{"id":373226,"date":"2026-03-30T16:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373226\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:25:13","slug":"what-dan-bucatinsky-watches-and-listens-to-with-his-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373226\/","title":{"rendered":"What Dan Bucatinsky Watches (and Listens to) With His Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (Netflix, Murray Close\/Universal Studios, Warner Bros.), National Geographic Channel, Duolingo, CBS, HBO Max, Retailer, Vivien Killilea\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

As The Comeback\u2019s Billy Stanton, Valerie Cherish\u2019s Thom Browne-wearing publicist turned manager and producing partner, Dan Bucatinsky is being more than a bit meta. In real life, he\u2019s been writing and creating with Lisa Kudrow for decades, with the two coming together to executive produce all three iterations of The Comeback as well as the digital series Web Therapy.<\/p>\n

But while Billy is a sub-par publicist, only managing to land his very un-zen client the cover of Be Yoga, Bucatinsky is a grade-A actor. He\u2019s made memorable meals out of single episodes of shows like Grey\u2019s Anatomy, Weeds, and Grace & Frankie, and he became a fan favorite recurring character as Scandal\u2019s James Novak, a role that landed him the \u201coutstanding guest actor in a drama series\u201d Emmy.<\/p>\n

But as the cliche goes, it\u2019s clear the role that\u2019s closest to Bucatinsky\u2019s heart is that of dad to his two grown kids, Eliza and Jonah, whom he shares with his husband, film and TV writer Don Roos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Comeback is particularly meaningful to me [as a dad] because my daughter was born while we were shooting the first season [that premiered in 2005],\u201d Bucatinsky says. \u201cI remember specifically walking into the house that we were shooting at in Brentwood, which was supposed to be Valerie\u2019s house, and I had my daughter in a car carrier. This season, I don\u2019t think they visited me once. They\u2019re not impressed with any of it anymore, except maybe the free Butterfingers at the craft table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Things have really changed now that my kids are grown ups. When they were little, we watched\u00a0all kinds of really fun kids animated shows and movies but now, my [18-year-old] son is six-foot-three, military obsessed, and loves to play video games.<\/p>\n

Last night, at one o\u2019clock in the morning, I was in bed and I heard \u201cthunk, thunk, thunk.\u201d I go outside and my son is out there doing target practice with his bow and arrow. He\u2019s such a different kid than I was when I was his age. I was putting on tap shoes and teaching myself the single-time step.<\/p>\n

Over the last few years, we have become a family with interests that are so diverse. My daughter is into certain things, and my son is into certain things, and my husband and I have different tastes. And so common ground has become the goal of everything. And during COVID, we found that common ground when we started playing this board game that we have become obsessed with called Ticket To Ride.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about building a railway that links across the country. During COVID, we all got into it and played it every single night.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Netflix\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

One of the only shows we all watch together is Is It Cake?<\/a>. You know, I\u2019m an actor and my kids aren\u2019t big watchers of anything I\u2019m in, which is kind of refreshing. Like, I did 30 episodes of Scandal and my kids haven\u2019t seen one of them. They couldn\u2019t care less. But if I was a judge on Is It Cake?, I guarantee you that they would see it.<\/p>\n

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Photo: HBO Max\n <\/p>\n

We\u2019re a big dog rescue family. We\u2019ve got three dogs, and my daughter has a bird, so another show that we watch is The Dog House, which is on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

Oh, my God. The Dog House is this British show that\u2019s done five seasons, maybe six, and they chronicle very different sets of families. They all show up at this beautiful dog rescue in the countryside of England, and [the show] pairs families with rescue dogs. So you come to know the people who work at the rescue and you come to understand the story of the family and why they\u2019re looking to bring a dog into the family, which is often very heartwarming.<\/p>\n

The dogs they pick don\u2019t always match with the families\u2014sometimes they do, sometimes they don\u2019t\u2014but the show is amazing.<\/p>\n

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Photo: National Geographic Channel\n <\/p>\n

This one isn\u2019t my choice, but my kids can be dictators with the TV: Wicked Tuna.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never seen it, it\u2019s so addicting, realizing that these guys are trying to find a tuna and land the ones that are going to bring them the most money. It\u2019s like the weirdest game show you\u2019ve ever watched. You end up learning all kinds of stuff, too, like what makes a really good grade of tuna or how the winds and tides affect fishing.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Murray Close\/Universal\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

My kids have this obsession with watching the same movie over and over and over again. It\u2019s fascinating. I don\u2019t remember being like that \u2014\u00a0though I used to watch I Dream of Jeannie and I would get through every season over and over and over again so maybe I\u2019m a hypocrite, but my kids can watch the three Avatar movies over and over again.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched them a million times as a family over the last bunch of years. It\u2019s the same with all the Jurassic movies. Those are a big win for our family. They\u2019re horrifying, though. My husband cannot watch anything that\u2019s gross so he watches the movies with his hands over his eyes or through his phone, which apparently doesn\u2019t scare him as much somehow.<\/p>\n

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In the last year, we\u2019ve all started playing chess. I\u2019ve never played before but now, for some reason, in addition to languages Duolingo can also teach you how to play chess.<\/p>\n

So Don\u2019s obsessed with Duolingo and my daughter can beat the crap out of all of us at real chess now. It\u2019s something that\u2019s able to bond us together and remind us that we\u2019re a family and we can still have fun together.<\/p>\n

The musical tastes of my daughter are nothing like the musical tastes of my son so we can\u2019t ever really agree on what music to play. She\u2019s obsessed with Billie Eilish and Pink, and Jonah is the most eclectic music listener I have ever met. He loves Alex Warren and John Denver and country music, but he also loves listening to Russian military fight songs. So his playlist is the craziest thing you\u2019ve ever heard, but I let him blast his music in the car because, again, bonding.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really know how my son got into the military. When he was little, he always liked playing with Nerf guns and video games and then that turned into military video games. My kids also are adopted, and it was an open adoption so we know their birth mom very well. We go to Wisconsin every couple of years to visit with her and I think a big part of [my son\u2019s] growing into his adolescence was embracing what he knew about his mom, which is that she had spent a little bit of time in the military. I think he sort of liked having that connection and it became an appealing thing to him.<\/p>\n

He even went to the Army-Navy Academy, which is a boarding school in Carlsbad. His choice! I wanted him to go to the Julie Andrews School of jazz, tap and ballet.<\/p>\n

My daughter has her own way of finding her interests. She plays a lot of video games and does a lot of crafting and cooking and baking. And sometimes her interests intersect with mine, like she and I both like to cook so every once in a while, we are able to meet in the kitchen and do something really fun.<\/p>\n

I took her to Rome this year when Don was writing on Emily in Paris, and we took a pasta making class together. It was honestly so moving to me just to be in that kitchen making something with my daughter, who was 20, because that\u2019s when they\u2019re really getting to be their own human beings. I mean, they have been since they were born, but now it\u2019s really, really showing itself so finding these points of connection has become more and more important.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Warner Bros.\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

My daughter watches Friends not having any real connection to the fact that that was a show about people in their 20s that was [originally] on at night once a week. \u201cMust see TV.\u201d She just binges, binges, binges, binges, binges episodes and it\u2019s interesting, because it\u2019s like the show is almost ageless. With Friends, it doesn\u2019t matter who you are or how old you are. It\u2019s always comforting to watch Friends, which is why it\u2019s lasted as long as it has.<\/p>\n

And, listen, Lisa Kudrow has been one of my best friends for 30 years and she\u2019s like family to me. My kids call her \u201cAunt Lisa\u201d and they love seeing her on television. I even told my daughter that The Comeback is coming out in March and now she\u2019s all about catching up, like watching season one and two so she can know the story in time for season three.<\/p>\n

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