Victor Welker was the detestable, coldhearted, non-biological father of Lois and the husband of the equally evil Ida. He appeared in the episode The Grandparents, but was never seen again as it was mentioned that he had died soon after. He would be mentioned multiple times later in the series, however.
Biography
Though Victor believed in strength and hard work, he was a deceitful, bitter, bigamous man. His first appearance was in the episode The Grandparents, where he and Ida visited the family and gave them all a hell of a time. Victor hated all his grandchildren except Reese whom he truly loved and adored because he shared the same despicable nature as him and Ida and also because Victor thought of him as the only person capable of carrying on the family name. He viewed Francis as being a no good delinquent, and severely disrespected Malcolm and abused Dewey as an infant.
Although Ida reappeared multiple times after this, Victor never appeared again because he was mentioned to have died of a heart attack in the episode Christmas. With the slightly qualifying exception of Ida, none of his family missed him, not even Reese, who was the only kid was was even remotely respected by him. Clearly revealing that Reese obviously hates him for almost getting him and Malcolm killed by giving Reese a live grenade powerful enough to obliterate the house had Malcolm not put the grenade in the Confined space of the new refrigerator.
In the episode Victor's Other Family, it was revealed that although he was married to Ida, Victor was not faithful and had another family with another wife who he greatly preferred over Ida and Lois. He was extremely cruel and mean spirited to Lois. Despite this, Victor showed love for Susan as she was the only good child he had from Ida and often came back for her. He even told Hal on his and Lois' wedding day he could have done better, implying that he like Ida and Hal's family are all disappointed in him for not picking Susan over Lois. He also viewed Hal as being unable to support the family.
Trivia
- Victor is one of the few recurring characters to have an in-series reason for ceasing to appear in the series. The real life reason, being that his actor, Robert Loggia, had a whole lot of other projects and didn't have time to reprise his role and the in-series reason being that he died.
- Victor strongly resembled Francis in his youth.
- However, given that Victor was Lois' stepfather, they are not related to each other, biologically.
- It is speculated that, given the evidence that he was from Croatia and that he possessed a crate full of war-supplies from "The Great War", that he was a former member of either the Yugoslav Partisans or the Croatian Ustaše.