Adam and I are closing out 2025 by taking you all on a trip to the fine city of Cleveland, as it supposedly “rocks”. That’s right – we’re discussing The Drew Carey Show, which ran on ABC from 1995-2004. I bet most of y’all didn’t even know that it lasted that long, did ya? Starring comedian Drew Carey, the show focused on a department store middle manager who spent his time away from work getting into antics with his lifelong friends. Drew, Lewis, Oswald and Kate got into everything from love triangles to starting their own coffee-infused beer brand, Buzz Beer. Meanwhile, he was constantly engaged in a prank war with workplace nemesis Mimi Bobeck, who was a cross between Pennywise and Nurse Ratched. Throughout it all, Drew was just a guy trying to get a win in a world somewhat stacked against him. We watched hoping that nice guys wouldn’t just finish last, but that they’d finish at all.
I was a big fan of the show during it’s original run, though I drifted away during college. I did, however, manage to see the final season when it aired, and the show was almost unrecognizable by that point. I had always wanted to go back and see what I’d missed, but it has been out of syndication over a decade, while music rights issues had kept it off streaming and physical media. It was a very music-heavy show, but most of the issues were resolved about a year ago, allowing it to be released on DVD and find a streaming home on Pluto TV. There were, however, four episodes that were so musically-involved that they couldn’t be salvaged when the music was removed, and they do not appear on the “Complete Series” set. When Adam suggested this as a show to cover, it was pretty fortuitous, as I had pretty much marathoned it on Pluto over the past few months. So, we had a great discussion, and later even realized some things we didn’t even get the chance to touch on in the episode. Maybe there’s a “Drew 2” episode down the road? I guess time will tell, but you can check out the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts!