Lisa Kudrow instead of Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy? Craig T. Nelson instead of Ed O'Neil? Andy Richter and Buster Bluth as the resident gay couple?! This leaked casting wish-list from Modern Family's beginning stages is funny by itself.

Weeds writer/producer Stephen Falk uploaded the photo to his blog with this to say:

Found the Modern Family pilot script in some old folder on my computer and discovered this interesting cast breakdown with (mostly) temp/wishlist actors as models for the development executives. Very instructive as a writing practice (I do this as well), and interesting to see who they had in mind.

So, who buys it? Do you think any of these actors were actually up for the role? Or was this just a casting director's dream team? Either way, it's always fun to see a bit of inside Hollywood info make its way to the eyes of the public.

[Pop Culture Brain]

UPDATE:

Stephen has taken to his blog again to respond to the image. Here's what he said, straight from the man himself:

In response to media outlets widely picking up the Modern Family post from this dumb-dumb blog yesterday as a story:

The Modern Family document I posted yesterday was an attachment to the widely-distributed 2008 pilot script and was simply character shorthand (for executives to quickly "see" what the writers were going for) and not a "wishlist." Steve Levitan and Chris Lloyd did not, as far as I know, wish for Sara Gilbert to get in a time machine and become 13 again.

I only posted the one-sheet because I thought the document held informative value and insight into a common writer practice. (The character sheets for the pilot I'm currently writing have photos of Matthew McConaughey and Artie Lange pasted onto them; I do not intend to try to actually cast Matthew McConaughey and Artie Lange.) But as usually happens with anything I write on the internet, I am now slightly embarrassed by the whole thing and sorry for any confusion it has created.

But media: blogs are terrible sources! Don't cite us, or at least, you know, maybe read closely or, gasp, contact us to verify. I could have doctored that document! I could make that shit in like 10 minutes in Photoshop!

To illustrate what a bad source I am, the last time this happened to me, I called Jessica Simpson "functionally illiterate" as a joke in a TWOP recap, and it was so covered she even had to come out with a statement refuting the charges.

Anyway. Sorry. Take away lessons: Be clear. Check your sources. Jessica Simpson can't read.