Sunday, August 19, 2018

Of Recent Vintage: The King of Queens (1998)

It seemed fitting that The King of Queens aired on Mondays for most of its run on CBS (1998-2007), as the network has traditionally had strong comedy blocks on Mondays over the years.

Kevin James top-lined as Doug Heffernan, a driver for a delivery company that was set up as a parody of UPS. Leah Remini, whose resume included stints on shows as diverse as Who's The Boss and Saved by The Bell, played Doug's wife, Carrie. Adding to the comic tension was Jerry Stiller (ex-Seinfeld) as Carrie's father, Arthur, who worked a variety of jobs in the course of the series. If you subbed out the delivery truck for, say, a bus, you'd think that maybe, just maybe, the show's creators might've found inspiration in Jackie Gleason's seminal The Honeymooners. All they lacked was having another couple as neighbors, a la Honeymooners & I Love Lucy to name two examples.

I'm not risking the copyright police by trying to put up an episode at this time, so we'll use a sample open, with the theme performed by Billy Vera & The Beaters:



I am hoping, though, that a Christmas episode, with guest star Lou Ferrigno (ex-The Incredible Hulk, Trauma Center) is still available come December, though.

Rating: B.

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