Monday, December 6, 2010

An Interesting Synopsis Of The Funny Drew Carey Show

By Eileen Bean


The most important and innovative television series of the nineties was, without a doubt, Seinfeld. However, Drew Carey deserves recognition, as well, as one of the more innovative and inventive shows of that decade. People don't always name it as one of the most innovative series of all time, but in its own way, it was every bit as important to the development and evolution of the American sitcom as Seinfeld and The Simpsons had been. Without Drew Carey, Family Guy might not have grown into such an absurd show in its later seasons. It really changed how people regard and judge the modern sitcom, and it definitely belongs on your list of downloads the next time you log into your movie download service.

The show was really just meant as a vehicle to get Drew Carey's face out there back in the era where every comedian really just wanted to be a TV star, and it could have been just another sitcom with just another comedian starring, but they managed to really take it in a different direction, starting with the subject of the show.

Like Seinfeld, it used less formulaic plots and created funnier, weirder situations, but unlike Seinfeld, really applied a degree of surrealism and absurdity to the proceedings. The cast was never afraid to break into song and do a musical episode, or just a musical number in a non-musical episode, and the rivalry between Drew and Mimi was really a fun, quirky driving force for the show.

Like Seinfeld, the show never really delved into the same formulaic plots about Superbowl parties and so on, and really went in a whole new direction creating its own, new concepts for great TV stories. It's about the existential dread, the fear you feel when you're anywhere between thirty and fifty and wondering why your life didn't shape up the way you wanted it to. It's really interesting, and a little deeper than the usual Football Widow jokes you see in most sitcoms.

By the end of the series, Carey was making something like a million dollars an episode but, sadly, the ratings were starting to drop and the show had to be canceled, even though it did garner a loyal following who would always make sure that they were at home after work in time to watch it.

The show was refreshing in that it focused not on a family, but on a single guy who's not all that attractive or in shape and hasn't risen to anything above mid-level department store management in his career. The show focuses on a man who seems to be perpetually on the verge of a mid-life crisis. He's around forty and hasn't really done anything with his life yet. It's really an interesting premise with a lot of room to explore different story ideas without always falling back on the "Son borrows the car without asking" story like so many family based sitcoms.

The show also feels refreshing in that it acknowledges that mom, dad and the kids are not, in fact, the only form a family can take, nor are mom, dad and the kids the only people in the US who matter. The show is, again, focused on single people, and the result is a show that really validates you no matter who you are in life and what you've accomplished so far.

And of course, Lewis and Oswald are two of the funniest sitcom characters of all time. It's always funny when a show that's already a comedy has comic relief characters.




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