In “As Told By Ginger,” What Happened to Ginger’s Father?
As the inception of the series, Ginger, the titular character in As Told By Ginger (2000), never knew her father, Jonas. The story goes that he left the family shortly after the birth of Carl, Ginger’s brother, when Ginger was still very young. She maintained no clear memories of her father and the only photographs she has of him are of his feet.
In “Hello Stranger,” the 7th episode of the show’s first season, Ginger is doing a poetry reading at her school, to which she invites her father in an attempt to meet him. Despite the fact her father never returns her call, Ginger is convinced he’ll show up. He doesn’t, and Ginger’s mother has flowers sent to the school with a card signed “Dad.” Ginger figures out who actually sent it, and realizes Jonas let her down.
In the 16th episode of season one, the holiday episode “An “Even Steven” Holiday Special,” Ginger’s brother Carl meets a Santa Claus on the street, who is actually Jonas. Carl tells the Santa he doesn’t believe Santa really exists, because the only thing he ever wanted was for his father to come home for Christmas - a gift he never received. Hearing that, Jonas pays the family a visit.
Jonas comes and goes in later episodes, never becoming a large part of the family’s life, but showing up intermittently. He forms a slight rapport with Ginger, but Carl always resents him for abandoning them as kids. Jonas appeared in a total of 7 of the show’s 60 episodes. His last appearance is the season 3 episode “A Lesson in Tightropes,” where he visits Ginger in the hospital where she’s having an appendectomy.