Ed O’Neill says he found out that his hit 80s-90s sitcom Married … with Children was cancelled in the most impersonal way possible.
After 10 years of starring as Al Bundy on the Fox show, he received the news from a stranger who had heard it on the radio.
The 78-year-old veteran actor stopped by the MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie-Lynn Sigler podcast to discuss his time playing Applegate’s father on the series and how he came to find out it was cancelled.
“I was back in my hometown, and I was at this little bed and breakfast … and it was a beautiful day. It was in the spring, and I came out[side] … and they had the gardens, you know, and it was such a nice day,” O’Neill recalled.
“A car pulled in with the ‘just married’ things hanging off the back, you know, the tin cans … and I thought, ‘Oh, they, you know, just got married.’ So I was standing there, and they got out of the car, and it was the husband and wife,” said the Modern Family star.
He continued, “She was in the gown, and he was in the tux. And he said, ‘Oh my god. It’s Al Bundy, in Ohio.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Congratulations. You got married.’”
The joyous moment then took an uncomfortable turn. “The woman said, ‘We’re so sorry about your show,’ ” O’Neill said. “And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And the guy said, ‘Oh my god. He doesn’t know. It’s on the radio. You got cancelled.’”
Although he was in shock after hearing the news, O’Neill said he still joined the newlyweds for some champagne to celebrate their marriage. “They said, ‘Oh, we’re so sorry,’ and I said, ‘I’d rather hear it from you.’ So yeah. I came inside. I love champagne.”
Married … with Children debuted in 1987 and followed a Chicago working-class family complete with marital and coming-of-age struggles. In addition to O’Neill, it starred Katey Sagal (as his wife Peggy), Applegate (as their daughter Kelly), and David Faustino (as their son Bud).
Applegate says she also felt blindsided by the news. “I found out from a guy who knew a guy who worked for my assistant at the time. That’s how I found out. They never called us,” she said.
Adding to his disappointment, O’Neill said he never received his “last show gift” from the network. “I said, ‘I thought The Golden Girls got Mercedes-Benzes when they did their last show,’ which they did,” the actor said. “Never got a gift.”
