Posted in: CBS, TV | Tagged: the king of queens

The King of Queens Co-Creator on Show's Legacy, Reboot Pitch to Sony

Michael J. Weithorn (The Best You Can) discussed the legacy of The King of Queens, the sitcom reboot pitch that Sony passed on, and more.

Michael J. Weithorn will always be grateful for the opportunities TV has given him since his start on the ABC sitcom Benson in 1981. He's worked on some of the biggest shows across network TV, including NBC's Cheers, Family Ties, Ned & Stacey, Fox's True Colors, and CBS's The King of Queens. While he's largely moved on from TV with his most recent contributions on ABC's Schooled and The Goldbergs, and Fox's Weird Loners, Weithorn isn't looking back any time soon. While promoting his latest Sony rom-com The Best You Can, Weithorn spoke to Bleeding Cool to reflect on two of his biggest hits with The King of Queens and Ned and Stacey, how the CBS series, which was a spinoff of Everybody Loves Raymond was that rare success thanks to stars Kevin James, Leah Remini, and Jerry Stiller, the reboot pitch Sony passed on that would have paid tribute to the late Stiller (who passed in 2020), and what could have been.

The King of Queens, which Weithorn co-created with David Litt, follows Doug Heffernan (James), a deliveryman who lives with his wife Carrie (Remini) in a middle-class life in Queens, New York, along with her widowed father, Arthur (Stiller). The series, inspired in part by the classic sitcom The Honeymooners, also starred Patton Oswalt, Larry Romano, Victor Williams, Nicole Sullivan, and Gary Valentine. It ran from 1998 to 2007 across nine seasons and 207 episodes. While James doesn't see a reboot happening back in July without Stiller, Weithorn shared how the series could have picked up following the original finale in 2007.

The King of Queens Creator Reflects on Legacy, How Reboot Would Have Built on Finale, and Relief at Sony Passing on Project

Since Everybody Loves Raymond had its 30th anniversary, and you created its spinoff, The King of Queens, I was wondering what you thought about the legacy of the series and what you remember most about your time there.

The King of Queens was obviously a huge in my life. I had been in TV, writing comedy, and producing shows for you know, close to 15-20 years at the time. I had a few go a couple of years, but I didn't have one (hit), because it's such a collection of different factors that must all come together for a show to break out like that. Obviously, we found an incredible cast with three home run hitters: Kevin, Leah, and Jerry Stiller.

The thing I always loved about it was the same thing I was saying earlier about how [my current film The Best You Can] is the idea this could be any house you walk by in Queens and what's going on inside and the source of the stories that we told were all absolutely typical relatable life events showing conflicts between husband and wife or within a family that people could relate to and all the comments over the years about The King of Queens, a lot of them are like, "We're just like Doug and Carrie, me and my wife," the relatability of it. We didn't try to do a lot of timely humor. Will and Grace was a contemporary show of ours, and a lot of those jokes, if you watch that show, were about popular culture at that time, about 25 years ago.

We stayed away from that for the most part, and that's one of the reasons the show has had such longevity. It doesn't feel like an old-fashioned show at its core. Certain things people have with landlines and things they don't have now, but in the emotional themes. It was such a great, wonderful thing in my life that the show was able to come together, and I had the opportunity to create and run it for all those years. I'm very proud of it and glad that it's still out there and in the world.

Going to episodic television, do you think about ever coming back creatively as you had in that role again? Or do you think you're past that part in your life?

First, I don't really understand the TV business anymore. I saw an ad, "On CBS this fall," it was just some sitcom, and I was like, "Oh, they're still doing that? [laughs] I didn't know the networks were still making sitcoms." Honestly, I know they obviously all also run on their streaming platforms, but I feel very disconnected from the half-hour business now. It's changed so much. I don't think I'm likely to go back into that. It's also extremely hard work. When I was younger, it was something I embraced now. I'm 68 years old, and as I think about the workload involved, my knees buckle a little bit. I might try to do another, but I might try to stay in the film world, because even though that's difficult, it's a sprint. The TV series is a marathon, and I'm not a marathon runner anymore.

Hypothetical question, if there was a world that you could revisit again, for like a special or a limited series. In 2017, fans of Ned and Stacey were able to see the remaining unaired episodes with the home release. Was there something that you ever thought about? Perhaps they have one more story in them?

Are you talking about The King of Queens?

Or anything that you've worked on?

I put together the framework of a King of Queens reboot about five years ago. It was based on the idea that you know if anyone is deep into the series, they remember in the finale where [Doug and Carrie] adopt a baby from China, but also then [Carrie's] pregnant, so they have two very young kids at the same time. This is now picking up that family with those two girls as teenagers, and I thought it would have been a great show, but ultimately, Sony didn't want to do it. In hindsight, I feel in a certain sense a little bit of relief, because again, the hard work aspect.

That would have been fun, because the thing we had I'll just share with you was that their adopted Chinese daughter is really the star, and she's cute and talented or whatever. Their natural daughter, and this would have been a fun thing to cast, is basically it was like a 13-year-old girl version of Jerry Stiller's character, Arthur Spooner, the same kind of temper, anger, and pissed off all the time. He basically is sort of reincarnated through this granddaughter character, so it would have been fun. I would have part of me creatively would have liked to have revisited the Heffernans in that phase, but it was not to be, but I can't think of anything else.

Ned & Stacey is a show I was really proud of and loved, and I've been pushing Sony to get that out there somehow. I don't think other than on DVD, which nobody watches anymore, but I think that show has another go round of at least the existing episodes of interest in it, but it's not in my hands.

The Best You Can, which stars Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Judd Hirsch, Brittany O'Grady, Olivia Luccardi, Meera Rohit Kumbhani, and Ray Romano, is available on digital. You can stream The King of Queens on Paramount+.

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