Ed O’Neill Got Recognized in Germany, Then Told He Had the Wrong Voice

There is famous, and then there is famous in Germany. On a recent Bundy Club Zoom, Ed O’Neill, the man who gave us Al Bundy on Married… with Children, told us about the time he got mobbed by fans overseas and still somehow came up short. Honestly, that is the most Al Bundy outcome possible.

It turns out the show has its own German identity. David Faustino brought up what they call it over there, “that terrible family,” and Ed was right there with him: “Wasn’t the show in German called ‘that terrible family’?” The answer came back, “Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” As titles go, that is less a translation and more a review.

Then Ed got into the story. “One time I flew to Munich,” he said. He was on his way to shoot a 10 hour miniseries called The 10th Kingdom, and a driver was supposed to take him “down to Hallstatt or something down there, you know, in the Austrian Alps.” Very scenic. Very not Chicago.

He never even made it out of the airport before Al caught up with him. “There were some German students at the airport, and they recognized me,” Ed said. “And they came running over and they were saying, ‘Herr Bundy, Herr Bundy.'” A hero’s welcome. Al never got a welcome like that at home.

Then the twist. One of them spoke English, everybody got to talking, and then, as Ed tells it, “I heard the one guy, they had this puzzled look and they said, ‘But this is not the voice.'” David summed it up: “It’s not the voice.” Ed had the face, the fame and the attitude. Germany just knew Al Bundy with a different voice.

Think about it. You become the most famous lousy dad on TV, you fly across an ocean, fans chase you through an airport, and the review is: wrong voice. If that isn’t the most Bundy thing to ever happen to a Bundy, we don’t know what is.

Want to hear stories like this live and ask your own questions? Join Bundy Club, the Married… with Children fan club with David Faustino, and hang out on our live Zooms with the people who made the show. Sign up at bundyclub.com and grab a seat on the couch.