Rob Reiner Played One Of The Best TV Dads Ever On This Fox Sitcom

There are a lot of good dads in TV history. Peter Gallagher's Sandy Cohen from "The O.C." Ty Burrell's Phil Dunphy from "Modern Family." Robert Reed's Mike Brady from "The Brady Bunch." One of the best and most underrated TV dads in recent memory, though, is Rob Reiner's Bob Day, the father of series protagonist Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel) on the Fox sitcom "New Girl."

On December 14, 2025, the news broke that Reiner, the comedy legend and Hollywood icon who played Bob throughout the seven-season run of "New Girl," was found dead alongside his wife Michele Singer at their home in Brentwood, California, of an apparent homicide. As the world mourns the man behind some of the greatest adventure and romance movies around, including "The Princess Bride," "A Few Good Men," "Misery," "Stand by Me," and "When Harry Met Sally..." (just to name a few), I want to turn our attention, for one second, to his recurring role as the sweet yet easily irked Bob, who makes his first appearance in season 2 of "New Girl" and reappears in the vast majority of the show's seasons across 11 episodes.

There have been a lot of clips on social media, anecdotally, of Reiner starring in "The Wolf of Wall Street" as Max Belfort, the father of the crooked titular "wolf," Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Reiner is great in that too. His take on Bob Day, though, is sweeter, funnier, more heartfelt, and somehow manages to stay grounded and real despite Jess' outright absurdity. Plus, as a nice little bonus, his in-universe ex-wife is played by one of Reiner's real-life friends.

Let me continue that thought first: Jamie Lee Curtis plays Bob's ex-wife Joan Day throughout "New Girl," and what's particularly great about that is that Curtis and Reiner were friends for years. Curtis, who paid tribute to her friend in the wake of his passing (per a statement to Deadline), is the longtime wife of Reiner's fellow comedy heavyweight Christopher Guest; throughout the years, Guest and Reiner collaborated frequently, including on "This is Spinal Tap" in 1984, "The Princess Bride" in 1987, and even this year for the long-awaited sequel "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues."

Beyond that neat little piece of casting, though, Reiner leaned in to kindness and a sweeter side as Bob Day, a man so protective of his daughter that he once got a bunch of guys from "the club" to surround a 12-year-old boy with tiny trucks when Bob so much as suspected the kid had a crush on Jess. Jess is equally protective of her father, even trying to end his relationship with his eventual second wife Ashley Berkman ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Hacks" standout Kaitlin Olson, another perfect piece of casting) ... though, to be fair, Ashley did lightly bully Jess in high school.

The relationship between Jess and Bob is sweet, and it's also strangely mirrored by Bob's uneasy friendship with Jess' roommate and on-again, off-again boyfriend Nick Miller (Jake Johnson). In season 2 of "New Girl," Bob and Nick even spend a whole day bonding when Nick admits that he's dating Jess, only for Bob to go wild. Still, it's grounded in reality, as Bob simply worries Nick is too much like him and will disappoint Jess.

Anyone who loves sitcoms knows that bringing family into the mix can be tricky. Even a show as great as "The Office" stumbles when it comes to close family members of the main characters. (Remember when Jenna Fischer's Pam Beesly had two different actors play her weird mom with no explanation?) But "New Girl," strangely, is reliably good at adding family into the main narrative. Peter Gallagher, another legendary TV dad, plays the estranged father of Max Greenfield's Schmidt and is also great; Curtis is equally wonderful; and Margo Martindale as Nick Miller's mom is just flat-out inspired. Maybe it's just because Reiner was so great and such a funny guy in general, but every time Bob Day showed up on "New Girl," I couldn't help but smile.

Not only did Bob give us some phenomenal details about Jess' backstory (after she finds out he's dating the girl she dubbed "Trashley" in school, she delivers an absolute heater of a monologue about the girl's wrongdoings before revealing that Ashley gave a boy "giardia," which Jess describes as a "river disease"), but he also helps you understand Jess' character in a fuller way. Because he's so kind and sweet to Jess, you see why Jess' heart is so wildly enormous, and you understand why she's such a caring friend and partner. Bob Day isn't the main character of "New Girl," but he's a vital part of the show's fabric, and it's all thanks to Reiner's performance as a quick-tempered guy with an unexpectedly enormous heart. Don't believe me? Check out his heartfelt rendition of "She's So High" in the season 4 episode "Julie Berkman's Older Sister."

"New Girl" is streaming on Hulu now.