NBC's The Golden Girls, Empty Nest and Nurses were all made by the same production company and all aired on the same night. Since the same folks made all three shows they also made them all part of the same joint reality. The folks on Empty Nest lived next door to the Golden Girls and Empty Nest's Dr. Harry Weston worked at the same hospital that appeared on Nurses. Having these shows all connected enabled NBC to do big crossover event nights where all three shows shared some common plot point (a hurricane for example) and had characters crossover between the shows.

   A few year later ABC decide they wanted to try the same thing with one of their nights of programming and had four of their shows crossover in a big Las Vegas story. The Drew Carey Show, Coach, Grace Under Fire and Ellen all had episodes set in Vegas with characters moving between the shows. The only thing was that in ABC's case their was no previously established link between the shows which were all made by different producers. The shows had this crossover event forced on them against their will, pissing off stars and producers. It was a cynical ratings stunt the network made happen unlike the NBC events which were just a natural extension of their shows already being connected.

   That brings us to CBS's entry in this sort of programming. CBS's stunt nights fall somewhere in the middle. Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker, King Of Queens and Cosby were not all connected to start with like the NBC shows (although there were some ties between Everybody Loves Raymond and King Of Queens). But when asked to crossover with each other they seemed to do so happily. And unlike ABC's trying to make a forced situation look like a happy voluntary thing, CBS scores points for copping to exactly what it was doing by titling their first crossover night Shameless Crossover Monday.

   While most of the shows involved in these CBS crossovers do not have any previous connections to each other that is not the case with Everybody Loves Raymond and The King Of Queens. King Of Queens star Kevin James started out as an actor and writer on Everybody Loves Raymond. On that show he played a different character than on King Of Queens. So when Kevin got his own show it was with the support of Raymond star Ray Romano. So even without the CBS crossover events, odds are these shows would have eventually crossed over anyway.

   The first crossover happened on The King Of Queens on Shameless Crossover Monday. In it Everybody Loves Raymond's Ray Barone and King's Doug Heffernan meet and become friends. Doug tries to help Ray cheat on his driving test but gets caught. Because of this Doug loses his license. Then Doug gets busted by Ray's police officer brother Robert for driving without a license when he takes Ray home. Then once Doug gets his license back he has a car accident with Ray's Dad Frank . Makes you wonder why these guys would want to stay friends. Seems like they're jinxed to me.

   Next, that same night Kevin James appeared on Everybody Loves Raymond again as Doug Heffernan. Doug and Ray also appeared on each other's shows on a number of non-stunt night crossovers including the Raymond episode Ray Home Alone and The King Of Queens episode Raymay Day.

   Special note. There is a third season episode of Everybody Loves Raymond called Be Nice in which several of the CBS sitcom characters - including Ray and Doug - meet up in Dr. Becker's waiting room from the show Becker. For syndication the crossover scene is cut from the show. The weird thing is the TV listings for the syndicated version all still mention the crossover scene. So the write up says King Of Queens and Becker appear, you tune in and... nothing.

Other Everybody Loves Raymond Crossover Links
Everybody Loves Raymond and The Nanny

Other King Of Queens Crossover Links
The King Of Queens and Becker
The King Of Queens and Cosby

Click here to return to main Crossover List

Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! Check out Everybody Loves Raymond and The King Of Queens on DVD! The third season of Everybody Raymond is chock full of King Of Queens crossover goodness. Raymond can be seen popping in on The King Of Queens in the first, second and eighth seasons of that show.





Poobala.com Main Page/ Email Me