Casting the role of Al Bundy on Married… With Children was no easy task. During the early stages of production, the part was actually offered to Sam Kinison. The original plan was to have the legendary stand-up comic star alongside Roseanne Barr as Peggy. Both comedians turned down the opportunity, and Barr later trashed the show in the press, calling it “really caustic and vicious.”
The producers quickly cast Katey Sagal as Peggy, but still didn’t have much luck finding their Al. While being interviewed for the Married… With Children edition of E! True Hollywood Story in 2001, casting director Marc Hirschfeld revealed that one of the people who came in to audition for the role around that time was future Seinfeld star Michael Richards. Though Richards had already made a name for himself on the Saturday Night Live-esque sketch series Fridays by then, he was still a few years away from comedy superstardom.
The showrunners didn’t think he was right for Al, and the search continued from there.
Before ‘Seinfeld,’ Michael Richards Almost Played Al Bundy on ‘Married… With Children’
It wouldn’t be until about a week or two before they were scheduled to do a table read for the pilot that they finally made some progress with their leading man. It was at that point that Hirschfeld remembered an actor by the name of Ed O’Neill, whom he’d seen play Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men a couple of years prior. O’Neill was primarily known for doing dramatic roles in those days, but they called him in to audition out of desperation.
Apparently, most of the actors who’d previously read for Al approached the role angrily, like Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners, whereas O’Neill decided to portray him as more laid-back, which ultimately landed him the gig.
But the audition process for Married… With Children didn’t just help O’Neill achieve television immortality; Richards ended up benefiting from it in the long run as well. You see, Hirschfeld went on to become the casting director for Seinfeld a little while after that, and Richards popped into his head when they were looking for someone to play Kramer. Interestingly, Richards stood out for the same reason O’Neill did: he did the opposite of what everyone else had done.
However, in his case, he went for an over-the-top portrayal rather than going the more reserved route:
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