Screw what Sinatra sings, the Bundys taught us love and marriage are “an institute you can disparage.”
Premiering on Fox on April 5, 1987 — just six months after the network launched — Married…With Children introduced a gloriously dysfunctional, blue-collar clan from Chicago that stuck out like a sore thumb in a TV landscape ruled by the cookie-cutter Bradys and Cunninghams.
The series went on to become Fox’s longest-running live-action sitcom, sticking around for 11 seasons and more than 250 episodes before the network pulled the plug in 1997. Though fans never got closure — tidy endings were never the Bundys’ thing anyway — they did get the chance to see stars like Ed O’Neill, Katey Sagal, and Christina Applegate turn the show’s cult success into long-lasting careers.
Back in 2022, EW confirmed that an animated Married revival was in development at Sony Pictures Television, with the original cast set to lend their voices. Per TVLine in July 2025, that seems to have fallen through.
But, as Al would say: “Let’s rock!” Here’s what stars have been up to since their time on the iconic sitcom.
Ed O’Neill (Al Bundy)
Larry Watson/Fox; Ilya S. Savenok/Getty
Ed O’Neill was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for playing the misanthropic Al Bundy on Married…With Children, but little did he know, he barely made it past the pilot: Writer-producer Richard Gurman revealed in his 2024 book, Married…With Children vs. the World, that network executive (and People Inc. owner) Barry Diller wanted to replace him before shooting the pilot.
“He just thought they could do better because they’d never heard of me. I was a dramatic actor, as far as they were concerned, from New York and unknown…. [Diller said,] ‘We’re paying for pilot. If this thing doesn’t kick off, this will never see the light of day, if you hire this guy,” O’Neill said during a June 2024 interview on The Rich Eisen Show, revealing he found out this information a month prior. “They didn’t tell me. So we shot the pilot under those pressures for everybody else. I didn’t know about it.”
Since the series ended, his credits include The Bone Collector (1999), the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom, the 2003–2004 Dragnet remake, Spartan (2004), and Finding Dory (2016) — but his most notable post-Married role has been that of another sitcom patriarch. From 2009 to 2020, O’Neill played Jay Pritchett on Modern Family, for which he was nominated for three Emmys and won four Screen Actors Guild awards (as part of the ensemble). His first post-Modern Family role was decidedly more dramatic, playing disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in FX’s 2024 miniseries Clipped.
O’Neill has been married to actress Catherine Rusoff since 1986. Together, they have two children.
Katey Sagal (Margaret “Peggy” Bundy)
Larry Watson/Fox Network/Courtesy Everett; Vince Bucci/Getty
At the beginning of her career, Katey Sagal pursued music, performing backing vocals for a variety of famous artists — most notably as one of Bette Midler’s Harlettes — before releasing her debut studio album Well… in 1994. She then ventured into acting, scoring screen credits for a handful of TV movies and a gig on the short-lived Mary Tyler Moore-led sitcom Mary before landing her breakout role as Al Bundy’s vapid wife, Peggy, on Married…With Children (for which she received four Golden Globe nominations).
“I remember reading the script and thinking, ‘This is hysterically funny, but no one will watch it because it’s just too outside the box. We’ll get canceled immediately.’ It was on a network nobody had heard of,” Sagal told ABC News in April 2017. “[The cast] had great chemistry together. I just remember going to work and laughing all the time, and I’m not exaggerating.”
Post-Married, Sagal stayed busy on the small screen with parts on That ’70s Show, Tucker, and 8 Simple Rules, and found cult success voicing Leela on Futurama (a role she has since reprised in 2023). In addition to Peggy, Sagal is best known for her Golden Globe-winning turn as Gemma Teller Morrow on Sons of Anarchy from 2008 to 2014. She later recurred on the CBS sitcom Superior Donuts from 2017 to 2018 and ABC’s The Conners from 2018 to 2025, in addition to reuniting with her onscreen Married daughter, Christina Applegate, in a few episodes of Dead to Me.
Her film credits include Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) and Bleed for This (2016), and the 2017 made-for-TV remake of Dirty Dancing, along with more recent appearances in Torn Hearts (2022) and Trust (2025).
Since 2004, Sagal has been married to writer-producer Kurt Sutter, with whom she shares a daughter named Esmé. The actress has two other children, Sarah and Jackson, from her previous marriage to drummer Jack White.
David Faustino (Bud Bundy)
Columbia Pictures Television/Courtesy Everett; Amy Graves/Getty
David Faustino was 13 years old, with a little over that many film and TV appearances under his belt, when he signed on to play Al and Peggy’s son, Bud Bundy, in 1987.
“I have tour buses that come by my house in the summer, literally 10 to 20 times a day, every day. They sing [the theme song] ‘Love and Marriage.’ It’s crazy, it never ends,” Faustino told EW in October 2010. “I’m glad about that, though. I still get all the benefits. It’s been a good life for me.”
Since Married…With Children ended in 1997, he’s racked up dozens of TV credits, including episodes of Modern Family (reuniting with former costar Ed O’Neill), Entourage, and Bones. He has done extensive voice acting, most notably playing the character Mako in both the videogame and TV series The Legend of Korra from 2012 to 2014 and voicing Dagur on Netflix’s Dragons: Race to the Edge from 2015 to 2018. In 2025, he appeared in the family adventure film Pet Investigators.
In 2009, he created and starred in his own web series, Star-ving, which was loosely based on his life and on which all three of his main Married…With Children costars appeared.
Faustino shares a daughter and a son with his wife, Lindsay Bronson.
Christina Applegate (Kelly Bundy)
Aaron Rapoport/Fox Network/Courtesy Everett; Taylor Hill/Getty
Christina Applegate had already appeared in a handful of films and on TV series when she was cast at just 15 as Al and Peggy’s raunchy daughter, Kelly, on Married…With Children. By the time the show wrapped nearly a decade later, she was in her 20s — having essentially grown up alongside her TV family and forming relationships that have prevailed post-filming.
“Not a lot of time goes by without someone checking in with someone,” Applegate shared with Ed O’Neill and cohost Jamie-Lynn Sigler during an August 2024 episode of her MeSsy podcast. “Eddie and I, like I said, he and I are the only ones that talk on the phone all the time. Katey [Sagal] has come over and laid in bed with me. You know, Dave [Faustino], I see Dave a lot. Our kids went to the same school for a bit.”
Speaking directly to O’Neill, she added, “Like you’re my family. You really are my family. And coming from like, being a little kid and growing up from being 15 to 24 years old with these people, you hold a huge part of my heart. I hold you to a higher esteem than I do anybody else.”
Applegate has been extremely prolific since then, with major parts in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991), The Sweetest Thing (2002), View From the Top (2003), Vacation (2015), and Bad Moms (2016). Her best-known film role, however, is as Veronica Corningstone in 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and its 2013 sequel.
On TV, Applegate starred on Jesse from 1998 to 2000, Samantha Who? from 2007 to 2009, Up All Night from 2011 to 2012, and Dead to Me from 2019 to 2022, earning multiple Emmy nominations for the latter. She has hosted Saturday Night Live twice, in 1993 and 2012, and won an Emmy in 2003 for her guest role on Friends, where she played one of Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston) sisters.
An accomplished stage actress, Applegate picked up a Tony nomination for starring in the 2005 revival of Sweet Charity; she also appeared with the earliest iteration of the Pussycat Dolls, when it was more of a burlesque act, in the mid-‘90s. Applegate announced in August 2021 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a year later, where she was joined by Sagal and Faustino. She is set to release her memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, in March 2026.
Applegate is married to Dutch bassist Martyn LeNoble, with whom she shares daughter Sadie.
Ted McGinley (Jefferson D’Arcy)
Frank Micellotta/Fox Network/Courtesy Everett; Olivia Wong/Getty
Before he joined the cast of Married…With Children as Jefferson D’Arcy in 1989, Ted McGinley already had an impressive résumé in film and on TV — having been a series regular on Happy Days from 1980 to 1984, The Love Boat from 1983 to 1987, and Dynasty from 1986 to 1987, as well as having played the main frat-boy antagonist in Revenge of the Nerds (1984), among other credits.
Since Married, McGinley has had recurring gigs on Sports Night, The West Wing, and No Good Nick; guest appearances Mad Men, Castle, Mom, and Platonic; and main roles as Charlie Shanowski on Hope & Faith, Derek on Shrinking, and John Baxter on The Baxters. The veteran actor also participated in season 7 of Dancing With the Stars in 2008, though he was the second celeb eliminated.
McGinley shares two sons, Beau and Quinn, with his wife, actress Gigi Rice.
Amanda Bearse (Marcy D’Arcy)
Frank Micellotta/Fox Network/Courtesy Everett; JC Olivera/WireImage
After recurring on All My Children from 1982 to 1983 and starring in the 1985 horror film Fright Night, Amanda Bearse starred on Married…With Children as Peggy’s best friend, Marcy.
Since the end of the series, she has made appearances on Drop Dead Diva, Anger Management, and Smothered, but for a while, her focus shifted from acting to directing. In addition to having helmed 31 episodes of Married…With Children, Bearse has directed episodes of The Jamie Foxx Show, Jesse, Dharma & Greg, Reba, and MADtv, among other series. She also appeared in the 2022 film Bros.
Bearse is married to Carrie Schenken and the mother of daughter Zoe Bearse.
David Garrison (Steve Rhoades)
Aaron Rapoport/Fox Network/Courtesy Everett; Walter McBride/Getty
Though best known in the TV sphere for playing Steve Rhoades on Married…With Children and having appeared on dozens of other shows, including The West Wing, Law & Order, 30 Rock, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, David Garrison is primarily a stage actor.
He was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1980 for his performance in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine; his other theater credits include Pirates of Penzance, Titanic, and most notably Wicked, in which he has played the Wizard both on Broadway and in touring productions.
