Amanda Bearse and Ed O'Neill about their longtime Feud

Amanda Bearse made that show.. Marcy never failes to make me laugh.

Ed O'Neil comes off like an asshole.

Ed seems like the character wasn’t a stretch.

That same video was in my Recommended list yesterday, as well.

Has Youtube even been accused of shilling or PR flakking? I find it very difficult to believe that OP and I have such similar viewing habits that we'd both be Recommended the same strange video.

That said, I think Bearse comes across about as well as one could hope (she should have stopped but went just a little too far), while Ed comes across as a real douchebag, especially when he starts in on Bearse initially being the femme in her relationships, but "changed" after a couple years.

Isn't Ed gay?

[quote]Isn't Ed gay?

We don't want him!

Always thought Married with Children was a pretty funny show but never really had much of an opinion on Ed O'Neill. After watching 5 minutes of him talking about Amanda Bearse, I now know that he's a Grade A a-hole. With such enlightened views on gay people, I can only imagine what the set of Modern Family is like.

He is talking about the "female" in the relationship and he is gay himself?

He's a fucking moron. In the interview he complains that she has these presumptions about him and in the next breath he confirms that she was right to think these things about him. I don't understand people who lack such self awareness that they can recite tales like O'Neill does and think it makes them come out looking good.

He’s so full of himself, but probably right about the network choosing him over her if it came to that.

[QUOTE]I don't understand people who lack such self awareness that they can recite tales like O'Neill does and think it makes them come out looking good.

I didn’t take it as him believing it would make him come out looking good, but rather that he doesn’t care. He acknowledged these are mean and horrible things. He’s just being honest.

Ed's first movie role was a police detective in "Cruising".

R11 He played a real asshole in that first role, too. Probably not too big of a stretch for him.

Al Bundy doesn't seem too far from Ed O'Neill.

Too bad the name Dick O’Neill was already registered in SAG.

Amanda is supposed to be an absolute nightmare. Sandra Bernhard thinly referenced her on her Sirius Show. She recounted the early 80s in NYC when she was in a toxic relationship with a soap actress who was a total narcissistic abusive bully. You don’t have to work hard to figure out it was Amanda who was on All My Children at the time. Her stories about her were awful. She didn’t name names but again, it is a quick Google search to land on Bearse.

They’re both assholes. Amanda hides behind a nice lady facade and Ed O’Neill is upfront with his shit. He doesn’t give a shit.

Ed may be a stupid ass hole but he's certainly honest.

Can we agree that they're both difficult people? It would be interesting to get a third point of view on this from Katey Sagal or one of the other cast members.

Peggy, to Al: Boy, if I had to service you every time you did something stupid, I'd be flatter than an all beef patty.

Team Amanda.

I never watched this show!

Always changed the channel.

That video already has a million + views and it isn't even two months old. Who knew so many were interested in this topic?

Terrible show. O'Neill would have been even worse without Bearse as a foil.

Amanda is a cunt. It’s a well known fact.

As a fan, this really bums me out. I didn’t even realize there was a feud.

Part of me thinks Amanda could have handled things with a better sense of humor.

But part of me knows it was a more homophobic time.

Weren’t Amanda and her wife doing the tuxedo thing tongue-in-cheek, too? Didn’t they find it funny?

They’re not trannies— they like being the women they were biologically born as. I had lesbian friends who dressed in male drag back then for shits and giggles. Wasn’t it supposed to be a little funny?

"Amanda is really rocking that gender studies lecturer haircut."

Ed O’Neill is not gay, no.

[quote]Has Youtube even been accused of shilling or PR flakking? I find it very difficult to believe that OP and I have such similar viewing habits that we'd both be Recommended the same strange video.

You come here, and OP comes here. YouTube videos are linked here. That is enough for YouTube to suggest the same videos.

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a video linked here that YouTube suggested just a few hours to days earlier.

I wonder if Amanda wanted to direct just to be able to tell Ed what to do.

My God, she looks like an old man.

A former GF of Amanda’s nicknamed her “Commanda”.

Ed O'Neil is a renowned shitstain. And that little retarded midget who played his son is also.

I didn't get the vibe from his Ed's interview that he was/is a boor and harassed Amanda. I got that he's honest, tells it like it is as referenced also upthread, and was describing his reactions to finding her behavior on the set and personality as being seemingly obnoxious and combative at times. Perhaps it was Amanda who was quite close to her Marcy character, and ironically not so much Ed being close to his Al one.

Ed does sound like an ass but he is beloved by Katey Sagal and Sophia Vergara. Both of them fell all over themselves to tell the crowd how wonderful he is at Ed’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. They didn’t even need to appear if they didn’t want to say nice things about him.

Also, to prank Christina Applegate on her sitcom Jessie, producers surprised her by having Ed stand behind the door instead of the actor who played her character’s father. During rehearsal when Christina threw open the door, she was shocked to see Ed. She burst into tears and collapsed into his arms. She has described him as a second dad.

David Faustino and Ed are still close, David had a very funny guest role on Modern Family. If Ed hadn’t wanted him there, he wouldn’t have gotten the job.

Well, even assholes are nice to their “family” even if is only a pretend one.

Well, I have to say it but, when he was filming Mw/C, I was attracted to his blue collar dumb persona. Yeah, I would have let Ed fuck me. Seriously.

Have Buck or Seven been reached for comment?

Proud to say I've never watched an entire episode of Modern Family because of Ed. MWC worked because of Peg and Marcy.

It must have been a big adjustment for everyone when Amanda transitioned from Actress to ActressDirector.

R38 has a very small and pathetic life to be proud of never watching "an entire episode" of "Modern Family" because of Ed.

There are so many peevish idiots here, ever since Facebook started dying.

Amanda is a monster. No exaggeration.

Though it was a few years before his MwC success, I worked on a couple of theater projects with Ed in the 1980s. He was very sexy in a hot blue collar way and a total regular guy. Very self-deprecatory back then, very easy and fun to be with even if he was (and I assume still is) totally straight.

Amanda is a terrible ham of an actress. I hope she's better as a director.

Does playing gay count?

R44! What is THAT from??

I heard about their feud years ago, and I thought that it was over the way Amanda came in as a director and started abusing the crew and generally throwing her weight around. Ed stepped in to protect the crew and that's when it got personal between them.

I liked Marcy on MWC. She was pretty funny.

You can admire O'Neill for "telling it like it is" but don't tell me he comes across as someone who is out to protect the little guy at his expense. He is undeniably self absorbed.

R45 Weird City

What does Meghan Markle and her dad have to say about this?

OMG WHAT A F*CKING HOMOPHOBE! And this guy still works? He doesn't sound too bright, either (talking about bright). The "button" he talks about is simply white hetero male power! Who gives a shit?? Intelligence is not correlated to power and this idiot should know it, but of course, being an idiot, he doesn't. And the reason why he "never was gonna push that button" is because he knew full well she was the more talented and he needed her.

[Quote] OMG WHAT A F*CKING HOMOPHOBE! And this guy still works? He doesn't sound too bright, either (talking about bright). The "button" he talks about is simply white hetero male power! Who gives a shit?? Intelligence is not correlated to power and this idiot should know it, but of course, being an idiot, he doesn't. And the reason why he "never was gonna push that button" is because he knew full well she was the more talented and he needed her.

They're both incredibly lucky to have the careers they do for their lack of talent.

Wow... Ed and David were really immature, I can see they weren't acting in their parts on MWC. Amanda is a great comic actress and I loved her Fright Night too. Ed does seem to respect Amanda's talent and intelligence but he is still petty, ignorant and homophobic. Both Ed and Amanda were divas who probably fought over the direction of the show. Katey is a class act and got the long career she deserved.

LOVE KATEY!.... she's starring in a new show to be on pretty soon, i saw a very brief commercial on it, but i've already forgot the name of it.... i'll go to imdb to find out... definitely will watch it for her....

i was just thinking imagine a show with katey and roma maffia, what a great show that would be!..

Katey also came up with the look and attitude of Peggy Bundy. Peg was originally supposed to be a frumpy and cynical homemaker. And it was Roseanne who was originally considered for the role. When Katey got cast, she turned Peg into an aging "hot girl" and gave her a livelier personality. Her voice got more high-pitched and her hair bigger over time. She became a foil to Ed's grumpy Al and Amanda's uptight Marcy. And the later addition Jefferson was pretty much a male counterpart to Peggy. If Roseanne got cast, I don't think the show would have lasted that long.

Mmm, cooter!

Team Amanda after [italic]Modern Family[/italic] turned into tr-ns kid propaganda.

I was disappointed when I saw Ed's interview bit about Amanda. He was ridiculing her for becoming more butch over time. He also said that it would have been her right to laugh at her at her own wedding because she was marrying a woman. It was an odd thing to say for a man who was starring on a popular show that was celebrated for being pro-gay. He came off as a homophobic bully. He also bragged about how he could have said the word and had Amanda fired because HE was the STAR of the show. He seemed really proud of that fact, even 20 years later. Wow.

r59 Why shouldn't he be proud of that fact 20 years later? What an idiotic thing to say.

Why shouldn't he be proud of the fact that he could just get someone fired out of spite?

Is that a real question?

It's so odd that Ed was in at least two successful, gay friendly shows (MWC and Modern Family) with his kind of dismissive attitude towards gays and lesbians.

He just proved George Jefferson was right.

MwC would never make it on the air today; it would be canceled. The show had the Trump attitude that women who were unattractive or fat were worthless, and attractive women were to be objectified. Even the teen daughter character was treated with the worst stereotypes. It was rumored that Christina Applegate campaigned to the producers to make Kelly smarter and less sexual in the last years of the show.

There were a couple of subtle homophobic moments. For example, when Marcy was considering turning her spare room into a home gym, Peg suggests that Marcy invite all the neighborhood women to use the gym, except for the two women who live together and call themselves sisters. However, there were two pro-gay episodes.

In one episode, Peg becomes dancing partners with a gay man. The man's partner visits Al. He's jealous that his partner is spending so much time with Peg, and he asks Al to give Peg more attention so she won't need to go dancing so often. During his visit with Al, he cooks a delicious dinner, and he reveals that he loves sports. Al realizes that this man would be the perfect partner, gay or not. Al even appears to consider being attracted to the man. Al goes to the dancing club and dances with Peg, and with Peg out of the picture, the two gay men are reunited. Peg brags to Al that she could have slept with her dancing partner if she wanted to cheat on Al. Al responds: "He's a homo, Peg". (That kind of ruined it, but OK, it was still a positive episode.)

In another episode, Marcy's lesbian cousin Mandy visits, and she becomes best friends with Al.

Amanda was pretty good on All My Children, but they still got rid of her after her one big storyline.

Apparently, Ed was very kind to Katey and was a fatherly figure to Christina and David. Christina said that Ed stood up for her when the producers were commenting on her appearances and weight. That's why they defend him. Ed's beef was mainly with Amanda and it was not only because he mocked her for being a butch lesbian but because they butted heads over the direction of the show. Katey pretty much admits that MWC was misogynistic and could not be made today. But regardless of that, I always felt this show was carried by the comedic timing of Katey, Amanda and Christina who also defied the stereotype that attractive women could not be funny.

[quote] It was rumored that Christina Applegate campaigned to the producers to make Kelly smarter and less sexual in the last years of the show.

I definitely noticed that in the later seasons, Kelly was more independent and a bit more competent even though she was still stupid. They did cut back on the slut jokes and just played up her wackiness and gave her a random assortment of talents. She became sort of an idiot savant. It was funny that Kelly and Bud were making more money than Al at their jobs and became the breadwinners. But Peggy still spent all of their money and despite the Bundy kids attempts to save and move out, they always ended up stuck at home.

R18, I love you

MWC suffers from the same issue All in the Family suffers from these days. These shows were meant to be satires of families like this, but the people they were actually poking fun at got ahold of them, didn't understand the satire, and thought they were supposed to be role models.

Satire has always been tricky, because it runs the risk of offending people who don't understand what it is. It has to feel fairly close to life for it to work. I still remember a college friend who was appalled while watching Heathers because she thought it glorified teenage suicide and was in poor taste. Needless to say, I didn't stay friends with that dingbat for much longer. Some people just don't get it.

Katey Sagal returns to TV.

Exactly, R68. It was a minstrel show of ugly suburbanites being ugly to one another. It was a reaction to Very Special episodes.

Ed is completely insensitive in that interview discussing his relationship with Amanda. Sure, some lesbians can be tough, but Ed 's a jackass.

[quote] It was a minstrel show of ugly suburbanites being ugly to one another. It was a reaction to Very Special episodes.

The show was originally titled "Not The Cosbys" and the Bundys were actually supposed to a Black working class family from Chicago. But they changed them to white to avoid offending anyone since Fox was still a new network and could not risk more controversy. MwC's co-creator Michael G. Moye is Black and one thing about MwC was that the Bundy had many Black friends who would come over and were just as cynical and blue-collar as they were. As opposed to John Hughes' lily-white yuppie portrayal of Chicago and wise "magical Negro" token characters.

[Quote] MWC suffers from the same issue All in the Family suffers from these days. These shows were meant to be satires of families like this, but the people they were actually poking fun at got ahold of them, didn't understand the satire, and thought they were supposed to be role models.

That the issue. People don't understand context. Beneath the surface of the gross humor, MwC was satire of American life. MwC made it clear Al was a loser, a moron and definitely not a source of wisdom. Nothing he said was based on logic. He was angry bitter man who refused to own up to his failures. Peggy and her refusal to work comes from her delusional view from the media (she watches TV all day like Oprah) that all women are queens to be pampered. She spent beyond the family's means because she's lazy and a slave to brands and consumerism.

Marcy also was a parody of the shrill hypocritical women who claim to be feminist but really just want power over men and also hate other women. The Bundys were white trash and Marcy and Steve were a parody of conservative Republican yuppies. Marcy and Steve were self-absorbed, snobby, passive aggressive and looked down on the Bundy family. When Steve left, Marcy just stopped acting nice.

The writers mocked everyone. Like Gary the greedy (later revealed to be female) owner of the shoe store Al worked for and Officer Dan the corrupt black cop. Bud was the only intelligent character but still held back by his poor and selfish family who use all the money he earns and is doomed by being born a Bundy. Kelly on the other hand got rewarded a lot despite being stupid because of her looks.

As for current day, it doesn't seem the Bundys would actively support any politicians. They loved welfare and distrusted the police due to being petty criminals themselves. Marcy, Kelly, Bud and Peggy would probably vote Democrat. Al would be a Trump voter only to piss off people and feminists. But again the only ones who would probably register and remember to vote would be Bud and Marcy.

And it was all worth it to hear Christina Applegate pronounce it “Chick-Ago” as a weather person.

They lived in a house. Based on that alone, they were living in the lap of luxury compared to the Evanses of [italic]Good Times[/italic].

R69 Did she leave The Connor’s?

[quote] Amanda was pretty good on All My Children, but they still got rid of her after her one big storyline.

Wasn't DL fave Donna Pescow also on AMC around the same time, and wasn't her character a lesbian?

[quote]I was disappointed when I saw Ed's interview bit about Amanda. He was ridiculing her for becoming more butch over time.

Fucking Boomers.

I don't know if this "genre" has a name, but MWC was a show where you enjoyed watching the leads fail.

[quote]It's so odd that Ed was in at least two successful, gay friendly shows (MWC and Modern Family) with his kind of dismissive attitude towards gays and lesbians.

And ironic considering there used to be someone on DL that claimed they were cruised by him years ago in a bar.

[quote] Amanda is supposed to be an absolute nightmare. Sandra Bernhard thinly referenced her on her Sirius Show. She recounted the early 80s in NYC when she was in a toxic relationship with a soap actress who was a total narcissistic abusive bully.

Even gay men and lesbians who love Sandra Bernhard have to admit her entire persona is built on how incredibly caustic and abrasive she is. I can never take her side in any squabble as a result.

[quote] And it was all worth it to hear Christina Applegate pronounce it “Chick-Ago” as a weather person.

Lots of people from California pronounce it that way. I've never understood why.

[quote] I don't know if this "genre" has a name, but MWC was a show where you enjoyed watching the leads fail.

Yeah. I'd call that sadistic humor/schauenfreude which is common staple in a lot of UK sitcoms. They make the protagonists to be obnoxious and unlikable, so that their suffering is funny because they have it coming. MwC, Seinfeld, Malcolm in the Middle, Two and a Half Men, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Everybody Hates Chris, Louie, South Park, The Simpsons and Family Guy are American shows in that category. MwC had a few clones like The War at Home, Grounded for Life, Unhappily Ever After and Still Standing where they replicated the working class family with the asshole father married to the hot wife who is also a selfish idiot with a pack of bratty ungrateful kids.

Married With Children came out at a time when saccharine family sitcoms dominated the networks. There were all lame and moralistic. MWC, as well as Roseanne, were a welcome change. Both of those shows killed the putrid perfect family sitcom model that dominated the 80s.

I think Married and Roseanne definitely opened doors.

The 90s family shows were still wholesome but they had more of an edge compared to previous decades. Boy Meets World and Blossom were coming-of-age shows and touched adolescent topics like sex and drugs, Fresh Prince addressed class and racial issues and the main character was a man-ho, Family Matters had more than a few episodes about racism and gang violence (it was set in Chicago and they were clearly working class), the family in Step by Step was very dysfunctional and they acted more like a real blended family than The Brady Bunch and Home Improvement had Tim and Jill at each other's throats and more often than not they settle a compromise like a real married couple and the three sons were unapologetic brats. Full House was just a relic of the Reagan-era 80s and they had to continue with it though they tried to give Stephanie more edgy storylines as she reached her teen years.

It became unwatchable about five seasons in.

Katey could be Oleebia's sister on a Very Special SVU.

Auntie Noxie had a Peggy Bundy wig.

[quote]It became unwatchable about five seasons in.

I quit watching it around the time that Bud became Grandmaster whatever it was. So 1994?

R81, sandra’s just pissed Drew Droege took her place.

David Faustino and Brian Austin Green were two white boys trying to act hood and be rappers and the writers for MwC and 90210 wrote that into the shows. While 90210 had the characters pretend that David Silver was a good singer, rapper and dancer. MwC mocked David's hip-hop phase and probably encouraged him to quit while he was ahead.

Yes, r77. Amanda played a character also named Amanda, who was at first just Liza Colby’s friend, but then played a major role in keeping Greg and Jenny apart. They wrote her off shortly after Greg and Jenny reunited. Donna Pescow was briefly on around this time as a lesbian who almost had a relationship with boring Devon.

Not saying I’m on team Ed, only that Amanda’s former girlfriend used to refer to her as Commanda behind her back.

[quote] around the time that Bud became Grandmaster whatever it was.

Bed Wetter B.

The creators for MwC worked on a series called It's Your Move starring a young Jason Bateman and also starring David Garrison as his antagonist. The humor is dark and you can see a lot of the character quirks reused in MwC. Bateman's character Matthew is basically the early prototype of Bud Bundy when he was a smartmouthed schemer and the older sister Julie was an early prototype of Kelly Bundy when she was a typical sarcastic and shallow teen. David Garrison plays a writer from Chicago who matches wits with Bateman's character similar to how Steve in MwC would match wits with Al. River Phoenix makes an appearance in the pilot in the beginning as one of Bateman's friends.

Marcy had all the best scenes

They're both relatively professional and just a wee bit difficult. O'Neill was correct about the nature of the dispute. He was the star. She wasn't. So he wins. Life kinda works that way. Most likely, he just sucked up a lot from her in order to get to the point he had to say that out loud

Why am I interested in this crap? But I am. Thank you OP!

Now, if it came down to it, I'm Team Ed. I used to have the hot for Al Bundy. Marcy I found was always too forced. The star for me is Peggy!

R86 Season 5 was the last really good season. They made a mistake making Peggy (Katey Sagal was really pregnant) and Marcy pregnant in season 6 and had scrap it mid season when Sagal's baby was stillborn, having the whole thing being a dream. Then the next season hired that super annoying kid Seven. They had some good shows here and there after that, but never as good as in its peak seasons (3, 4 and 5) ever again.

R97 Agreed.

I thought Seven was part of the "it was all a dream" retcon after Sagal miscarried?

[quote]LOVE KATEY!.... she's starring in a new show to be on pretty soon

And will be gone in three weeks.

Wasn't Katey in a rock band? For me, she's in the Dolly Cher category- total approval and devotion

Wait, he tells her to her face she's going to be laughed at her wedding and she's too butch and he's the bad guy?

This is boring. Let's talk about when Bud became such a fuckable little pocket boy. Him not getting laid was the most absurd part of the show.

Bud wasn't ugly at all. He had a cute face. He was just short which is why they got away with the "Bud is a fug loser" joke.

He was also a huge nerd and very socially awkward. Women are a little more discerning than we are as to who they’ll have sex with.

A homo and a lez.

Not surprising.

Ed O'Neill isn't gay. That was full on exhaustive attitude on her part in that interview.

Bud trying to fuck Marcy after Steve left her was hilarious. Bud ended up attracting a lot of nerdy women and older women. He did score some hot girls like were Amber, Marcy's niece and that girl played by Joey Lauren Adams in later seasons.

I figure like Peggy and Marcy, it was his personality that was unattractive. Bud was such a wannabe playa and socially awkward to boot. Marcy even after she butched it up was still very pretty but she was aggressive and hostile. Peggy, who is often included in Top TV MILFs lists, was very attractive with a nice body but dressed tacky and had a whiny and lazy personality.

Matt LeBlanc made appearances on MwC as Kelly's boyfriend Vinnie Verducci. They tried to give Vinnie and his dad a spin-off called Top of the Heap which only lasted a few episodes. It revolves around the antics of Charlie Verducci who is trying to get his himbo son engaged to a rich sugar mama. Then they later retooled it as a roommate comedy called Vinnie & Bobby which also failed after a few episodes. LeBlanc was a star and ended up playing the same character Joey Tribbiani in Friends.

The important part of this that has not been addressed is that TV directors are nothing special. They don't have the power of stage and film directors. The producers are in control, not the director, who may only be there for one episode. Even though Amanda might be the director, Ed probably still had more power and could have had her directing duties squashed.

[Quote] LeBlanc was a star and ended up playing the same character Joey Tribbiani in Friends.

Tell us more of this "Friends." Was it a success?

Someone finally found episodes of Vinnie & Bobby. Not that bad of a sitcom. Two hot dumb Italian guys in tight shirts with a homoerotic friendship and that studio audience of horny middle-aged women howling is hilarious.