CBS to Kevin James: "Are you still here?"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 3rd, 2007

Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn is the gaudy byline on an AP article about the demise of one of the most successful sitcoms in television history, King of Queens.

Is that bombast? Exaggeration? Certainly not– Nine seasons, solid ratings throughout, 200-plus episodes and, says Littlejohn, the series “delivers like gangbusters in syndication.” Is anyone quibbling with the show on aesthetic grounds? We would submit that James is vastly underrated, the sitcom is consistently well-written and the characters likeable and Jerry Stiller‘s performance has been criminally overlooked.

For all that, James and crew have been treated as invisible by CBS and the Emmy folks have all but ignored them. And the MSM isn’t exactly doing features on King of Queens parties or doing up-close-and-personal pieces on James or the rest of the cast.

While other networks have pushed out comedy after comedy about young, good-looking, upwardly mobile characters— including NBC which developed, then passed on King of Queens— CBS cashed in on its funny, overweight delivery guy.[…]

With sitcoms continuing to struggle on television– and studios, networks and producers looking at ways to reinvent the genre– the irony of the success of King of Queens is that it was rooted in a format that many would say is dead.

Is there any irony here, except in the minds of television executives and TV critics? Irony? Can someone explain to us how there is one bit of irony in this situation? The TV execs and the TV critics are constantly saying that the sitcom is dead… yet another sitcom comes along and draws 8 to 12 million people per episode in a time of declining overall ratings… it does so for nine seasons… with a format that is simple and traditional… all while the execs at the sitcom’s own network (!) promote it poorly and the Academy folks refuse to acknowledge its existence.

Well, this sitcom is dead… and guess who killed it? (Of course, it took these ghouls nine years to do it, but at least they proved their thesis!)

We love the quote from the Sony suit:

“If you look at the younger generation, they want to see something other than the traditional family with the couch in the living room and the staircase going upstairs,” says Steve Mosko, president of Sony Pictures Television.

Do they?

He continues, referring to K.O.Q.:

“But these types of comedies work,” he adds. “It really gets down to: Can they execute the format? Is the writing good? In the case of King of Queens it was, and it stood the test of time.”

Behold: A television executive arguing with himself in front of an Associated Press reporter. It is to laugh.

Oh, and one more thing– it starred a middle-aged standup comic. Don’t even get us started on that.

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