's given parenting style.
* ClipShow: "Thanks for the Memories" is both this and a ThanksgivingEpisode. On the way up to dinner after some food shopping, Michael and Joey get stuck in the elevator. Waiting for the repairman, they think back on old times and the people in their lives. Meanwhile, Nicole holds up the dinner for the other guests until her dads can attend.
* {{Crossover}}: Multiple times, with ''Series/NightCourt''.
* DaddyDNATest: They throw it away without looking at it.
* DaddysGirl: Nicole. Having only father figures around makes it sort of hard not to be a Daddy's Girl.
* DeadArtistsAreBetter: Joey decides to take advantage of an erroneous report of his death to mass-produce a bunch of paintings and sell them at huge mark-ups.
* DiegeticSoundtrackUsage: Greg Evigan (see DoItYourselfThemeTune) sang it on screen in "The Wedge."
* DisguisedInDrag: In the third-season episode "Kind of a Drag," Michael poses as Joey's wife to get rid of a pesky woman and accidentally becomes the object of desire for one of Nicole's male teachers.
* DoItYourselfThemeTune: Greg Evigan (Joey) co-wrote and performed the theme song "You Can Count On Me."
* HaveAGayOldTime: In the episode where Nicole is jealous of a classmate who has developed breasts, the Judge is talking to Joey and Michael:
--> '''Judge:''' What she needs is a couple of boobs. (''{{beat}}'') That's you.
* LukeIMightBeYourFather: Either man might be Nicole's biological father as her mother was dating and sleeping with both of them around the time she was conceived.
* NotWhatItLooksLike:
** One episode has the dads walk in on Nicole and Cory (the [[BettyAndVeronica geeky one]] of her two [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend not-boyfriends]]). Cory shouts out "It's not how it looks!" then [[IdiotBall adds]]: "Actually, how ''does'' it look?"
** This trope was used a great deal with Joey and Michael, also. The writers seemed to really enjoy throwing them together in homoerotic situations that someone could easily misinterpret.
* OddCouple: Michael and Joey.
* PlatonicCoParenting: Nicole is raised by Michael and Joey, who, despite appearances, aren't gay, and in fact don't even like each other at first. They gradually become friends, and they both genuinely love Nicole, to the point where she decides not to find out which of them is her biological father because it really doesn't matter--they're ''both'' her dads.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The season one finale, "Friends of the Family", introduced Cory and Roy's mother, Karen, in an attempt to give the family of three their own spinoff with Ed as her love interest.
* PrisonEpisode: In one episode, Joey gets sent to prison for a protest and Michael joins him because he insulted the judge.
* PrisonRape: Invoked by implication during the above PrisonEpisode, where Joey and Michael's cellmate, a stereotypical thug, reacts with discomfort to the pair's bickering {{like an old married couple}}. When they reveal that they are raising a daughter together, the cellmate frantically calls out "Guard?!".
* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: One episode has a typo in an obituary causing everyone to think Joey was dead.
* SinkOrSwimFatherhood: Both men are thrown in at the deep end when Nicole comes into their life as a complete surprise, twelve years after they both dated her mother.
-->'''Nicole:''' Congratulations, it's a girl!
* SpecialGuest: [[Music/TheMonkees Davy Jones]] and baseball legend Willie Mays, among others.
* StageNames: Anastasia Sargorsky was told by the producers that her existing stage name "Anastasia Love" sounded like a call girl. Adopting a nickname for Anastasia and the surname of a friend she became Staci Keanan.
* StarvingArtist: Joey, as Michael will remind him.
* TheUnreveal: As mentioned above, Nicole got DNA tested but chose not to view the results, the viewers never did find out who was her biological father, and apparently there was never any plans to reveal it.
* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Judge Margaret uses this in the PrisonEpisode.
* VitriolicBestBuds: Michael and Joey develop into this over the course of the show from an initial truly antagonistic relationship.
* WhosYourDaddy: The show's central concept.
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