One Of The Biggest Sitcoms Of All Time Finally Hits Streaming

The most commonly cited reason why The Drew Carey Show was not available before now comes down to the show’s heavy usage of licensed music throughout the series. Warner Bros. said the copyright surrounding many of those songs would make it too difficult to release, as they would either have to negotiate to have each song included or replace them with original music.

One of the first things fans of The Drew Carey Show did upon finding out the show was on streaming was to search to see if the music was intact from how it first aired. While some of the songs are still there, fans have confirmed that a lot of the licensed music has been removed. While that is no doubt disappointing, fans are still happy to at least finally have a version of the show they can watch.

The Drew Carey Show was part of an era where it was commonplace for popular comedians to get their own sitcoms. This is what led to classic shows like Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens, Home Improvement, and so many more over the years. Nowadays, Drew Carey is probably best known as the host of The Price is Right, but The Drew Carey Show was part of his career that helped put him on the map.

The Drew Carey Show was also a vehicle for numerous other comedians and long-time friends of Carey’s. This includes Diedrich Bader, Ryan Stiles, and Craig Ferguson, to name a few. The show was also known for its ample use of guest stars and celebrity cameos, with some of the most prominent ones being Penn & Teller, Weird Al Yankovic, Donald Trump, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Only the first season of The Drew Carey Show has ever been made available for home release; the show lasted for nine seasons and had 233 episodes during its run. There is no word thus far on what finally allowed a platform like Plex to clear up whatever difficulties were preventing the show from being streamed prior to now, but fans are happy with the result regardless.

While physical home media is being phased out by this juncture anyway, it is unclear if The Drew Carey Show arriving on streaming now also opens up the possibility for the complete series to be made available on something like Blu-ray. There would likely be an interested audience if so, as streaming rights do change all the time, resulting in popular shows and movies being removed with little advance notice.

Regardless, those who have been waiting to enjoy The Drew Carey Show again after all these years can finally do so once more thanks to it coming to Plex earlier this week.