This Wacky and Absurd Hit '90s Show Set the Stage for Your Favorite Sitcoms

Before he became synonymous with The Price is Right, Drew Carey was one of the lucky comics of the '90s who managed to weave a killer stand-up performance on The Tonight Show into mainstream sitcom success. Premiering on ABC in 1995, The Drew Carey Show took bizarre, gonzo risks while maintaining broad viewership for its first few seasons. The show’s constant experimentation was an outlier compared to other mainstream TV comedies at the time. Episodes often involved drag, surprise musical numbers, and surreal daydream-like scenarios — a far cry from ABC’s top sitcom that decade: Tim Allen's wholesome, family-oriented Home Improvement. Sure, Seinfeldwas already breaking from live-action sitcom norms by being "the show about nothing,"but The Drew Carey Show seemed to break them in the opposite direction by being "the show about anything you could possibly imagine." And its cartoonish, meta nature set the stage for future shows like Ally McBeal and 30 Rock.