Drew Carey Show

Drew's best friend Kate begs him to hire her at Winfred-Louder, the department store where he works, after she gets fired because of a breakup with her deadbeat boyfriend. Drew is hesitant because he isn't supposed to hire his friends. While holding an interview for a job in the cosmetics department, Drew meets Mimi Bobeck, a hostile and argumentative woman who twists Drew's words and lands him in hot water with Mr. Bell, his boss.

Mr. Bell hires Mimi as his assistant to keep her from filing a complaint about Drew's "harassment". She vows to make his life a living hell. Drew meets attractive job applicant Lisa and the two become friendly fast. However, once Lisa is hired, he is worried about dating her because of how it would look for management to be dating an employee. Meanwhile, Drew's neighbors cause trouble next door.

Kate's ex-boyfriend Barry refuses to pick up his stuff and makes incessant phone calls to Kate at work. Drew attaches a cartoon to the bottom of a memo in the hopes of boosting company morale. Most employees are amused by it, but one offended employee complains to Mr. Bell. Drew becomes obsessed with finding out who it was that got him in trouble.

Drew turns down the Winfred-Louder attorneys when they try to get Drew to settle the lawsuit by signing a waiver that absolves the store of any responsibility. Drew hires a lawyer, who happens to be an insufferable ex-boyfriend of Kate's, but is left high and dry when he has to fire his lawyer for making passes at Kate.

Mrs. Louder, the widow of the store's founder, offers Drew a job as her personal assistant; the position comes with a pay raise and a guarantee he will be in the running for head of personnel. Drew is between a rock and a hard place because he's unsure if he wants to change jobs but is afraid he'll be fired if he doesn't accept Mrs. Louder's offer.

When Kate starts neglecting the guys after she gets a new boyfriend, the gang starts hanging out with Jay Clemens, an old school buddy they run into at the Warsaw. Kate eventually breaks up with her boyfriend and is outraged that Jay has seemingly taken her place in the gang. Everything comes to a heated and surprising end the night of Drew's birthday party.

Kate is depressed when another wedding shower is held at work and she realizes that most women her age are married or are getting married; she's always dreamed of having a wedding of her own. Drew, Oswald and Lewis decide to cheer her up by throwing a fake wedding party for her and Drew at the Warsaw. The guys wonder why none of them ever dated Kate and, later that night, Drew confesses to Kate the crush he had on her in high school.

Drew fires Suzie, an inept employee, only to find out she was Mr. Bell's mistress. Kate proposes her idea for a day spa to Mr. Bell, who is so impressed he wants to meet with her and Drew at the Warsaw to discuss it. Unfortunately, Drew discovers Mr. Bell is only interested in making Kate his latest conquest.

Kate complains to Drew about a creepy employee named Earl, whom she thinks is crazy. Drew thinks Kate is paranoid until he finds that Earl is delusional and extremely unstable. When Drew fires Earl after he refuses to see the company psychiatrist, Earl threatens Drew and begins stalking him.

Mr. Bell promises Drew a promotion in exchange for training his nephew Blaine, who turns out to be a lazy, nepotistic pest. Kate mistakenly sells a giant bottle of extremely expensive perfume for much less than it's worth and turns to Drew for help. Meanwhile, Blaine becomes such a nuisance that Mimi and Drew call a truce and form an unholy alliance to force him out of the store.

The store closes early because of an ice storm and circumstances force Drew to miss his carpool with the Optimist Club. The Optimists get in an accident and a man dies. Drew believes divine intervention kept him from being in the accident and decides to contact his old pastor about becoming a minister.

Drew's hopes of a personal secretary are dashed when Mr. Bell gives the job to Mimi so he can hire Suzie as his own assistant. Drew and Mimi's continued bickering put both their jobs on the line and Drew is horrified when he discovers pictures that suggest Mimi is secretly in love with him.

Drew is in hot water when Lisa and Kate find out he promised both of them the head personal shopper job. And just to send Drew farther over the edge, Mimi is also in the running for the position. Drew decides to be diplomatic and have all three of them shop for the store's most difficult customers. Whoever performs the best, wins the job.

Kate's mom takes Kate and the gang out to dinner for Kate's birthday. Kate avoids telling her mother she's dating anyone because her mom always disapproves of her boyfriends. Jay thinks Mrs. O'Brien is in a mental hospital but when Lewis lets the truth slip, Kate has to make up for it by inviting Jay to dinner at her mom's house. Just as Kate suspected, her mom worries Jay is on the rebound and tries to convince Kate that Drew is the right man for her.

Drew gets ready to defend himself against Nora's lawsuit but isn't very successful. Nora cries on the stand to get everyone's sympathy and the outlook is pretty bleak for Drew. Because of the stress of the case, Drew loses it during an argument at the Warsaw, gets arrested for assault, and has to doubly defend himself.

Drew dates Lewis' crazy sister.

Drew and Lisa's relationship gets rocky, all they do is argue every day. At work Winfred-Louder staffers suck up to Drew on employee evaluation day, but Lisa is livid when she sees her less-than-complimentary evaluation early.

Drew is outraged when the company refuses to promote him to permanent manager, instead hiring Englishman Nigel Wick, who turns out to be a crooked character who bribes Drew with the promise of the assistant-manager job if he'll be Wick's "bad guy" regarding company cutbacks.

Moving in together puts a real strain on Drew and Lisa's relationship and Drew goes to great lengths to avoid going home at night. Thinking Jay would propose, Kate is confused and hurt when he says he's moving to Minnesota without her.

Drew runs into old high school bully Simon Tate (guest star Norm MacDonald) at the Warsaw. Simon apologizes for how he behaved as a teenager and seems to have changed his ways. Drew gives an out-of-work Simon a job at Winfred-Louder but he soon starts pushing everyone around just like in the old days.

Drew is depressed after learning his high school band teacher, Ms. Blankenship, has died. He organizes the band to play a tribute performance for her and is furious when no one takes it seriously. When the gang questions Drew about it, he reveals that he lost his virginity to Ms. Blankenship. He considers the experience very special. However, Drew is dismayed to find out he was not the only male student seduced by the attractive music teacher.

Drew meets Bonnie (Caroline Rhea) at the Warsaw and brings her home to see his brewery. Once she finds out he doesn't have a permit, she admits that she's a zoning inspector and has to report him.

Drew's father George is back in town to accept a lifetime achievement award from his lodge, the Wildebeests. He convinces a reluctant Drew to join him at one of the meetings to help convince Drew to become a member. However, Drew is disgusted to find that most of the lodge members are racists and exclude people from membership because of their race.

The employees at Winfred-Louder go on strike and Drew, while sympathetic, is forced to hire replacements. Despite promising not to let the strike hurt their friendship, Kate gets angry with Drew for letting Mimi and Oswald replace her at the cosmetics counter. As the weeks go by, tensions start to run high and Drew is pressured to take a side once and for all.

Drew's hopes of a relaxing holiday weekend are crushed when Mr. Wick makes Drew in charge of Winfred-Louder's Thanksgiving Day parade. Crunched for time, Drew has to make a deal with Mimi that she can be the "snow queen" in the parade if her father's trucking company supplies the equipment for the floats. Unfortunately, Mr. Wick chooses someone else to be grand marshal and Mimi sabotages the parade.