THE KING OF QUEENS Will End It's Nine Year Reign In May

The excellent and durable, Kevin James comedy, THE KING OF QUEENS will be ending in May. This great comedy vehicle for standup comic, Kevin James, not only provided funny scripts that managed to hang on for years longer than many sitcoms, but has proven itself a durable syndication entry as well. With a strong cast of supporting actors such as veteran comic, Jerry Stiller, and the outrageous and funny, Patton Oswald, THE KING OF QUEENS managed one of the longer runs for a sitcom in recent years.

Part of the end for this great sitcom may have come from moving it from the powerful Monday night comedy slot over at CBS. Strong comedy entries from CBS soon died after being moved from this ratings strong Monday night comedy block, including the great Ted Danson vehicle, BECKER, and OUT OF PRACTICE and COURTING ALEX. In eace case, CBS had hoped that these programs with strong ratings could be used to establish a "tentpost" on another night to hang other comedy series on and create another comedy block. But CBS audiences just never seemed to warm to this idea, and every Wednesday or Sunday Night CBS comedy block attempt eventually failed. One of the worst failures resulted some years back when CBS paid a great deal of money to lure the very popular, but certainly aging, FAMILY MATTERS comedy from ABC's then highly successful Friday night comedy block. As popular as Jaleel White's Urkiel character was at the time, he was certainly growing older and much taller, and CBS audiences just seemed to reject watching this once very popular comedy series almost immediately while the rest of the ABC Friday night comedy block remained strong in ratings until only a few years ago when ratings finally softened and this long running ABC comedy block finally collapsed.

Ratings were so bad for FAMILY MATTERS over at CBS, that they actually aired some of the worst paid advertising programs during this time slot, figuring this awful dreck was somehow better than airing fresh episodes of FAMILY MATTERS. FAMILY MATTERS finally returned during the summer ratings sewer period, and aired the final episodes that CBS purchased including a sort of finale episode. It wasn't a very dignified end to a very good comedy series. The program certainly deserved better.

If THE KING OF QUEENS had been left alone in the Monday night time slot, then it probably had a few more years of life in it. The show always seems plenty good, with no real signs of writer or actor fatigue really visable. But you never know if the cast just feels that it's time to leave while the series is still good, much like the well loved series, MASH, SEINFELD, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND and FRIENDS that made an exit while still plenty good. Thanks so much for the laughs, THE KING OF QUEENS. You'll be greatly missed.