List of major, recurring and minor characters from The Drew Carey Show.
open/close all folders
The Main Group
Drew Allison Carey (Drew Carey)
''I always get screwed by the system. That's my place in the universe. I'm the system's bitch."
The title character is the Assistant Director of Personnel at Winifred-Louder, a department store. Much like Dilbert (and just to hammer the point home, Drew is a Dilbert fan) he must constantly contend with nutty bosses, strange friends, and unsuccessful romances.
- Acrofatic: especially apparent during the numerous dance numbers.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite his general milquetoast demeanor, he displayed several moments of impressive courage throughout the series, the first being in season one when he stood up to Kate's domineering ex-boyfriend, Barry, and also when he beat up the stalker of his ex-girlfriend Wendy.
- Big Eater: Uh-huh. You can count the episodes that don't mention his eating habits on one hand. It's mentioned that he orders so much pizza that he's gotten multiple delivery boys through college!
- The Chew Toy: Where to begin? He's overworked and unappreciated at a dead end job. His parents openly prefer his brother to him. Two women he dated ended up getting married mere months after breaking up with him. He's even resorted to marrying his boss, Mr. Wick, in order to get his job back in season six. Kate, his best friend for DECADES, leaves Cleveland to marry another man a little over a year after her and Drew's marriage implodes at the start of season 7. Before her last appearance he outright tells Kate he stills loves her.
- Childhood Friends: With Kate, Oswald and Lewis.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Drew Allison Carey.
- Extreme Doormat: He has trouble standing up for himself. Even as an adult he still gets pushed around by his older brother and can only respond with a wimpy slap to Steve's bald head.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Inverted. Despite his white-collar job, he lives in a shoddy house with cheap furniture.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Very devoted to his dog, Speedy.
- Nerd Glasses: A large part of his signature look.
- Nice Guy: Is a well-meaning worker and a very lovable and sweet guy. Sadly, this doesn't stop the universe from piling crap on him.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Mimi is this to him. She inexplicably took his comments during her job interview as sexist, and it spiraled from there when she got hired.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: More average looking than ugly but many of the women Drew dated over the course of the series have been absolute knockouts, with several of them including Christa Miller, Kate Walsh, Jenny McCarthy and Cynthia Watros.
- The Un-Favourite: Not as extreme as some other sitcom examples but still noticeable in flashbacks. Drew's brother was the more outgoing, popular and athletic sibling when they were growing up. He remains this even after revealing himself as a crossdresser in the third season.
Kate O'Brien (Christa Miller)
Kate is Drew's best friend since age 7. She starts dating Drew in Season 5.- Childhood Friends: With Drew, Lewis and Oswald.
- Not So Above It All: Sometimes, depending on the writer. Kate was usually the Only Sane Man of the group (even more so than Drew). But, there were a handful of episodes throughout the run where she could be as dim-witted or goofy as Lewis and Oswald.
- Old Shame: She lost her virginity to Oswald, which is attributed to some fooling around that escalated. When Drew and Lewis learn of this years after the fact, Kate insists she was drinking that day and that she tried very hard to forget it ever happened (which Oswald, of course, takes offense to).
- One of the Guys: She's this to Drew, Oswald and Lewis.
- Put on a Bus: Gets married at the start of Season 8, moves away, and is never heard from again.
- Really Gets Around: Her promiscuity is often played for laughs. This trait even earned her a nickname in high school, "Give It Away Kate".
Lewis Kiniski (Ryan Stiles)
Lewis is one of Drew's friends. Your basic know-it-all and troublemaker, he's a janitor at a shady company called DrugCo.- The Blind Leading the Blind: He's considerably smarter than Oswald, but he's also crazy, so his ideas aren't much better.
- Childhood Friends: With Drew, Kate and Oswald.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: He and Oswald both do weird stuff and are really immature.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: DrugCo has insane experiments going on all the time. Cloning, giant insects, realistic holograms...Lewis is fairly blasé about it all and casually tells his friends about his job all the time.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Oswald. They do everything together, and it often has little to do with the plot.
- Insufferable Genius: In one of the later seasons it's revealed by his mother he has an IQ high enough to join MENSA. Predictably, this inflates his ego to insane levels. He was also straight A student before he met Oswald.
Oswald Harvey (Diedrich Bader)
- Childhood Friends: With Drew, Kate and Lewis.
- Flanderization: He starts out as the dimmest member of the group, but in a Book Dumb sort of way. He gets progressively dumber as the seasons go by.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lewis. In a Season 3 episode his bride to be forced him to go to pre-marriage counseling when she realized he listened to Lewis more than her.
- Manchild: The most immature of the group by a fair margin.
- Punny Name: His name is clearly a play on Lee Harvey Oswald.
Kellie Newmark (Cynthia Watros)
- Contrasting Replacement Character: Kellie takes Kate's role as Drew's main female friend and eventual Love Interest. However, she is much more sensitive and emotionally vulnerable than Kate. Also, while Kate was known to play the field before finally settling down, Kellie already has a divorce under her belt and got married right out of high school, spending much of her adult life as a housewife.
- Prone to Tears: Why Oswald and Lewis initially didn't care for her replacing Kate. Due to the problems in her life up to that point, Kellie couldn't take the usual insults. She gets better, though.
- Will They or Won't They?: Has this back-and-forth with Drew for much of Season 8. Gets thrown a sudden curve ball in Season 9 when their one-night stand leads to her being pregnant.
Mimi Bobeck Carey (Kathy Kinney)
- Crossover Couple: A Crossover Punchline reveals that, back in high school, she previously expressed interest in Artie Henderson. No real relationship blossomed because Norm forgot to give Artie her message at the time.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: The unpleasant Mimi just loves her makeup. Drew calls her a clown every chance he gets.
- Friend to All Children: Mimi isn't good with kids (she's irresponsible), but she has a soft spot for them and they adore her wild antics.
- Happily Married: To Drew's older brother, Steve. Until the middle of season 8.
- Hidden Depths: Going by Crossover Punchline, there was a time in school where she was more of a Shrinking Violet that had no interest in make-up. Evidently, make-up helped her become more assertive.
- Hypocritical Humor: Constantly insults Drew's weight despite being much fatter than he is. For some reason, Drew never responds in kind.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Drew, though it tones down a bit in the last few seasons.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: In Season 9, Gus burns down her house, which forces them to move in with Drew. While Drew tolerates it for his nephew's sake, there are times he really wants to get Mimi out of his house.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Of really, really loud, gimmicky outfits. Holiday episodes milk this for all it's worth.
Recurring Characters
Steve Carey (John Carroll Lynch)
- The Bus Came Back: Season 9's "Love, Sri Lankan Style"
- Out of Focus: Appears less often in Season 8.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Revealed to be this in his debut episode. Drew, understandably, is not happy with it at first but ends up supporting his brother and fighting for him to keep his job at the Winfred Louder cosmetics counter.
Winfred Louder
Nigel Algernon Wick (Craig Ferguson)
- Actually Pretty Funny: A big reason why Drew and Mimi's fighting and pranks never get them in trouble at work is because Wick finds it all rather hilarious. He's actually rather disappointed and disturbed by those rare occasions where they get along.
- Bad Boss: What he was flanderized into. Besides becoming more cartoonish in general, he'd abuse and fire subordinates just for the hell of it and often didn't seem to have the slightest idea how to do his job.
- British Stuffiness: He has an extremely over the top English accent and is a complete jackass.
- The Bus Came Back: Disappears early into Season 8, but he returns for the season finale for Drew's wedding. He reappears again in the last two episodes of Season 9, which means it doubles as Back for the Finale.
- I Am Very British: He has an absurdly posh British accent that the Scottish Craig Ferguson deliberately made as ridiculous as possible, claiming it as revenge for years of bad Scottish accents by English actors.
- Large Ham: Naturally given that he's played by Craig Ferguson. Not a scene goes by where he isn't chewing the scenery.
- Mama's Boy: And damn proud of it, too!
- Mean Boss: What he started out as. He was certainly competent and qualified, but he was also a scheming manipulator and openly callous to subordinates.
Larry Almada (Ian Gomez)
- The Bus Came Back: Stops appearing after "Brotherhood of Man" due to Gomez being cast as a regular on The Norm Show. He returns in "Chemistry Schmemistry" when Drew bumps into him and learns he became a matchmaker.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He starts out as an obnoxious, at times even criminal co-worker who helps Drew out now and then.
- May–December Romance: With Fran Louder throughout seasons 3 and 4.
- Put on a Bus: Disappeared by the start of season 5.
- Took a Level in Kindness: When he returns in Season 8.
Fran Louder (Nan Martin)
- Bad Boss / Mean Boss: Arguably just as bad as Mr. Wick, if not worse. In one episode, she fires a waiter in her company restaurant because there was a shrimp fork in the olive dish.
- Dirty Old Woman
- May–December Romance: With Larry throughout seasons 3 and 4.
Chuck (Kelly Perine)
- Deadpan Snarker: He has a rather dry sense of humor, especially when reacting to the antics of Drew or the other characters.
- Only Sane Man: Of Drew's co-workers, he's the only one focused on his actual job.
