Spin-offs have long been a part of TV history, for better and for worse. Most recently, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and The Walking Dead: Dead City, spin-offs of (you guessed it) The Walking Dead premiered within months of each other. Before that though, it was sitcoms where you saw the most spin-offs. While some flopped (Radar’s M*A*S*H spin-offW*A*L*T*E*R, for one) many worked, mostly because they took smaller supporting members of the cast that audiences already loved, and put them on their own into an expanded world.
One of the most successful spin-offs was Frasier. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) wasn’t one of the biggest parts of Cheers, but because we already knew him, he was perfect to be given his own opportunity to shine. An elevator operator on Perfect Strangers named Harriet Winslow (Jo Marie Payton) was a fun enough small character, but when she was given her own show called Family Matters, it became bigger than what came before it. In the ’90s, a new series appeared called Everybody Loves Raymond starring standup comedian Ray Romano. A few appearances of a package delivery guy played by Kevin James led to another massive sitcom: The King of Queens.
Who Did Kevin James Play on ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’?
Everybody Loves Raymond might have had Ray Romano’s name in the title, but the series wasn’t all about him. It lasted for nine seasons and was a Top 10 ratings hit for most of the years, not simply because of Romano, who played a semi-fictional version of himself named Ray Barone, but more so for the supporting cast. Audiences couldn’t get enough of his eccentric family, from his perpetually angry father, Frank (Peter Boyle), to his overbearing mother, Marie (Doris Roberts), his poor put-upon brother, Robert (Brad Garrett), and the wife who had to deal with all of their craziness, Debra (Patricia Heaton).
Everybody Loves Raymond racked up 10 Emmy wins for acting during its run, but as much as we loved the antics of the Barones, they weren’t the only people in his life. Somehow, he had friends too, and in the first few seasons, his best friend was a delivery man from Queens named Kevin Daniels (he was called by this name for several episodes, before being referred to as Doug Heffernan, his name of The King of Queens). He’s like Ray: a stereotypical dude who wants to hang out with the guys and play sports. One of his better episodes has Ray badly wanting to go play golf with him, but the problem is that he just got home from a work trip and knows he should spend time with his family. They concoct a lie, which gets out of control, to get Debra to let Ray play golf. Doug was never a huge character. Kevin had that common “every man” feel, just like Ray. And like Ray Romano, Kevin James got his start as a standup comedian. With their similar backgrounds and approaches to comedy, it wasn’t long before CBS decided to give James’ character his own spinoff.
The King of Queens premiered in 1998 and lasted nine seasons until 2007. Like Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens worked because it wasn’t just the Kevin James show. It needed all of its supporting cast to thrive, and it did. The King of Queens had a bit of a Honeymooners feel, with Doug, still a deliveryman, as the bumbling oaf who often fights with his wife, Carrie (Leah Remini), who can dish it out and be even meaner than Doug. Also at Doug’s side are his friends Deacon (Victor Williams) and Patton Oswalt as Spence in a recurring role, and Doug’s cousin Danny (Gary Valentine). The most popular cast member wasn’t Kevin James though, but Jerry Stiller, who played Carrie’s widowed dad, Arthur. Stiller was coming off the end of Seinfeld, where he played George Costanza’s (Jason Alexander), father, Frank Costanza. Just like Frank, Arthur is odd, loud, and prone to outbursts. He often got the biggest laughs of the series.
Kevin James still appeared on a few episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond in its third season. Over the years, Ray showed up on The King of Queens as well. Ray Romano was right there in Season 1, during Episode 9, “Road Rayge.” There, we see how the two friends meet, with Doug helping his new friend cheat on a written driving test. Another Season 1 episode, “Rayny Day,” gives us the comedy gold of Ray interacting with Arthur. Romano was there to the end,
