Ness's dad's persona has always been an enigma. When asked the question "who is Ness's dad", I've taken into account not only his absence and his obvious wealth, but also his mannerisms, personality, and that one image that we see of him at the end of Mother. Let's get one thing settled before we continue - Ninten is not Ness's father, but his step-brother. This would make all the sisters step-sisters and so forth, and thus explain why "dad" acts the same in both games, at both times (late 1980s - 199X). So just who is Ness's dad, and why is he so rich, yet never home?

Ness's dad is deceased Canadian comedic actor, John Candy (of Cool Runnings fame).

But wait, that would make Ness half Canadian, right? Exactly! How else would you explain the cracked bat? Obviously, Mr Candy got annoyed at the fact that his son was trying to make it in Baseball, and tried to break his bat in an attempt to lure him to Football or Ice Hockey instead. This also explains why it inevitably becomes Ness's weapon of choice; a symbolic confrontation towards his pushy father, whipping out his aggression with the sporting equipment he least desires his son touch.

And what about the multiple families? Well, with the money comes the honeys, and it just so happens that Mr Candy realised that his fame could land him a sweeter dame, meeting Ness's mom sometime after 1981, after his first breakthrough appearance with Bill Murray in "Stripes", and eventually starting a family. This could also be an explanation as to why he is never at home, being too busy committing bigamy and such, but not the main reason.

During the events of Mother, John Candy is reaping the monetary rewards for starring in the box office hit "Cool Runnings", but the divorce process between him and Ninten's mom has already began, after having found out he had been starting another family for over 5 years. He still loves his eldest son, and still calls him regularly to make sure he is well and has enough money to buy the things he wants, but his objectivity to woman still shines through whenever Ninten refuses to have a rest, him not being old enough to completely comprehend the meaning of innuendo - "your mother never wanted to stop either". At the end of Mother, we see a man on the phone, wearing a hat and a long jacket. As you may know, John Candy suffered from obesity throughout his life, and even from the back you can plainly see that the hat-and-jacket figure is suffering from the same condition. As to where he's phoning from, it is presumably from the film set of "Uncle Buck" - in the movie he is seen wearing this attire. Note that, being the strong-willed woman she is, Ninten's mom manages to hold back the pain of her divorce to keep it from the children, while providing a loving, motherly-adoration dialogue towards her newly grown-up son.

Which leads us to Ness, the lovechild of a rich actor and his adoring fan. By 199X - being between 1990 and 1994, with the game being released in 1995 - Mr Candy had become a popular celebrity in the acting world, and like most actors in their prime, he was getting gig after gig after gig, drawing him further from his family, but still getting a 5-to-7-figure paycheque for each movie, tv appearance, and interview. With all this success however came reflection, and realising that his obesity had only became worse thanks to his success, he was aware of his deteriorating health by the time Ness had set out on his adventure. This leads to the dialogue, which shows a distinct difference in tone between Mother and EarthBound. He is constantly reminding Ness of how proud he is of his son, always wishing him good luck and reminding him that it's ok to kick back and relax from time to time, even when the shop owners try to rip him off because of his rich dad. Obviously, Candy is having a minor revelation within himself that his work has led to a life of divorce, poor health, and fast women. We don't know for sure if Ness's mom and dad are separated or not, but it becomes evident that it's another broken family when he reveals he will be home to see his son for his birthday - only making time for his son, not his (ex) wife/lover.

And so, while after the events of EarthBound, Candy did have a fatal heart attack, he is carried on through Ninten Candy, and Ness Candy-(Ness's Mom's surname).

His sudden death could also explain how there was never a third Candy family in Mother 3.

-PKJovis

With a figure such as Ness's father, we see him with a carefree attitude towards his son most of the time, and never limiting the amount of money he's willing to give him as long as he keeps adventuring.

It cannot simply be that Ness's dad has an infinite or absurdly large pile of money, because if he does we can assume he is a business man of great power and have better wisdom than to give his son hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would make more sense if Ness's dad had figured out how to have some of that money loop back to him in the grande scheme of things.

This leads to my conclusion that Ness's dad must own many business's which provided the very goods and services that Ness and Co. end up using through a large portion of the game.

- Ants

Everyone knows Ness's Dad is a mafia leader. The question would be better worded as "How did he get such a job?" Here's how:

The story begins as "Don" Phillipe Partlobeh, the head of a Fourside Mafia "family", was overseeing his daughter's wedding. His beloved son Mitch (Ness's Dad) had just come home from the war, but did not intend to become part of his father's business. Through Mitch's life the nature of the family business becomes clear. The business of the family was just like the head of the family, kind and benevolent to those who give respect, but given to ruthless violence whenever anything stood against the good of the family. Don Phillipe lived his life in the way of the old country, but times were changing, and some didn't want to follow the old ways and look out for community and "family". An up and coming rival of the Partlobeh family wanted to start selling drugs in Fourside, and needs the Don's influence to further his plan. The clash of the Don's fading old world values and the new ways demanded a terrible price, especially from Michael, all for the sake of the family.

After lots of action spanning three movie parodies, Mitch took his father's position as head of the mafia. That's why he has so much money to send to Ness.

-sithmaster96

Ness' dad is Itoi himself. Yep, hard to believe, but true. Earthbound is his way of retelling his son's adventure when he was a transfer student in America. It happened IN REAL LIFE!!! You're playing a non-fiction historical piece of art. You just don't know it. Until now. Itoi exists in the game, although you can't access him without PKHack. He's in that one building in Fourside where they are developing Earthbound 2. He comes out at night and goes to the 24-hour ATM to deposit money into Ness' account. He's a workaholic, so he's never home. Well, he came home, eventually. After EB64 was cancelled. Why did no one know about this? It was covered up by the government, duh. Ever seen Men in Black? I'm a rogue agent, here to tell you this before... OH JESUS MY BACKPORCH JUST DISENTEGRATED THEY FOUND ME AHHHHHH ajksfkjsghgae kldg dlvkd sflvk xcvm

Hello, this is a non-rogue agent here to tell you that everything written here is a lie. Ness' dad doesn't exist. The phone calls were garbled radio data reflected off of Venus through a solar flare. The money is counterfeit, and the Secret Service is on their way to confiscate it. Now, if you could just look right here at this device...

-fed306

From the ashened questions we let burn out, Pheen-X tries to bring these questions back to life, with an inferno of answers. This week's question, where does Mr.Ness's dad work. *Warning* This answer may just send you over to your daily classifieds*

Parents, we love them, we get emberassed by them, and they usually have some of the boring, emberassing jobs you hate to go into while they're working. Ness's father, used to be of no exception. Before Giygas's attack in Eagleland, Ness's dad (We'll just call him Bob) used to work in a nearby department store, selling perfume and makeup (What can we say, it's a living). After realizing his jobs success, and Ness's decent grades, his father gave Ness an ATM card, saying with every good thing I hear you do, I'll reward you.

About a week before the meteor crash, an incident happened at the department store in the perfume section (don't ask) resulting in the dismissal of Bob. Before he left though, he cleaned up the "Incident" upon his own request, and made it spotless within a couple minutes, so fast it could've been considered a record. Of course...the manager didn't want to see his face in his store, so Bob was lucky enough to be done within a short amount of time, because the manager tossed him out of the highest window.

Lucky enough, he broke his fall on one of the sharks...and his keys. He was scared, no way could he tell his wife he lost his job...again, especially knowing there was a bat in a house. He wandered around town, looking for another quick job, with no luck. When he was near the brink of tears a voiced erupted behind him.

"Hmm, I see you're pretty good at cleaning, pretty fast at it to." He looked around to see a man in a brown trenchcoat. "Had to cleanup myself to help my family, and boy did my boy Nin-anyway, you seem to be in need of a job." As confused as Bob was, he didn't have many more options. He told the man how he recently lost his job, and his wife was probably going to kill him if she finds out.

"Well, maybe you can take over for me. I'm part of a secret group, needed to clean up...strange messes, shall we say." When questioned what strange meant, the man responded "If you want the job, it will all be explained, it will pay well also." Without any other options, Bob quickly shoke hands with the mystery man. "Excellent, take this phone, and whenever we need you, the phone will ring, and that's the only reason it will ring! When you do the job, money will be put into a bank account. Now, what's your name?" Sadly we had to disclose Bob's real name in fear of total disintigration, but he gave not only his name, but every member of his family as well. It seemed wierd to have 4 accounts, but the trenchcoat man didn't question and just stated that the payment would be split evenly 4 ways, which was okay with Bob.

"Now, this job could put you away from your family for a while." Announced the man in the trenchcoat, but that was just another benifit for Bob. After that, the man walked away, without another word.

Wouldn't akwardness strike a week later. Having left a note saying he was going to be gone on a buisness training trip for a long time, the phone rang, and the voice of the trenchcoat man was on the other side. "Okay, your job, as you have accepted, is to clean up any scenes you have seen of a battle between the normal, and highly abnormal. What this means, is your own thought." And he hung up. Bob was highly confused, but answers came to him after the battle of the Starmen Jr.

Bob hid in the trees, watching his son defeat a weird creature. It seemed weird enough, but after the battle, and Ness's leaving, the bottom of the phone got hot, and the phone attena absorbed the fallen Starman. He realized, his job was essentially the clean-up for Giygas's fallen cronies. After the Starman was sucked up, a ping erupted from the side of the phone, and digital numbers had shown him how much this job was worth, and by pressing the numbers on the front of the phone, his whole families bank accounts were easy to read on his only work device. This "phone" must've been hiding a teleporting device, where, hard to say, but it's not the phone we're here for.

Bob, seeing his son be so brave, realized he had to do something to help his boy out. So for the whole adventure, Ness's father actually followed, just hiding in the shadows (And that statement can actually be taken literally in some points). The more Ness defeated, the more the phone absorbed, and the more money that was put into the familys' accounts. It was a strange job to have, but not only did it pay, but the equipment did nearly everything for him, and all he had to do was follow and hid.

Another ashed question, now a bright flame. Til next week, this is Pheen-X saying, get a job kids!

-Firej7

The Fourside Casino used to be one of the most lucrative sources of tax revenue for the city. When you stepped in the door, the sounds of roulette wheels spinning and craps dice would fill your ears and sound like they were coming from the lyre of Apollo himself. Gorgeous, big-hipped young women would come to freshen your ice coffee. The slot machines constantly cycled hypnotically under the heavy usage by the patrons; one of them, a then new-fangled computer-based machine, broke after continual usage as a result of patrons thinking that it gave them the best payoff. All was well until Enrich Flavor lost his position as owner of the casino and was replaced by Monotoli, who cleared the place out and replaced it with a department store. That weird junk behind the department store used to be placed in Mr. Flavor's office as a source of good luck to the superstitious CEO; both the weird magnet rock and the carrot key were found in an expedition he made in the Far East, where he also happened to make it big with a restaurant chain selling "brain food".

Ness's dad had never worked at an honest job, and he deceived his wife and children into thinking he had a position as as CEO of some upstart steakburger chain. He spent all of his time at that casino spending Mr. Minch's money at the poker table, which had increased more than tenfold since the money was first borrowed. When dear ol' dad heard his son was going on a journey across the Earth, he had plenty to give unto his son, and he deposited more into his son's bank account as he heard more success about the journey to save the world. The casino shut down as soon as Ness set foot into Threed; it didn't take long for Monotoli to rise to power after getting his hands on the Mani Mani statue. The father's wealth hadn't been lost as a result of the loss of the casino, but he was still greedy for that cash flow that came from such a workless venture...

Ness's dad stole the broken slot machine from the casino as it was being cleared out to make way for the new department store. He hired a couple of friends to come up with and dress as mascot characters for his latest get-rich-quick scheme; they decided on stereotypical Mexicans with moustaches and sombreros encased in cardboard boxes with slot machine icons painted on the sides. His friends called themselves Pincho and Pancho; he himself was Tomas Jefferson, a Hispanic version of his famous Constitution-writing ancestor (who also happened to be a noted investor in Benjamin Franklin's "Franklin Badge" invention). The slot machine was reprogrammed in BASIC to advertise the Slot Brothers and initiate the primitive game of slots they constructed. Rewards were comprised of random junk they found lying around; the idea was that the quirkiness of the game and the reward you received would be charming enough for patrons to keep trying to see all the crazy prizes the game had to offer. "Tomas" also payed off some buffalo to cause a traffic jam in hopes that it would encourage people to come out of their cars and check out that weird slot machine in their desert location.

Ness didn't realize that his father was one of the famous Slot Brothers until years after the Chosen Four returned to their human shells from the Cave of the Past. He wrote a bestselling novel about the elaborate lies his father constructed, and his parents ended up getting a divorce when his mother read her son's book. This novel killed the success of the Slot Brothers venture; Ness's dad ended up setting up a hotdog street vendor in Fourside, which wasn't anywhere near as successful as his career as a gambler or human slot machine. One day, he mysteriously vanished, stand and all; a strange smell of bacon lingered in the the site of where the stand once stood. Similar disappearances had happened and kept happening, the most famous of which happening to be the disappearance of Dr. Jeff Andonuts three decades later. The true horrors of the mystery were revealed long after the end of civilization as we know it, when the Pigmasks came to Nowhere Islands...

-EnnuiKing