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 CULTURE WATCH
Right-leaning Celebrity Alert!
Watch the comedian Drew Carey
JOHN J. MILLER
On the September 18 broadcast of Power of 10, a new game show on CBS, host Drew Carey asked contestant D. J. Burgduff this question: What percentage of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes for the government to provide universal health care? While Burgduff thought it over, Carey performed a comic riff: “Personally, I can’t wait for universal health care.” Then, in a mocking voice: “From the folks that brought you FEMA, the TSA, the DMV, the IRS, comes universal health care! It’s going to be fantastic, to have the government in charge of our health!”
Nobody who watched the program could have mistaken Carey’s opinion of socialized medicine: He thinks it’s a stupendously bad idea. Yet Power of 10 isn’t a talking-heads program on a cable channel — it’s a quiz show on a mainstream network with millions of viewers. Carey nevertheless has turned it into an occasional platform for his right-of-center libertarianism. It’s not his only platform. On October 15, when Carey succeeds Bob Barker as host of The Price Is Right, the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, will debut the first in a series of public-policy videos starring Carey. At the end of the month, Carey will attend his first meeting as a member of Reason’s board of trustees. Following years of success in stand-up comedy and on sitcoms, Carey is on the brink of becoming one of the Right’s most visible celebrities.
The 49-year-old Carey was born and raised in Cleveland, and joined the Marine Corps after attending Kent State. He credits his time in the military with turning his life around: “The things I learned in the Marine Corps have stayed with me to this day,” he wrote in his 1997 book, Dirty Jokes and Beer. “I hate being late, I’m very organized, and I’m not afraid to take responsibility for my own actions.” The Marines left a visible impression on him as well: He kept his crew cut. Combined with his horn-rimmed glasses and suit-and-tie wardrobe, it gave him one of the most distinctive looks in comedy. He’s like an anti-hippy.
Carey caught his big break in 1991, when he performed a six-minute routine on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson loved it and Carey was launched. Two years later, he starred in a Showtime comedy special. After that, he earned a supporting role in a short-lived NBC program. The experience taught him the art of the 22-minute sitcom. In 1995, The Drew Carey Show premiered on ABC. At the height of its nine-year run, the program attracted 17 million viewers. Carey also performed in Whose Line Is It Anyway?, an improvisational comedy show. “Drew is a really sweet guy,” says Penn Jillette, part of the Penn & Teller comic duo. “He’s the kind of person you would want to sit next to on a plane, even if you didn’t know him.”
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