Kevin James has become the latest model of a modern major stand-up comedian, a prototype that was created by Jerry Seinfeld.
He joins comics such as Seinfeld, Drew Carey, Ray Romano, Jamie Foxx and Christopher Titus in starring in a successful sitcom, in his case CBS’ “The King of Queens,” which airs at 7 p.m. Mondays on WBBM-Ch. 2.
And also like Seinfeld and some of the others, James has branched into other areas of entertainment. He and his friend Romano, for example, are collaborating on a movie for Paramount. And James is also about to work on a book.
This Sunday, James is going back to a traditional area of his stand-up career: serving as an emcee. He’s hosting CBS’ “People’s Choice Awards” at 8 p.m. on Channel 2.
This is no fly-by-night affair, but the 27th annual edition of the awards show, in which fans select their favorites in movies, TV and music. When the program first began, Dick Van Dyke was its host.
“You’re making me nervous now,” jokes James, 35. The comic says CBS asked him to front the show last year, but he was too busy. He jumped at the chance this time. “I don’t consider myself a host type, I really don’t,” he adds. “But it’s something different. And I’m, I’d say, 90 percent nervous, and 10 percent excited.”
That 10 percent is for an aspect of the show that James also says is the reason he still enjoys doing stand-up — the fear of “walking the line” that comes with ringleading such an audience-driven event.
“I love controlling the audience, and walking that line, whether they’re going to like you or not like you. And just working without a net, that live response, that whole thing of trying different things on stage and calling audibles and changing up and going this way with it,” says James, a comic for 11 years.
James, who was born in Mineola, N.Y., and who got into comedy after going to clubs with his comedian brother, Gary Valentine, doesn’t make a distinction between being an actor who does stand-up and a comic who acts. He considers himself first and foremost a comedian, a trait that he also shares with TV stars/comics like Romano, Foxx, Carey, and “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno.
“I love stand-up,” he says, “and if I never got to be on my TV show, I had the stand-up to fall back on and I wouldn’t be disappointed.”
There are some comics who have turned their backs on stand-up in favor of acting. James has no problem with that. In fact, he now says he loves emoting, and that “if it were taken away from me, because I know what it’s about, I would be very disappointed.”
But James hasn’t forgotten where he came from, and why he got into it in the first place — to make people laugh, not to pretend to be a character on a sitcom.
“A lot of those people use comedy to get to another place, as a vehicle to get you there, as opposed to do what you were doing and loving it. I never stopped loving standup.”
Pretty boys need not apply: As if “Ebert & Roeper and the Movies” hosts Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper needed the work, they’ve been selected to join a panel of other film reviewers on the new AMC series “Critics Picks.” Debuting at 7 p.m. Thursday, it will feature the pair, along with former “Sneak Previews” co-host Jeffrey Lyons, “Good Morning America’s” Joel Siegel and the New York Times’ Janet Maslin, in introducing critically acclaimed films.
Don’t adjust your screen: NBC’s “ER” is keeping the widescreen look that it originally instituted during the November sweeps and employed after sweeps was over. The look — where the top and lower portions of the screen are blacked out to show more of the overall scenes themselves — has resulted in a more cinematically enhanced approach to the series, including more stylized camera shots.
Two previous crime series, CBS’ “Feds” in 1997 and ABC’s “C-16” in 1997-98, shot in widescreen, but it didn’t help either of them to stick around. Obviously, TV’s top-rated drama doesn’t have that problem.
Now, if the show can come up with more interesting story lines than the tired “Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) has a brain tumor” plot, and use more of Maura Tierney, whose world-weary nurse Abby Lockhart has effortlessly replaced Carol Hathaway (Juilanna Margulies) as the soul of the series.
Castoff cast back: “Semper Fi,” a Steven Spielberg-produced pilot about a bunch of Marine recruits that NBC begged off turning into a series last year, will air on Feb. 4. It was to run this month, but the network decided to show it during the February sweeps in place of “Women of Camelot,” a mini-series on the wives of the Kennedy brothers that was bumped to March.
Order for the Court: Court TV is planning to produce a series of original movies that deal with the criminal justice system. The cable network isn’t turning its back on its staple of crime-related documentaries, however: its “Brooklyn North” reality special about a group of real-life New York detectives did very well for the network. Two more installments will air in April, and there is talk of sequels.
Coming up: CBS has two new mini-series set for the May sweeps: “Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story,” a Jim Henson Television production with Matthew Modine as the great-great-great-grandson of the first Jack, who has to take a climb to right wrongs of his family, and “Blonde,” with Poppy Montgomery as Norma Jean Baker in a fictionalized account of her famous alter ego, Marilyn Monroe.
