For a sitcom that was rightly celebrated for its novel emphasis on “championing good old fashion niceness,” the one character who was rarely shown much love was Jerry. In any other era, he would have been the main character, everyone else in his orbit loving him for how endearingly fallible he was.īut what was both smart and heartbreaking about Parks and Rec was that that wasn’t how anybody treated Jerry. He would perpetually embarrass himself by splitting his pants, falling down or letting out a big fart. A few years away from retirement, oddly pleased that he owned a timeshare in Muncie, Indiana, Jerry was the ultimate TV schlub: pudgy, dimwitted, breathtakingly ordinary, not particularly good at his job. Portrayed by Jim O’Heir, Jerry was the office punching bag in the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department. He was such a perfect schlub that, after him, there never needed to be another. They created the most realistic schlub of all - Jerry Gergich. Until Kevin Can Wait, it also seemed as though they’d been properly put out of their misery by the genius writers of Parks and Recreation. You know these TV schlubs when you see them: They’re lazy, pointedly unremarkable, maybe overweight, definitely white. Married … With Children, The Simpsons, Home Improvement, The King of Queens, Family Guy, According to Jim and now Kevin Can Wait have all been built around the exploits of everymen who are proud to be basic. Network television has its reliable programming staples: cop shows, hospital dramas, anything written by Shonda Rhimes and sitcoms starring schlubs. This is a stunning change of pace for the actor, who was previously the star of The King of Queens, in which he played an ordinary guy … who worked as a delivery driver. Tonight, Kevin James returns to TV with Kevin Can Wait, the new sitcom in which he plays an ordinary guy who has just retired from the police force.
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