This Week in Netflix: Volume 11

Drew Carey's in the news now because he's going to be the new host of The Price Is Right, but I've always been a fan. As part of my summer of self-selected television reruns, I had the first season of The Drew Carey Show in my Netflix queue. I would put all the seasons in my queue, but they're not available. I guess there's some "greatest hits" collection, but I'd rather see all of the shows, in order, instead of a few episodes here and there from . . . this show was on for nine years? Wow.

I just searched the online television listings and discovered that it's on at 6:30 AM on TBS. Hmm. That time slot used to be for Mama's Family reruns, but now those are on ION from 8 to 9 PM (much more civilized). I could tape all of these, and transfer them to DVD myself, since I have a VCR/DVD player + burner, and make my own bootleg complete nine-season DVD set, but that sounds like a lot of work.

So: The first season. I've seen them all, but was nice to watch them again. In the pilot, I could tell where he was shoe-horning in jokes from his stand-up act: everyone else just turned toward him and waited while he did the bit, then fake-laughed and went on with the script. Other thoughts: The Mimi-Drew insults are a hoot; I always enjoy Robert Torti and Kelly Perine; and I forgot that Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen did guest bits.

In other news: I've been to the Warsaw — aka the Memphis Tavern. You'll recognize the exterior as you drive by, but the inside layout is different. They had plenty of Drew Carey merch for sale when I was there, which was about ten years ago. A friend of mine from work and I stopped by right around 5. It was mostly empty, and we didn't feel like hanging around until things got interesting, so we had a drink each and bailed after about twenty minutes. Sigh. Good times . . .