In Case Anyone Careys...

”I wonder what Sinead O'Connor is up to...” So did a random instant message from Rey pop up in the afternoon, to break up the monotony. Always responding to randomness with more randomness rather than inquiring about context, I shot back, “I wonder what Diedrich Bader is up to?”

My friend accurately surmised that I'd later be checking up on the cast of The Drew Carey Show and see where everyone is now. It was a quirky show about a hapless loser working in an office, amused and distracted only by his strange childhood friends, and for some reason I identified with Drew. He managed through sarcasm to often dismiss and be crushed by his problems within the same sentence. A nice guy who generally meant well, he never knew when the world would turn on him.

In a wholly unrelated story, I pulled out of a parking lot at lunch today and cut quickly across to the shoulder to avoid a school bus barreling down the road. I stopped a few feet from an old man crossing the street. As I sat waiting for the bus to pass so I could pull back out into the road, the old man stopped, turned, and stared at us. I gave what I thought was a friendly wave, letting him know I was in no way going to hit him, and he was free to continue on to the sidewalk. Bewildered, he resumed his walk, and paused again on the sidewalk. Though my windows were closed as I pulled back into the street and continued on my way, all of my passengers and I clearly heard the man scream “A**HOLE!!!” at me at the top of his lungs, which were clearly in good shape at his age. Hey, that's life. Anyway:

Drew Carey played a character of the same name, working in human resources. After the success of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he continued doing improv with Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, and loaned his voice to a character in Robots. One fact I discovered that I did not know, was that the actor and comedian also does sports photography, and has had images published under a different name.

Ryan Stiles played Lewis Kiniski, a janitor at the fictitious DrugCo. He's done improv on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and in 2006 appeared several times as a doctor on the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

The aforementioned Diedrich Bader, already a notorious H!ITG! by my standards from films such as Office Space, played Oswald Lee Harvey. Where Lewis was brilliant but deranged, Oswald was his simpler foil. Bader continues to show up in small comedic roles, from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to Napoleon Dynamite to Eurotrip, and you can catch him in the upcoming Balls of Fury(title hat tip TheWriteJerry?)

Christa Miller played Kate O’Brien, rounding out Drew's childhood friends. They had an on-again-off-again romance, which I believe Drew screwed up after inadvertently marrying her while he was already married to someone else. Miller, niece of Susan Saint James, left the show prior to its last two seasons to regularly devote more time to her role on her husband Bill Lawrence's hit show Scrubs, where she continues to be today.

Kathy Kinney played Drew's heavily eyeshadowed rival Mimi, and has appeared on both of his improv shows. She recently showed up on an hilarious My Name is Earl, portraying a police officer in an episode shot almost entirely as an episode of Cops.

Craig Ferguson, who played Drew's boss Nigel Wick for the majority of the show's run, now hosts his own late night talk show. Fun fact: his first credited role was on an early episode of Red Dwarf, playing Lister's personified Confidence.

Cynthia Watros certainly made an impression on me when she joined the cast as Kellie Newmark, another childhood friend and potential love interest for Drew after Kate's departure. By the end of the series, the attractive blonde became the mother of Drew's first child and married him. Watros went on to join the cast of Lost, and I'm hoping this season to learn more of her back story in a mental institution....

The series ran for nine seasons and had big name guest stars and recurring supporting characters too numerous to mention. I think we're caught up on the whereabouts of the main cast now, in case anyone cares...