The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series* [DVD]

Cast: Drew Carey, Diedrich Bader, Kathy Kinney 

Release Date: May 13, 2025

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 7/10

Synopsis:

Actor, comedian, author and television comedy sensation Drew Carey stars in The Drew Carey Show as an average, single everyguy struggling to stay financially and romantically afloat in an unpredictable era. Whether he’s getting roped into a hilarious prank war with his buddies or trying to survive the outrageous of his nemesis, Mimi, Drew and his mishaps will keep you entertained. This average Joe’s life is anything but ordinary!

‘The Drew Carey Show’ follows a fictionalized version of actor/comedian Drew Carey as everyone’s favorite everyman who just can’t seem to catch a break. The series joins Drew and his friends and co-workers and revolves around the hilarious mishaps, hiccups and other random occurrences that repeatedly plague Drew’s life, including his inability to move forward in his career as well as his constant office warfare with despised co-worker Mimi, along with the ups and downs of dating, starting your own business and plenty more. So get ready to revisit the iconic sitcom now available in its (near) entirety at last.

Created for television by Drew Carey and Bruce Helford, the series stars Drew Carey as a fictionalized version of himself, and also stars Diedrich Bader, Christa Miller, Ryan Stiles, Kathy Kinney, Craig Ferguson, John Carroll Lynch, Cynthia Watros, along with many other throughout its nine-season run, although many don’t remain regulars for the entirety of the series with some aspects of the regular cast switched up a few times throughout the show’s run. The series also featured a notable collection of special guest stars and cameo appearances including Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, David Cross, Bo Derek, Wayne Brady, Carmen Electra, Jay Leno, Gary Coleman, Dick Clark, Joe Walsh, Henry Winkler and many more.

‘The Drew Carey Show’ first debuted as part of ABC’s primetime lineup in September of 1995 and concluded its nine season run in September of 2004, running for a total of 233 episodes. A staple of ABC’s lineup for nearly a decade and a show I’ve been a fan of since watching it during its initial run while I was a teenager. It’s a goofy, hilarious and just plain fun time that never seems to get stale and even revisiting the series for this DVD release I found myself laughing as much as ever. If you’ve never had the pleasure of this incredibly amusing comedy series but tend to enjoy the cast and similar sitcoms of the era, then I can’t encourage you strongly enough to give this one a whirl now that it’s finally available after all of these years. For the fans like me that have loved it for years, prepare yourself for hours of laugh out loud fun now that you can conveniently revisit it on DVD, even if a few episodes and song selections may still be absent.

‘The Drew Carey Show’ fans are in for a treat as the series makes its physical debut in its near entirety at long last courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. The 27-disc DVD set ‘The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series*’ brings all but four episodes of the beloved sitcom’s 9-season run home on DVD (and Digital) after all these years. The new set features all but four episodes of the series (‘Drew’s Dance Party Special’, ‘Drew Carey’s Back-to-School Rock ‘n’ Roll Comedy Hour – Parts 1 & 2’ and ‘What’s Love Got to Do with it?’ are not included) due to musical licensing issues, along with a few alterations (the press release and artwork include the note “Musical compositions in certain episodes of this series have been replaced or altered from their original broadcast versions.”) but after so many years of the series being largely unavailable in any manner, it’s still reason to be very excited.

The video and audio presentations are all solid and right up there with the best of what the DVD format is capable of and fans should be quite pleased overall. The 27 discs in the DVD set are spread between two Epik-Pak cases (one for Seasons 1-5 and another for 6-9) which are both stored inside a sturdy side-slip case. Considering the frequent occurrence these days of sets like this featuring numerous stacked discs in addition to the overlapping case style, fans should be pleased to hear that this one does not follow that formula and while there are the two overlapping disc spots as is always the case with these packaging styles, there are no directly stacked discs anywhere within. In short, while missing a few tidbits the set still delivers nicely and if you’re a fan of the series that’s considering a purchase it’s definitely recommended.

VIDEO:

The DVD release of ‘The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series’ features a 4×3 presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio for seasons 1-6 and a 16×9 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio for Seasons 7-9. The video presentations look incredibly nice, especially for the aging DVD format that certainly has its limitations. The video presentations look generally sharp, clean and capably detailed throughout the entirety of its nine season run here and if anything the previously released first season might actually look the weakest (although still just fine). Detail is great on character faces and clothing, backgrounds and everything else, while coloring is frequently rich and solid. Overall, these are great standard definition video presentations that look as good as the DVD format offers and should largely please fellow fans who have been long hoping to see this release become a reality.

AUDIO:

The DVD release includes a 192 kbps 2.0 channel Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack on every episode of all nine seasons (minus the four special episodes not included in the set of course). These stereo soundtracks are pretty rewarding in their own right and they offer clean, sharp and well balanced audio presentations for every episode included within. Dialogue is clean and crisp, while background noise and effects never falter or disappoint; always making certain that any simultaneously occurring dialogue or other audio elements never negatively conflict with one another. Overall, these are solid 2.0 Dolby Digital soundtracks that do their job very well in nearly every respect and shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The DVD release of ‘The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series’ features the previously released Featurette ‘Life Inside the Cubicle’ (running approximately 19 minutes in length) which can be found on the third disc of Season One.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the DVDs and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this release are the property of their respective owners.

–

Disc Rating: 7/10

–

 ‘The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series*’ is Now Available to Own on DVD & Digital from Warner Bros Discovery Home Entertainment.

–

You can purchase ‘The Drew Carey Show: The Complete Series’ on DVD at Amazon HERE!

*Screen-Connections.com is an Amazon Associate that earns from qualifying purchases