The Drew Carey Show
Tags: good versus evil

Plot synopsis:
=== Season 1 (1995–1996) ===
The first season's opening credits consisted of a caricature of Carey — consisting of his face and a yellow tie — singing the Robert McGuire-penned "Moon Over Parma". The song was trimmed for the opening sequence, and the reference to Eastlake in the line "Guide her to Eastlake underneath your silvery light" was changed to a reference to Cleveland to stay in theme with the show.
In the first season, Drew and Mimi worked under Mr. Bell, who existed only as a voice on Drew's speakerphone, excluding the season finale (his final episode) wherein he is fired by Winfred-Louder's new owners. Other characters that appeared exclusively in this period were Drew's hillbilly neighbor Jules and his family. Drew's first girlfriend Lisa was introduced in this season, as was Jay, Kate's love interest who used to attend the same high school as Drew and his friends. Both characters lasted until Season 2, where they were quickly written out of the show in the early episodes.
Nine of the episode titles were related to chemistry in some way, with names such as "The Joining of Two Unlike Elements Is a Mixture" and "Isomers Have Distinct Characteristics". However, this theme was abandoned by the end of the season.
=== Seasons 2–7 (1996–2002) ===
"Moon Over Parma" was phased out during the second season by "Five O'Clock World" sung by The Vogues. This season introduced openings that paid homage to music videos which included the cast dancing and singing around the various sets of the show. In the third season, yet another change was made to "Cleveland Rocks", a cover of an Ian Hunter song performed by The Presidents of the United States of America. This change lasted until the second "wave" of the show ended, with the finale of Season 7.
The man who took over Mr. Bell's job after his firing was Nigel Wick, who served as a foil for both Drew and Mimi in the workplace. During this period, Drew and Mr. Wick also periodically took the top management job away from each other. This would usually result in Drew ending up back at his old job as Assistant Director of Personnel and Mr. Wick would miraculously retain his job as manager. By the end of Season 7, they were both Co-Managers before Winfred-Louder was closed down (albeit after undergoing drastic changes to stay in business).
Kate and Oswald became closer and eventually became romantically involved and almost married during the third season, but Kate stood Oswald up at the altar. Kate and Drew also became romantically involved and were on the verge of getting married, but they called it off when they realized they didn't feel the same about the prospect of children. Drew's cross-dressing brother Steve was introduced during this period. He eventually fell in love with Mimi and they had a child together, Gus (whose name was decided by means of a contest).
Drew also got married a number of times during this portion of the show. His first marriage was to Diane, a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. This was only temporary however, as she needed Drew to retain custody of her children. His second marriage was to Mr. Wick, who forced Drew to marry him in a sham same-sex civil union in Vermont (the only place it was legal at the time) in hopes that the marriage would placate the Immigration and Naturalization Service. At the beginning of Season 7, Drew married both Nikki and Kate (the former had been a recurring character for some time since Season 3, and suffered from weight problems). They found out about this and all three of these marriages ended in divorce, and Drew became known as the "Impotent Bisexual Bigamist". Nikki eventually returned, and the actress - Kate Walsh - donned a fat suit again and moved in with Drew.
During this period the show also had frequent "event" episodes. Recurring themes were "What's Wrong With This Episode?", in which the show contained numerous deliberate continuity errors and other mistakes and invited viewers at home to find the most errors and win a prize, and live episodes, with loose plots and improvised scenes featuring cast members from Carey's improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Brad Sherwood, Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Chip Esten, Kathy Greenwood, Jeff Davis, Laura Hall, and Linda Taylor) contributed to these episodes, with Brad Sherwood hosting.
=== Seasons 8–9 (2002–2004) ===
Beginning in season 8, the show rotated through 9 different opening sequences, each of which contained a new version of one of the show's three theme songs. Each theme ("Moon Over Parma", "Five O'Clock World" and "Cleveland Rocks") was seen in three different segments, in new, wildly different arrangements (one of them being performed by Bowling for Soup). The show eventually went back to having just five main characters, akin to the first season, as Kate, Mr. Wick and Steve were eventually written out of the show. Kate's character was married off, Mr. Wick disappeared after three appearances until the Season 8 finale, wherein it is revealed he became a weatherman (although he continued to appear in the opening credits, unlike Kate, who was eliminated completely, and never mentioned again.) Steve left at the beginning of the ninth season to "find himself".
With Winfred-Louder closed, the location became the office of online retailer Neverending Store. Drew, Mimi, and Mr. Wick were hired as employees of the new company. Mimi was hired first in a similar role to her old job, and Drew was eventually hired as "Internal Expediting Analyst", and a recurring gag began wherein Drew had no clue as to what his job entailed. Before being written out, Mr. Wick was at first a janitor, and another recurring joke came in the form of Mr. Wick attempting to climb the ladder back to being the boss. Before being written out, he went from janitor to the carrier of the dessert trolley.
Kate left after the first two episodes of season 8, the same two episodes that introduced Kellie, an old high school friend of Drew's who had been working as a stripper. She eventually became a waitress at The Warsaw Tavern, Drew's girlfriend, and the carrier of his child. The plot of the final episode was Drew and Kellie attempting to get married before their child is born. Mr. Wick also returned and stayed on for the series finale.
The show began featuring cameos from reality-TV participants in the final two seasons, such as former Road Rules star Timmy Beggy, The Real World alumna Cara Khan, and The Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl. Tony the Bus Driver (Bill Cobbs) became a regular, serving as smart-alecky "bartender" type to whom Drew could tell his problems. The eighth season was put in a timeslot that frequently clashed with Monday Night Football. It was pulled mid-season and the remaining episodes were shown during the summer of 2003. The ninth season did not air until the summer of 2004, with most of the episodes out of order.
The last season's tone changed radically from the previous seasons. The directors began experimenting with one-camera set-ups, showing the sets completely built, with four walls in most rooms, and with rooms actually linked together. The writers also began experimenting, including story lines in which Gus burns down Mimi's house, forcing her to move in with Drew after Steve leaves her.
=== Post-series ===
On March 24, 2009, Kathy Kinney appeared in character as Mimi at the beginning of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Kinney appeared twice on The Price Is Right as Mimi Bobeck on April Fools' Day. Drew Carey has been the host of the show since 2007. Carey would later revive the "What's Wrong with This Episode?" format for later April Fool's Day episodes of The Price Is Right.
At the end of the final episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 19, 2014, Ferguson woke up, revealing that the entire show was a dream of Mr. Wick's. Drew Carey reprised his role (the two were in bed together as in the final episode of Newhart) and was surprised that, in Wick's dream, he had somehow lost weight and become a game show host.

Review: In the 9 years that 'The Drew Carey Show' was on the air it went through 3 big phases.
Like a little weekly Farrelly brother movie, 'Drew Carey' was crude, bawdy humor at its finest.The show had the guts to center around a group of characters that where, without question, losers and made no attempt to glamorize them in the usual sitcom way.
Stick with the '5 o'clock World' or original 'Cleveland Rocks' intro that accompanies these seasons and you'll see a show that was heading for 'classic' status.However, as we pick up with season 6 and forward the show is in its 3rd phase - a flaming, chaotic tailspin that strips away everything that made it great and innovative in the first place and ultimately sending it sinking into the abyss with barely a whisper.
I can say the turning point where I lost interest came when Drew's transvestite brother Steve married and brought into the family Drew's long-time rival Mimi.
Anybody that thought the richly developed and sophisticated 'Titus' was just a standard dumb sitcom should have a look at the talented Watros now going to waste in this plane crash.Jerry Seinfeld taught us all that the sign of a great comedian was one who knows when it is time to pull out and leave the audience wanting more.
Make sure you catch the dance numbers that made the show revolutionary, like the incredible routine for Five O Clock World and Drew and Mimi's real voices in The Brotherhood of Man. This show was the first to do live episodes the way they should be (go Ryan Stiles!).
This show truly captializes his talents as a comedian and actor."The Drew Carey Show" is by far one of the funniest sitcoms on television in recent years.
Of course, Drew has his girlfriend, Kate (Christa Miller) and his dopey buddies, Lewis Kiniski (Ryan Stiles, who upstages Carey) and Oswald Lee Harvey (Deidrich Bader).This show is very funny.
The plotlines are always interesting, and of course, Lewis and Oswald have to accomplish some stupid feat in the 1/2 hour (ie: they used $8000 to record an album using classic songs, with them--"Tequilla" or Lewis saying "Wipeout!")  Of course, everyone gets into a big mess, Mimi insults Drew, Drew plots revenge, and everything is said and done in the half hour.I love this show, and highly recommend it to everyone who has a good sense of humor.
Drew Carey's standup is excellent, and this show just adds another good credit to a very talented man!Cleveland truly does rock!
Drew Carey and his co-stars (especially Kathy Kinney as Mimi Bobeck) each have an ingenious sense of comic timing!
Some of the shows, however, are very good (like when Drew goes to the Value Date class, or winds up working in the cafeteria, or getting sent to China).
Drew Carey was always a funny stand up.
The cast was great...Ryan Stiles and Diedrich Baker are two very underrated guys in playing comedy, and Craig Ferguson was always fun to watch.Maybe the show ran its course and it was smart for Drew to close it out on a high note, and wrap the series up nicely with a final episode, but I can't help but think that ABC killed this show.The show was a staple of the network for so many years, and it finally began to slip in the ratings a little and ABC got worried to quickly and juggled it around to a bunch of different time slots.
Add that with the reality TV craze, and a show like the Drew Carey Show which I think cost quite a bit to produce became obsolete very quickly.That's a nice thank you after the show and the show's main actor did a lot to help the network.A lot of people peg Christa Miller leaving the show as the down turn.
The series was still funny and could have been had ABC left it alone.Sadly, the final season was run completely out of order with large gaps in between air time which made it nearly impossible to keep track of.Hopefully, they'll release it on DVD to give this very underrated and funny show a proper sendoff..
Do not get me wrong, I still absolutely love the Drew Carey show, but the new episodes suck.
But let us go onto the good things about the drew carey show.
Drew (in the early season) used to be hilarious, I love it when him and Mimi fight!
It was by far the best sitcom I've ever seen, which is saying a lot because I'm not much of a fan of American comedy.
It used plots which were used by most other sitcomes that didn't even last two seasons: Steve cheated on Mimi, the new owners were fresh out of college, Drew went looking for marriage...
Drew Carey is one of my favorite American comedians, but he really needs to take a break and get that edge back or else his career will be on a decline..
What I like about this is that Drew Carey is such a normal, C-average underachiever.
My friend admitted he liked this show a lot because at the time it had something different from other sitcoms- a setting not in New York.
Oswald (Diedrich Bader), which I just realized is a name rearrangement of the guy who shot Kennedy, and Lewis (Ryan Stiles) are like two dogs that accompany Drew to his misadventures; faithful, kinda slow, and pee a lot.The Drew Carey show is down-to-earth and humorously self-deprecating.
Drew Carey, the overweight man in thick glasses, works a dead-end job surrounded by those who work hard to make him suffer.
The way Drew and Mimi (Kathy Kinney) sling insults and pranks at each other day after day provides one of those greatest moments of real life living.
I wasn't crazy about the "Moon Over Parma" theme either (I thought he said Move Over Mama which made no sense of course!) I liked the scene,in the pilot,where he coughs and at the same time tears up Mimi's application for the cosmetics department...very funny!
But besides Drew , Ryan Stiles as Drews friend Lewis takes the cake as best character.
The Drew Carey Show went off to a strong start in 1995 and kept getting funnier and funnier until it started to run dry right around 2000.
I'd say Frasier was the most powerful competitor (along with 3rd Rock from the Sun in its first two years), but at the end of the day, the Drew Carey Show came ahead.
She just doesn't care.Oswald Lee Harvey (played by the supremely-versatile Deidrich Bader): the third of Drew's friends, he's Lewis' best buddy and arguably one of the dumbest people to ever appear on a TV show.
Mimi Bobeck (played by Kathy Kinny): a nightmare on feet, she's Drew's arch nemesis in the office (and often times in real life).
She was never intended to be a recurring character, but thanks (many thanks) to popular feedback from the audience, she was kept.Nigel Wick (played by Craig Ferguson): Drew's English boss.
The show is about Drew Carey and he works at a department store where he is the assistant personal director in Cleveland and he has been stuck at his job for ten more years.
Both Drew and Jerry get through life on their wits and sense of humor, both Lewis and Kramer are tall guys with wierd out-looks of life, both Oswald and George are the comic dartboards of the the others, both Kate and Elaine are sexpots with hostile tempers and both Mimi and Newman are the nemesises that you love to hate.
May it go on forever, or at least until Drew and Kate get married and name their boys Oswald and Lewis..
I often watch the reruns of The Drew Carey Show, and since it's a workplace comedy, it's a good sitcom to watch after you get home from a long day at work.
Episodes keep you paying attention every minute, I don't think you should miss a wink of The Drew Carey Show!
The Drew Carey Show is funny and I like Mimi called Drew a "PIG" and "DOUGHBOY".
It's filled with such great comedic talent as Ryan Stiles, Deidrich Bader, Craig Ferguson, and Drew Carey.
Ryan Stiles is the best part of this show and his character Lewis is too hilarious.
Drew has a lot of good jokes on the show and is a great example of an average guy making it in to show business.
I dearly miss Drew Carey show and it's colorful characters,absolutely free from the usual husband-wife-kids stereotypes.
However, The Drew Carey Show is one of the best I have ever seen.I started watching in reruns then eventually started watching the new episodes on ABC.
By far the best character is Lewis played by the VERY funny Ryan Stiles.
PLEASE Drew, stick to what works (i.e. the sitcom) and leave Who's Line to the Brits.
Mimi is still there as is Lewis and Drew, and they are still funny..
This is a good comedy, well of course you can see that by looking at the length of it's run, for it is now like 5 years, but that doesn't mean a thing, just look at Unhappily Ever after.
I think Drew even dated Kate one time before the Show started.
I especially like the Mimi  Drew confrontations which always contain multiple caresses' and are quite funny.
The endless feud between Drew & Mimi is always funny, like the semi "gay" relationship between Oswald & Lewis.
There has never been a show that agreed with my personal humor like the Drew Carey show, and I don't think there ever will be again.
The above comment isn't really fair but you've gotta admit that among others, Drew Carey, Ray Romano or even Jerry Seinfeld aren't really people you should look up to.
He knows he is fat and the way to live with it is of course to make self-deprecating jokes and occasionally make a snide remark to his assistant Mimi, well played by Kathy Kinney.Of course, Drew has to have an attractive female friend, in this case the very hot Christa Miller, at least she was back then.
But for some reason he doesn't make a big impression here because there is too much focus on the other male friend, played by Ryan Stiles.Many people will probably write me hate mail if they read this but the live sitcom is a total waste of TV space today.
I've read several places that people do not find Drew Carey as funny, yet I believe he's necessary to balance out the many other cartoonish characters.This show also fascinated me because it wasn't always happy times and appealed to more than our sense of humour.
The show made fun but also dealt with the flaws and weaknesses of its characters, something few comedy shows have ever done.Finally, I actually enjoy some of the later episodes.
Particularly, the episode where Drew and Kelly entered into the karaoke competition at the Warsaw still has me laugh every time I hear the song, "Do it to me one more time."Oh, there's rumours that a DVD set for Season 1 is finally coming out some time this year, and hopefully soon.
it's down to earth, which better said, means, this is NOT wholesome, you will not see a happily ever after or a mortal to the story, you'll see deception, failure and almost hear yourself saying 'everyman for himself'as these people chug beer after beer and sit around and watch as their lives go downhill, but it's the almost dark and slutty humor to it that just makes you tune in once and again just to see the characters react, which, by the way are great.
Six years later ABC tried to do what seinfeld did and hence, Drew Carey made his way.
Drew Carey is funny (Maybe not like Seinfeld) but he is funny and so is that Lewis character.
Drew Carey is VERY talented and I enjoy his work.
Drew Carey, Kathy Kinney, and Ryan Stiles are the funniest.
An evil, but funny enemy(Mimi), the perfect moron (Oswald), a great "normal guy"(Drew), the best best friend,(Kate), and what can we say about Lewis?
The Drew Carey Show was a perfect sitcom.
Okay so if you look at my profile picture you can tell that I am the world's biggest fan of the Drew Carey Show so obviously I'm going to say that, but I can't think of many people who did not like it.Drew Carey was a great character who always did the right thing for his bosses, fellow employees, friends and family, but he always ended up being beaten down.
The show actually suffered when she left the cast.The supporting cast of the big, brash, makeup covered Mimi, Drew's lecherous boss from England and his cross-dressing brother were also great.It's also the only sitcom I can think of that pushed the envelope so much creatively.
They had live shows, shows with pop-ups showing mistakes that were happening (these were actually contests and the first time the episodes aired the viewers had to catch the mistakes themselves and send them in), full musical episodes, improvised episodes and even more.The show also had a fantastic theme song and treated viewers to new credits numbers every season.I loved The Drew Carey Show!.
I love Drew Carey in this, basically adding a few notches up to his character of....
We have the pretty Kate, Lewis brother who falls for Oswald and Drew.
I voted 10 on this, and I really mean it.I have been a fan of Whose Line is it Anyway (both UK and US) for a long time, and in the process of watching the US version I came to really like Drew Carey (not to mention Ryan Stiles).
I have watched the Drew Carey show for years both on network and on television in syndication.
Who could forget the fights between Mimi Bobek and Drew Carey played wonderfully by Kathy Kinney who should have been nominated for Emmys rather than being short-sighted by the television academy.
The casting of Craig Ferguson as Drew and Mimi's boss was genius as was Nan Martin who plays the store owner.
We loved Oswald and Lewis and their shenanigans with Drew and Kate as well.
Maybe the swan song took longer than it should but I believe Drew Carey show will live forever in reruns with audiences rediscovering it's humor and the genius of it.
Too bad, the Academy never noticed the Drew Carey Show for it also had great guests like Shirley Jones, Marion Ross, etc..
"THE DREW CAREY SHOW," in my opinion, is an absolute ABC classic!
Sometimes the show is great, thanks to Ryan Stiles, but other times it lapses into a laugh-free zone that is degraded even more by seeing Drew Carey's smirky, smug face on screen that makes me wonder, "How did this guy ever get a job in Hollywood?"Still, as long as you can block out Carey, the show's fine.
Sitcoms in 1995 seemed to all be the same, with the exception of a few shows, The Drew Carey Show being one of them.
They all have a part in the show and bring in as many laughs as Drew Carey himself.
However, the episodes still remained funny and left whoever was watching it, satisfied.Thanks to everybody who made The Drew Carey Show!
A great series, shelling out more than 200 episodes of pure comedy goodness.The Bottom Line: Cleveland Rocks!.
I wanted more.I like Drew Carey.
Is The Drew Carey Show the funniest show on ABC today?
Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles are the funniest on the show.
Still,when this show was rolling along through the halcyon years,it was arguably one of the most inspired and raucous comedy that ran through network television.Be-spectacled,laid-back everyman Drew Carey plays sort of a distaff version of himself:instead of having the life of a successful stand-up comic,he's back in his hometown of Cleveland working a thankless middle management job for the Winfred-Louder Mall company.
He has the support(for whatever that's worth)of his friends KAte(Christa Miller,comfortable being "one of the guys"),Lewis(Ryan Stiles,brilliant!)and Oswald(the always malleable Diedrich Bader),and day-to-week survival in his job consists of,among other things,navigating his way around adversarial work peers such as his bosses(Kevin Pollack in season one,future TV talk show host Craig Ferguson for the rest of the run) and some co-workers(primarily Ian Gomez and overly made up Kathy Kinney,never dull as aforementioned Mimi).Of course,this being a sitcom,the usual conventions(i.e. simple plot construct,laugh-track,light,silly and raunchy subject matter,etc.)are employed,but the creators made efforts to ratchet it up enough to keep it interesting from season to season,show to show.
I live in Poland, the latest of Drew Carey that was aired here were the 2000 episodes-first episodes without Craig Ferguson (as a regular) and without Christa Miller.
The latest season was really sad to watch and the guys that played Drew's bosses were the worst actors I have seen in my life it just makes me wonder how in the name of God did they got casted?!I hope they end the show soon...so we can leave the best seasons in our memory...and save themselves the disgrace.Since everyone that was funny is systematically leaving the show it can soon be turned into one man show (Drew Carey).
If you have a job or school that gets out early, watch an hour of the Drew Carey show every week day from 3:00-4:00 P.M. on TBS..
It is a rare show that can stay funny and relevant any longer than that.Drew Carey got "show biz-itis" by maybe Season 5 or 6 anyways -- lost weight, changed his hair and look, got Lasik, etc.
Drew, Oswald, Lewis go from about age 35 to 45 and nothing ever changes.
Drew Carey is painted as a real life Dilbert (the cartoon) type except even less intelligent than the cartoon character.
The later shows have the best comedy timing.