Who Played Drew Carey's Rarely-Seen Boss In The First Season Of His Show?

For most people, Nigel Wick (Craig Ferguson) is who comes to mind when someone mentions Drew Carey's boss on "The Drew Carey Show," but he wasn't there at the start of the series. Mr. Wick appeared in 185 episodes from Season 2 on, but Drew's boss in Season 1 was Gerald Bell (Kevin Pollak). Mr. Bell made eight off-screen appearances before being shown in the season finale. Prior to that, he was only heard on the phone or through his open office door, which faced the back of Drew's desk chair.

After a season of verbally abusing Drew, Mr. Bell was fired by Winfred-Lauder's new owner Paul Van Houten (Victor Raider-Wexler) in the season's 22nd episode, and skulked out of his office to cheers from the studio audience. As Drew looks on in shock, Mr. Bell quips, "You're acting like you've never seen me before," before going on to take a few more shots at Drew's intelligence and ambition on his way out of the building. Mr. Wick made his first appearance on Season 2, Episode 2, and the show carried on through Season 9 with him running the department store.

Pollak's role as Mr. Bell was never meant to be highly involved. "I had known Drew Carey for a long time, and he asked me to do him this favor of being the voice of his boss," Pollak explained to Chattanoogan.com in 2005. Since the character primarily existed as a voice on the other end of a call, he didn't even have to be on set; instead, he could simply phone his lines in to be recorded. "I thought it was a good gag," Carey recalled while guesting on "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show."

However, the setup couldn't last forever. Due to the popularity of Mr. Bell, ABC wanted him to finally show up on camera. Carey called Pollak partway through the season and explained the situation, joking that hiring the comedian for on-screen work would likely have been too expensive — so they came up with the solution of firing the character. As Pollak told Carey on his show, "[It] was a great thrill after doing the voice of him for the first season to actually walk out with my cardbox box full of Mr. Bell items."

Pollak broke into television in 1984 on "Hot Flashes," and has since built a long career across television and film. Notably, he made 32 appearances as Moishe Maisel on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" between 2017 and 2023 (including the show's finale), and later popped up in seven episodes of Cedric The Entertainer's sitcom "The Neighborhood" — though his brief stint on Carey's show remains one of his more unusual TV roles.