It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Ed O’Neill playing the sarcastic shoe salesman Al Bundy on Married…with Children.
But according to David Faustino, the actor who portrayed Bud Bundy for the sitcom‘s entire run, the role almost went to someone else.
During an appearance on the Pod Meets Worldpodcast, Faustino, 52, revealed that Fox executives weren’t initially sold on casting the relatively unknown O’Neill, 80, as the patriarch of television’s most dysfunctional family.
“They didn’t want him, like, at all,” Faustino recalled.
He said then-Fox executive Barry Diller opposed casting O’Neill, believing the role should go to a bigger name.
According to Faustino, the disagreement even affected the show’s production schedule.
“They lost six episodes because of it,” he said, explaining that the fight over casting delayed the series before O’Neill was ultimately chosen.
The decision would go on to become one of the defining casting choices in television history.
Premiering in 1987, Married…with Children ran for 11 seasons and more than 250 episodes, helping establish the Fox network while turning O’Neill into a household name.
His portrayal of Al Bundy, a perpetually frustrated shoe salesman who longed for his high school football glory days, became one of the most recognizable sitcom characters of the era.
O’Neill later went on to star as Jay Pritchett on ABC’s Modern Family, earning three Emmy nominations and introducing himself to an entirely new generation of television fans.
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This story was originally published by Parade on Jul 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the TV section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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