Mimi Bobeck from The Drew Carey Show was the worst sitcom character of all-time. Never before and maybe never again will there be a television character whose presence elicited such passive aggression. It wasn’t that you hated the Winfred-Louder employee or wanted to see Drew get revenge on her. Mostly you just wanted Mimi off your screen.
Nothing the character ever did was remotely funny. You were stuck just counting down the seconds until she wasn’t involved. Mimi was the embodiment of go away heat on a sitcom. I submit the following as evidence:
That clip highlights the biggest problem Mimi had on The Drew Carey Show. You didn’t want to see her get one up on Drew because she was insufferable. But at the same time, you didn’t really care if Drew pulled a fast one on Mimi. Viewers were left there to grin and bear something they didn’t want or ask for.
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Get Mr. Wick in there. Or Oswald. Or Lewis. Or even one of those awful Drew and Kate scenes where they’re dating. Anything was better than Mimi. Shit, a list of Buzz Beer ingredients scrolling on the screen would have been better than having to watch scenes like this:
Creating the worst sitcom character of all-time
Kathy Kinney, the actress who played Mimi, did a fine job. And that is extremely important to note. This wasn’t a case of bad acting. It was simply a terrible role. Of course, that isn’t the only thing making Mimi the worst sitcom character of all-time.
The Drew Carey Show was a perfectly acceptable television show. It was funny at times and is still entertaining to this day. Not good, mind you. But definitely not bad by any means.
This makes it different from terrible sitcoms which are bound to have lots of terrible characters. Shows like the Big Bang Theory, King of Queens and How I Met Your Mother suck, so it’s only natural for everyone on the show to be awful. However, it is difficult to gauge just how bad a character is if the TV show he or she is on blows.
On the other hand, we knew The Drew Carey Show was okay. And we were also privy to the fact just how much scenes with Mimi dragged it down each week. She was there all the time.
This makes Mimi different from some of the other all-time worst sitcom characters. The stupid boom mic operator in The Office only showed up in season nine. Janice was around for a handful of guest spots on Friends. People stopped watching That 70s Show by the time they replaced Eric Foreman. The thing is, you could avoid these characters if you wanted to.
There was no avoiding Mimi Bobeck from The Drew Carey Show. She is without question the worst sitcom character of all-time. At least her presence never ruined this…
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