On Monday, Sept. 21, 1998, two sitcoms debuted on the same night.
NBC launched Will & Grace at 9:30 p.m., and CBS premiered The King of Queens. One ended up praised by a vice president. The other outlasted the doubts of one of its own stars.
From NBC to Meet the Press
Will & Grace, created by David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, starred Eric McCormack and Debra Messing as best friends Will and Grace, with Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally as Jack and Karen. It was one of the first network sitcoms built around openly gay lead characters. It ran from 1998 to 2006, then came back from 2017 to 2020. Hayes signed on in March for a recurring role in season 5 of The Morning Show.
James Burrows, who died in June at 85, directed every episode. “Jimmy changed my life 28 years ago,” Messing wrote in tribute.
In May 2012, then-Vice President Joe Biden told Meet the Press the show “probably did more to educate the American public” than almost anybody had so far. McCormack cheered him on Twitter.
Jerry Stiller on Playing Arthur Spooner
The King of Queens starred Kevin James and Leah Remini as Doug and Carrie Heffernan, a working couple in Queens, with Jerry Stiller as Carrie’s father, Arthur Spooner. It ran nine seasons and 207 episodes, ending May 14, 2007.
Stiller looked back on the role in a 2005 Television Academy Foundation interview, taped while the show was still on the air. He said he had not expected it to succeed. He described Arthur as the kind of man who believed that if life had gone his way, there would be a national holiday in his honor. He also said James had wanted him for the part of the father. Stiller died in 2020 at 92.
James has since found a new favorite. In January, he named his Solo Mio character, not Doug, as the best role he has played. Plenty of fans have stayed with Doug. When the series turned 25 in 2023, Remini wrote that she saw the comments from fans who say they “fall asleep every night to The King of Queens.”
Twenty-eight years later, one is remembered for what it taught America and the other for the rough days it got fans through.