Move Set For 'King Of Queens'

The hit sit-com "The King Of Queens," a Monday night mainstay on CBS, is moving to Wednesday nights.

Looking slimmed, the show's star, Kevin James, stopped by The Early Show to talk about the new night and the new season which opens next week.

"We're going to Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m., which a little scary for us. I feel like a kid going off to college, like in 'Everybody Loves Raymond,'" James tells co-anchor Harry Smith. "But I'm looking forward to it and CBS has a lot of confidence in the show, so I'm excited."

"The King of Queens" first appeared on CBS in the fall of 1998. In its five seasons, it has dominated its Monday night at 8 p.m. time slot.

Asked what his reaction was when he heard the news from Les Moonves, James quipped, "I threw up and wet myself immediately, but I do that every morning so it was just another Tuesday for me when he called. No. You know, I was nervous. But, yet, you're excited. I'm excited that it's 9:00, which is a little later and more viewers at 9:00."

James noted the later time slot might provide the show with more adult viewers. He says, "We're not going to change the show that much really. I don't think we're too racy before; we're not going to do that. But, now, you get more viewers at that time. A lot of people say, 'We can't catch your show because we are feeding the kids and putting them to bed,' so hopefully we'll catch viewers we haven't had before."

As for his new, slimmer figure, James says, "I had to drop weight for an episode. They wanted the tables to kind of turn, you know, with Leah Remini. It's always been a balance of the big guy and the hot wife so they wanted me to try to get in shape and it's been difficult. I dropped like 45 pounds and I'm still fat."

So how did he do it? He joked, "I just ate bacon. It's all bacon all of the time, bacon and Kool-Aid. I recommend it highly. Just a new combination. It's a new diet out there."

Asked if losing weight has changed his personality, James says, "Yeah. Now I become slightly more arrogant as I walk around. I just look at people and go, 'You know what? I'm still chubby, but I'm thinner' is what I kind of do. No, no. I'm going to blow up in about a week anyway. I'll be back up to 450 pounds, like those guys that say, lost it all and trashed all of their friends and a month later, they're the size of a van."

James is part of what some TV columnists have described as a trend toward pairing husky husbands with knockout babes (James Belushi, Drew Carey, Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue and now Mark Addy who is paired with Jamie Gertz on the CBS Series "Still Standing"). The critics speculate that sitcom creators may be appealing to the average Joe in the audience who wants to believe that it doesn't take much to "land a babe."

In real life, James is single, but has a girlfriend he has been with for a couple years. They were introduced by his interior decorator who is a friend of hers. They went on a blind date and it worked out. He describes her as a pretty girl who's certainly "out of his league."

He jokes about difficulties in finding a girlfriend in Los Angeles who isn't dating him just because he has his own TV show. He jokes that he usually would test them by saying, "So, I'm thinking about giving up the TV show and starting my own T-shirt business."

Before landing the part in "King of Queens," James had a recurring role in "Everybody Loves Raymond" as one of Ray's buddies.

James was born and raised on Long Island. He is 37 years old.