Ted McGinley's Decades of TV Work Yielded a Stack of Near-Worthless Residual Checks

The 'Married With Children' and 'Happy Days' veteran told Page Six his accumulated residual pile added up to a figure that would embarrass a parking meter.

Ted McGinley told Page Six he had amassed a stack of residual checks from decades of television work totaling a strikingly small amount.
McGinley is best known for his recurring roles on 'Married With Children,' 'Happy Days,' and 'The Love Boat.'
The disclosure illustrates how standard residuals formulas pay fractions of cents on rerun and streaming cycles long after original broadcast.
SAG-AFTRA's 2023 strike negotiations cited residuals reform as a central grievance, with streaming payments described in filings as functionally negligible for many performers.
McGinley's comments were made in a Page Six interview published May 30, 2026.

Ted McGinley, whose television credits span nearly five decades and include recurring roles on Happy Days, The Love Boat, and nine seasons of Married With Children, told Page Six this week that the residual checks produced by that body of work had accumulated into a stack — and that the stack added up to very little.

McGinley did not specify a single total figure in the Page Six report, but characterized the cumulative amount as shockingly low given the volume of the work and the continued circulation of the programs across broadcast and streaming platforms.

The mechanics are not unusual. Under standard SAG-AFTRA residuals formulas, rerun and streaming payments can reduce to fractions of a cent per play per performer by the time a series moves through secondary licensing windows. A performer with significant screen time in a long-running network show can, in theory, receive a check for less than the cost of the stamp used to mail it.

McGinley's name became tabloid shorthand in the 1980s and 1990s for the phenomenon of the “show killer” — the new cast addition whose arrival correlated with declining ratings — a reputation the actor has addressed in interviews over the years with apparent good humor.

The checks, Page Six noted, were real. The amounts, less so.