Al Bundy’s Father also known as Oral Bundy in the comics, is the father of the main protagonist Al Bundy. He is played by Ed O'Neill in the Season 4 episode, "Desperately Seeking Miss October" and by Cliff Bemis in the Season 11 episode "Requiem for a Chevyweight (Part 1)".
Background[]
Al’s Father as described by Al was a “sweet guy” who sold Al’s Schwinn bike “for a price of a drink”. He is hinted to be a bit of an alcoholic.
In "Where's the Boss?", Al laments that he should have gone into his father's line of work, before Peg points out that they have automated pinsetters now, implying that he worked in a bowling alley as a manual pinsetter. He also mentions that because of the nature of his job, his dad would often wake up in the middle of the night screaming "Wait! Wait!"
In the episode Grime and Punishment, Al mentioned that when he was a kid, he enlisted his father in the Korean War. His father was discharged from the war in 1953, and was mentioned by Al to be “traumatized and wheelchair bound”. Through Al knew deep down, his father was proud of him.
In Who'll Stop the Rain?, Al mentioned that there was a great leak in his house when he was a kid, and his father tried to go up in the roof and fix it, but ended up cutting one of his fingers off with a hammer.
In Desperately Seeking Miss October, Al and his father snuck into his basement for his 12th birthday after his mother got drunk doing the “Singapore Sling” and the two would read an issue of “Playboy’s magazine”.
In the episode A Shoe Room with a View, Al mentioned that his parents divorced when he was young, due to his father abandoning Al and his mother for a prostitute.
In the episode If Al Had a Hammer, It is revealed that Al’s father possessed an “All Mighty Hammer” that he would use to build his own room, to escape from his wife. Later, after Marcy and her women's group W.O.M.B., try to turn Al's room into their private club space, Al calls out to his father, asking him to hold the gates of Heaven open, as he plans to send everyone in the room into the afterlife momentarily. The voice of Al's father is heard saying "Go for it, son!" as he begins to tear the room down.
Al's dad, played by Cliff Beamis, in a flashback
In a flashback scene from the episode Requiem for a Chevyweight (Part 1), Al’s Father is fixing his son’s 1971 Dodge, so that he can go with Peg to The Rolling Stones farewell concert. Al tells his dad that he will be working as a shoe salesman, which his father responds by saying “What are you a fruit” but Al say’s it’s just for the summer. Al’s father warns Al about Peggy, telling him “Don’t let her get your hooks into you”, but Al disagrees telling him “Peg worships the ground that I walk in”.
In the episode Rites of Passage, Al’s father took his son Al to a nudie bar for his 18th birthday, like his father before him.
It is revealed in A Man's Castle, Al’s Father flirted with Peggy on her wedding day, telling her “If you like my son, I’m twice as fun”. After his death, Al inherited some Playboy’s magazine from his father.
In "A Dump of My Own", Peggy quips that Al's father had a head like a peanut. Later after revealing his toilet bowl to the family, Al tells Bud about the time that his father took him on a road trip to the Ferguson Toilet bowl factory in Maine. At one point, the young Al wanted to go use a bathroom at a truck stop, but his father told him to wait and reassured his son that it would be worth it. Al then has a teary moment before telling Bud that it was worth it. After admiring the Ferguson toilet he just bought, he laments that his father has since passed on and wishes that he could be there to share in his joy. After a moment he gets and takes a seat on the toilet, while looking up and telling his father " Oh, look dad. I'm sitting on my own Ferguson. Just like you always knew I would.".
Additionally, in the final draft script of "A Dump of My Own", a section of dialogue that was cut involves Peggy revealing that Al's father was not a native Chicagoan (implying he came from out of state) who arrived in town with only a dime to his name and after 20 years, turned it into a nickel (indicating that he was bad at handling money). She also stated that his name was Jebediah and was called "Grandpa the Bum" by Bud and Kelly. [4]
In the comic book special Flashback, Al's father is said to be friends with Peggy's father, Ephraim Wanker and was able to convince Al to go on a date with her as a favor to Ephraim. Later, during Al and Peg's wedding reception, he is shown getting into an argument with Peg's mother.
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