Characters / The King of Queens

Doug Heffernan

Played by Kevin James

• Acrofatic: Shown to be surprisingly athletic in short bursts, such as when dominating a large group of children in football, or when playing squash with Deacon (though the latter results in a Vomit Discretion Shot due to overexertion.)
  Arthur: ...for a man of his size, he moves on cats' feet.
• Berserk Button: Arthur. There are times when they get along though.
• Big Eater: Nearly the crux of his entire character.
• Big Fun: Fun-loving, funny, and definitely big.
• Book Dumb: Considers books "brutal."
• Character Catchphrase: Uses "Yuspa!" and "Shominy!" as exclamations. (The former is taken from writer and producer Cathy Yuspa, while the latter comes from Shominy Industries, which the Heffernans invest in in a second season episode.)
• Deadpan Snarker
• Deliberate Under-Performance: Doug intentionally avoids attention from the higher-ups at work.
  Doug: You want me to stand out from the pack whereas I want to remain hidden and obscured by that very same pack. Carrie, that's how I survive—staying nameless and faceless. Not too good, not too bad, right on the cutting edge of mediocre.
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: The foolish husband to Carrie's responsible wife
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic
• Hates Reading: To such an extent that hearing another man say that reading itself is "overrated" has him starry-eyed.
• Henpecked Husband: He lets his wife walk all over him.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In "Thanks Man", he welcomes a stranger into their home who turns out to be a burglar; he also trusts a driver from a rival delivery company who was only trying to lure him into a cruel prank.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The huge guy to his wife's tiny girl.
• Implausible Deniability: Insists he drank an unwanted glass of scotch after being seen pouring it out.
• Manchild: Has a juvenile sense of humor and very poor impulse control. He is mainly motivated by junk food, and will often concoct elaborate schemes to get what he wants that often end up with him getting hurt or embarrassed. It’s also shown in numerous episodes that Doug does not know how to function as an independent adult. He cannot pay bills, he doesn’t clean and rarely cooks. One episode shows that he has to be lied to about big events (his dog dying), because he’s too immature to handle anything big.
• Manipulative Bastard: His schemes to manipulate those around him become increasingly paranoid and complex as the series goes on.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With Carrie.
• Nervous Wreck: Prone to gag-inducing anxiety when in situations he can't control.
  Doug: I can't sleep; I can't eat...well, I can eat, but not as fast.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Uses passive-aggressive techniques to combat Carrie's much more directly aggressive way of handling conflict.
• Schemer: Constantly scheming to get his way without confrontation.
• Sore Loser: Refuses to let Carrie sleep until she has a Ping Pong rematch with him after his Training from Hell with Arthur.
• This Loser Is You: Fat, lazy, stupid, with a dead-end job...just like you!
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: He's overweight and fairly average in appearance, while Carrie is considered very attractive. This is remarked upon in-universe frequently
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: To contrast with Carrie's cynicism. "Thanks, Man" is a full episode exploration of their differing views on the world.

Carrie Heffernan

Played by Leah Remini

• Beauty Is Bad: She's pretty but also quite mean.
• Brooklyn Rage: She has a temper problem.
• Daddy's Girl
• Formerly Fat: Due to the poor attempts to hide her actress's pregnancy midway through the series, she appears to have gained weight during it. She loses the weight near the end of the series after her actress gave birth and managed to take the weight off.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The tiny girl to her husband's huge guy.
• Hypocrite: In "Precedent Nixin", Carrie doesn't want to stay at Doug's parents' apartment at the retirement estate, so they both wind up in a motel during Spring Break and their bathroom has a bat in it. When Doug points out that he has to deal with her father's insane antics every day, while she refuses to spend a weekend with his, Carrie dismisses Doug's argument.
• Jerkass: Especially to Doug.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She does have redeeming moments.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With Doug.
• Sadist: In one episode it's revealed she's only happy when others are miserable.
• Meaningful Name: It may be less than coincidental that she shares a first name with the unbalanced, vindictive main character of the novel Carrie (as pointed out by Doug himself).
• Missing Mom: Her mom passed when she was a teenager.
• Parenting the Husband
• Tomboy: Has shades of this in the earliest episodes, but entirely fades by the midway point of the series.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Her husband is fairly average looking, while she is considered very attractive.
• Control Freak: Comes to a head when Carrie bans Doug from changing his cologne.
• Guilty Pleasures: Feels guilty when her sadism affects her loved ones, but not enough to stop.
• Women Are Wiser: She's certainly wiser than her father and husband, though far from wise.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: It's difficult to reconcile the early peacekeeping Carrie with the later physically and psychologically abusive Carrie.
  Arthur: When I gave her to you, she was sweet as pie.
• It Runs in the Family: Paranoia and rage.
  Doug: I think the Spooner family crest is a shaking fist with the words "I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER!"
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: The responsible wife to Doug's foolish husband.
• Maternally Challenged: Deacon especially complains about her difficulty with children when she bribes her way out of an uncomfortable conversation by giving his son a cupcake, which she then trades for a later bedtime and an inappropriate television show.
• Vanity Is Feminine: Her fixation on clothes and makeup contribute to her femininity.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Averted. As Carrie settles into her more feminine characterization, she keeps her inability to cook.
• Delinquent: As a teen, she happily participated in a carjacking. She laughs as she reminisces about it, much to Doug's horror.
• Matchmaker Failure: Once set her friend up with someone who tried to push her out of a moving car.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: After cutting off her long, beautiful hair, Doug says that she looks like "a weird boy."
• Beleaguered Assistant: To her strange and demanding boss, Doug Pruzan.
• The Cynic: To contrast with Doug's optimism. "Thanks, Man" is a full episode exploration of their differing views on the world.
• Drives Like Crazy: Mentioned various times throughout the series. Her disregard for traffic laws has resulted in challenges in affording car insurance.
• Social Climber: Has a lifelong dream of living in Manhattan. Her eagerness to fit into high culture often leads to friction with boorish Doug, and the extreme cost of her high-end clothing has gotten them into trouble multiple times.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Holly kindly bringing her homemade soup when she was sick eventually spirals into Carrie demanding she hit the docks before sunrise to acquire fresh sea food long after Carrie's recovered from her illness (and passed it on to Holly, no less.)
• Teens Are Monsters: Participated in a carjacking.
• Sentimental Drunk: After discovering how kind and affectionate she is while hammered, Doug and Arthur conspire to get her drunk every night to keep her that way.

Arthur Spooner

Played by Jerry Stiller

• Berserk Button: He's a command center of them. Halloween, Larry King, Charlie Brown, a neighbor's wreath, a hogged armrest...
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Arthur has some very strange ideas, to say the least.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A waitress is constantly seeking advice from him. He gets fulfillment from this, until finding out from a dimwitted co-worker that she only does so to follow the opposite of what he suggests. Following this he deliberately sets her up to follow bad advice (or ignore good advice). Whether or not he intended for this to get her fired and potentially bankrupt, he seems to find her outcome perfectly just in his gloating.
  Former Waitress: You cost me my job! How am I going to pay my bills?!
  Arthur: And you hurt my feelings, so now we're even!
• Expy: He's basically a marginally friendlier version of Frank Costanza from Seinfeld. Arthur and Frank both have very similar personalities and mannerisms, and they're both played by Jerry Stiller.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine
• Irony: His living arrangements during the series prove to be a case of this, as a flashback episode showed Arthur telling Carrie that she and Doug would be living in his basement in a week if they got married.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arthur is entitled, petty, immature and unstable but he is also capable of being caring and insightful during his more lucid moments. It's not so much that he's a bad person as much as it is that he's batshit insane.
• Large Ham: There was nothing in the family's day to day life that this man could not turn into a melodrama.
• The Load: He contributes nothing to the household and in fact has cost the Heffernans significant amounts of money (Started fires, sold their furniture when they are away...etc.) and stress (goes through personal belongings, keeps them awake at night when moved across the hall, constantly yelling and trying to force his rules on them...etc). Whenever he comes across some money like bingo winnings, he doesn't even think to offer Doug and Carrie any of it for something such as new appliances they all use and has to be more or less told to give it to them. Doug wants him out of the house for these reasons but Carrie defends him, claiming he isn't that bad (which is odd, as it has been firmly established that he was a terrible father).
  • Coupled with his Cloud Cuckoo Lander status when Carrie once begs him to act like a human being at a corporate party, and he bluntly says "No".
• Manchild: Despite being an elderly man, Arthur has the maturity of someone much younger than him. Sometimes he acts like a petulant teenager, sometimes he acts like a six-year-old.
• No Indoor Voice: See Large Ham above.
• Suddenly Shouting: Has a habit of beginning sentences at a normal volume, but GRADUALLY ELEVATING TO YELLING!
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Though sometimes played seriously, his father heckling his choir performance and some of his interactions with Skitch definitely qualify.
• Freudian Excuse: One episode sees a time traveling therapist take him back to his childhood, where it's succinctly revealed that his screaming and bids for attention come from his being ignored by his father in favor of his older half-brother, Skitch.
• Pet the Dog: Occasionally shows the ability to behave selflessly. One of the more prominent examples is Doug's discovery that he gave up a promising acting career in order to (attempt to) provide a more stable childhood for Carrie.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Seen in a number of episodes such as when he becomes the temporary manager of the mall pretzel shop, when he becomes president of the senior center and goes mad with power, or even simply serving as an alternate on a jury.
• The Unfavorite: To his half-brother, Skitch.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It'd be easier to name episodes that don't feature his explosive and inappropriate anger.
• Bungling Inventor: Comes up with a number of inventions intended to help him get rich quick, with zero results. Some examples include an umbrella that converts to a backpack (in collaboration with Spence) and an "Arthur's head" screwdriver.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Spence and Holly (though the latter is usually compensated for her time.)
• Zany Scheme: Few, if any, of his plots are less than zany, and many of them are schemes.
• Abusive Parents: Sometimes played seriously, such as his father forcing him to Trick-or-Treat until his feet bled in order to acquire food for the family.
• Missing Mom: While his dad is brought up with some regularity, virtually no mention is made of him ever having had a mother.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Worked as a ribbon salesman when Doug and Carrie were newlyweds, where he was often caught inappropriately propositioning little girls.
• Rambling Old Man Monologue: Definitely prone. Due to his habit of turning every word played into a rambling anecdote during a Scrabble tournament, Carrie begins to wonder if she even loves him.
• Frivolous Lawsuit: One of his frequent Get Rich Quick schemes. According to Carrie in "Where's Poppa", he's suing most of their neighbors.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Regularly tries to advise others despite his lifelong string of failures.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Both has and is; his father loudly and openly heckled him during his church choir solo as a child.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Hid correspondence from Carrie's boyfriend when she was in high school. Occassionally played for laughs when he attempts to block her husband.
  Arthur: Why do you need birth control? Does he touch you!?
• Half-Sibling Angst: Gets along poorly with his abusive older half-brother, Skitch.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Doug's father-in-law, and plenty obnoxious.
• Lethal Klutz: Burns his own house to the ground, and sets fire to the Heffernan's home twice, to speak only of his history with fire.
• Hypocrite: Has a much easier time judging others than himself. The first episode sees him getting on Spence's case for living with his mother, while he himself (and his adult daughter) have just moved into his oldest daughter's house.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Is demanding and critical of Doug and Carrie despite his complete reliance on them.
• The Obi-Wannabe: In "Do Rico", after reading Tuesdays with Morrie, attempts to mentor several younger adults, and is confused to find them unreceptive.
• Bratty Food Demand: In an episode where Doug learns to make demands of Carrie vicariously through Arthur, he's shown bursting in on her multiple times while screaming "I WANT (FOOD)!"
• Innocent Bigot: Despite seeming to harbor no particular hatred, shows himself to be fearful of and somewhat quick to assume with Deacon.
• Serial Spouse: Married four times by the end of the series.

Deacon Palmer

Played by Victor Williams

• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic
• Only Sane Man
• Hidden Depths: Served in the National Guard, where he learned to sew and saved a man's life, and volunteers as a Big Brother on the weekends, much to Doug's perturbence.
• Token Minority: He and his family are the only reoccuring non-white characters on the show.
• Not Actually His Child: His dad's suspicions that Deacon's the result of his mother's cheating ultimately led to a break between them.
• Parental Fashion Veto: Ultimately fails to veto Kirby's Powerpuff Girls costume on Halloween.
• Sports Dad: Forces his son Kirby to play football in hopes of manning him up.
• Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Struggles with the feminine attributes his older son, Kirby, displays.
  "Doug:" You know, I heard most drag queens are straight.
  "Deacon:" Is that supposed to make me feel better?
• Token Black Friend: To Doug.
• The Whitest Black Guy: His choice of song for kareoke in "G'night, Stalker" has a table full of black men walk out in disgust.
• Flawless Token: In a cast of jerks, losers, and morons, has no distinct flaws to speak of.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Hesitates to sign the divorce papers when his wife wants a separation.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Only commits an emotional affair, and is instantly remorseful. His separation is treated as a tragedy rather than a just consequence.

Spencer "Spence" Olchin

Played by Patton Oswalt

• Butt-Monkey
• The Smart Guy
• Mistakenfor Gay: By Tivo.
• May–December Romance: Had a fling with a teacher as a high school student.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Has this kind of relationship with Doug's cousin Danny in later seasons to such an extent that they share a bedroom, car, and bank account.
• Geek
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: Was beginning a promising shuffleboard career before being psychologically crippled by walking in on his mom and his coach in her bed.
• Bully Magnet: Bullied by his friends, his mom, children, Tivo...
• Embarrassed by a Child: After discovering his peanut allergy, Deacon's son uses it to mock and bully him.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: His girlfriend refers to sex with him as a "short, bumpy ride."
• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: Despite all of his friends' equally blue collar jobs, Spence's position as a subway token seller is portrayed as especially grim.
• Disappeared Dad: His dad left early in his life.
• My Beloved Smother: Both iterations of his mother display a clear lack of boundaries.
• Stereotypical Nerd: Just missing the glasses.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Shared one with an unattractive teacher in high school.
• Cosplay: Wears a Dark Shadows cosplay to a convention.
• The Movie Buff: Shows a deep knowledge of and passion for movies.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Doug's dad caught him masturbating in the Heffernan bathroom in high school, setting off a lifelong dislike.
• Nerds Are Virgins: Begins the series as a virgin (before a later retcon stating he lost his virginity to a teacher in high school.)
• Sommelier Speak: Is in a wine enthusiast's group.
• Nerdy Inhaler: One of the traits he shares with Danny.
• Sickly Neurotic Geek: Asthma and innumerable allergies.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Becomes one of these in "Wedding Presence" after an afternoon of pretending to be Arthur's son, due in no small part to his issues with his own father.

Danny Heffernan

Played by Gary Valentine

• Alcoholic Parent: Spence threatens to tempt his mom back into alcoholism after Danny flirts with Spence's mom in order to manipulate him.
• Emasculated Cuckold: Babysits the child his ex concieved while cheating on him.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Has this kind of relationship with Spence in later seasons to such an extent that they share a bedroom, car, and bank account.
• Insistent Terminology: Motivated!
• Nerdy Inhaler: One of the traits he shares with Spence.
• The Dandy: In one episode, he gets his teeth whitened, his hair bleached, and has his skin treated with acid.
• The Unfavorite: Both of his parents prefer his cousin, Doug.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Desperate to gain his father's approval.

Holly Shumpert

Played by Nicole Sullivan

• Animal Lover: Dogs, specifically.
• Babies Ever After: Her cameo in the last episode features her near the end of her pregnancy and alone.
• Dumb Blonde: Easily the dumbest female character on the show.
• Extreme Doormat: Pushed around by Arthur; downright terrified of Carrie. Even Doug managed to boss her around during the brief stint she stayed with them.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde and sweet.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Alcoholic and slutty.
• Really Gets Around: Implied to have frequent drunken one-night stands on top of her fleeting relationships.
• Sex for Services: Tries to pay off her landlord with sex. Apparantly plans to sleep her way out of her next traffic ticket.
• The Alcoholic