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| Original KOQ theme screen | |
| King of Queens episode | |
| "Original unaired Pilot" | |
| Season 1, Episode # Episode # 0 in series (207 episodes) | |
| Originally Aired: | |
| Aired on: | CBS-TV |
| Production code: | |
 IMDB: |
Original unaired Pilot |
| Written by: | David Litt & Michael J. Weithorn |
| Directed by: | |
| Guest stars: | None |
| Episode chronology | |
| List of The King of Queens episodes | |
The orignal unaired pilot is the original version of the Pilot of The King of Queens. It features Jack Carter as Arthur Spooner, instead of Jerry Stiller. It never went on air officially, because Jerry Stiller turned down the role for Arthur initially, but accepted it after he saw the pilot. The scenes with Jack Carter were then reshot with Jerry stiller instead. Here's Michael J. Weithorn's commented on that, he once wrote in a KOQ Facebook fangroup:
Here's the story: Jerry was our first choice, he wanted to do it, and we were in contract negotiations with him in the weeks before we were scheduled to shoot the pilot. But just a few days before the start he suddenly pulled out (Anne was concerned that he would have to spend too much of the year away from his home in NY). We cast Jack Carter at the last minute - he was a fine, experienced, funny actor, but after we shot the show I just didn't like the chemistry or the feeling of what we had. So I begged Jerry's agent to show him the shot pilot - thinking maybe he might be persuaded by seeing how good Kevin and Leah were together on screen and want to be part of it. I figured the chances of this succeeding were very small but miraculously Jerry loved the pilot and agreed to do the show! We only reshot the scenes with Arthur - when you watch the King of Queens pilot, all the non-Arthur scenes are from the version we shot with Jack Carter.
Episode summary and differences to the aired version[]
In the beginning scene Carrie makes sure everything is prepared for Doug's new TV. This scene is missing in the officially aired version.
Carrie prepares Doug's new TV
When Doug rushes down the basement stairs to see his new TV, its frontside is shown for a brief second in the aired version. This is missing in the unaired version. The rest of the scene is identical to the aired version.
The intro theme of the unaired version is completely different from the aired version. Though it also depicts a subway or bus window, we are looking at a much brighter and higher contrast brick wall with various movie posters on it: The Lion King, City of Angels, Ragtime, Titanic, Grease. At the end (as well as between the movie posters) an alternate version of the King of Queens logo is shown, which depicts a big blue "K" on orange background and a capitalized green "THE" on top.
Original KOQ theme screen
After the intro theme is played, everything is identical to the aired version until the Sara scene ends, where she's talking to Doug through the mail slit. Only the font of the opening credits, which are shown during the scene, differs from the aired version's font style. Instead of "Jerry Stiller", "Jack Carter" is shown for Arthur. For some reason Patton Oswalt (Spence), Larry Roman (Richie) and Victor Williams (Deacon) are not shown in the opening credits of the unaired version, while they are in the aired version. Probably, because they were meant to be one-time guests originally. However, in the closing credits of the unaired version they're shown. Also one of the producers "Annette Sahakian Davis" is missing the "Davis" in her name in the unaired version.
Carrie and Sarah discussing Arthur's place to stay
After the scene where Sara talks to Doug through the mail slit, the aired version changes location to Arthur's house. In the unaired version the location stays at Doug's and Carrie's house. What follows is a conversation between Carrie and her sister Sara. They have pretty much the same dialogue as in the aired version, when they're talking in the kitchen of Arthur's house: Sara's telling Carrie her concerns of putting Arthur into a retirement home. Carrie says that it'll be fine and that Sara can stay with them, when Arthur sells his house.
Jack Carter at the dinner table
Jack Carter's first appearance close-up
In the next scene we see Jack Carter for the first time in the unaired version. He is eating dinner together with Doug, Carrie and Sara. Doug is telling a story about scanners and barcodes (Side note: They later will use this story in a very similar scene in season 2 episode 2, where they also sit together at the exact same place with the new neighbour girl Carrie's trying to befriend). Carrie interrupts Doug's story and insists to start talking about "the thing". They tell Arthur about the plan of putting him into a retirement home. He is not amused by the idea and stands up to leave the dinner table. He tells everybody he's not going to leave his house. In the next cut we see Arthur's house burning and hear him say in the background narration, that "the chimney looks a lot bigger without the whole house around it".
The next scene shows Arthur sitting alone at the table just after he accidentally burned down his house, while Carrie watches him in disbelief. Just like in the aired version, Doug enters the kitchen and cracks a joke about him winning $9 at poker. He asks what's Arthur doing here and Carrie explains the situation. After that, in the aired pilot, Carrie's sister Sara enters the kitchen and throws the remaining ash of her burned belongings into the trash and says good night. This is completely missing in the unaired version. Arthur admits he totally screwed up and he asks Carrie to look up one of "those places" for him. He then leaves the kitchen, pulling the cooking plate behind him. In the unaired pilot there is a short dialogue after that, between Doug and Carrie where Doug says he's glad they took away Arthur's "lucky steak knives". Carrie asks him to talk in private and they both go down to the basement. The aired pilot just jumps to the following scene, without the dialogue in between.
The next scene starts with Doug and Carrie walking down the stairs to the basement. This scene in both aired and unaired version is almost exactly the same. Only in the aired pilot Doug is shown close-up when telling a joke about mac and cheese, while in the unaired version the camera does not change perspective (in fact there are two cameras used and they just cut in the view from the second camera in the aired version). Also in the unaired version, the joke about mac and cheese is a bit extend by Doug saying something about them using an aged cheddar and that this makes it so "tangy". From this point on the scene is exactly the same in aired and unaired version (Doug crying at the end when he decides to let Arthur live with them etc.).
Jack Carter coming upstairs
The next few scenes are exactly the same until after the one where Carrie asks Doug how he did manage to cut himself that much (he got distracted by Sara's showering silhouette while shaving). After Carrie leaves the kitchen, in the unaired pilot the next cut start with Deacon entering. He makes a reference to Doug's opening joke about that kid making fun of their shorts. Deacon came to pick up Doug for work. In the aired version Deacon is missing completely in this scene. Arthur comes out of his basement and brags about his "little guy" still "saluting" him every morning in both versions, while in the unaired version Arthur says "78 years old" and in the aired version he says "75 years old". After that, in the unaired version Arthur makes a joke about there won't be a "canary alive" in there, while in the aired version he says that he thinks that "this could be his day" as the scene ends. In the unaired version the scene ends after Doug telling Deacon to leave without him.
The next scene shows Doug driving in his truck and talking to Carrie over radio. Both versions are the same until Arthur passes by with hookers inside his rental car. In the unaired version Arthur's wearing a hat and also the hookers actresses are different.
Jack Carter with hookers in car
The final scene with Arthur, where he sits down in the living room with Doug, Carrie and Sara present, has basically the same plot, same jokes in both aired and unaired versions. Only in the unaired version Arthur has scheduled a "drum lesson" for Wednesday, while in the aired version he has a meeting with his "Kiwanis Club".
The final scene is also almost exactly the same. Only the last piece of voice overlay, when it's complete dark after Arthur produced a short circuit, comes about a second earlier in the aired version than in the unaired one.
While the aired version ends here and only shows closing credits on a black screen, the unaired versions has an extra scene with Spence and Sara. It's the exact same ending scene and dialogue as in season 1 episode 6.
Trivia[]
- The whole episode can be watched at The Paley Center for Media - NYC (in-person only). There is also a reddit post with the full episode available.
- A higher quality scene with Jack Carter can be found on YouTube
Cast[]
Main cast[]
- Kevin James as Doug Heffernan
- Leah Remini as Carrie Heffernan
- Jack Carter as Arthur Spooner
- Victor Williams as Deacon Palmer