Drew Cam
When the viewers become bored of Drew's life, Kate O'Brien (Christa Miller) is hired to play his girlfriend for the show.
As ABC did not own the online rights to The Drew Carey Show, the company had to work with Warner Bros. Television to produce the webcast.
ABC and Warner Bros. Television hoped to target around 500,000 viewers of the estimated 4 million US households with Internet access that regularly watched the show.
Lewis is called outside by Kate O'Brien (Christa Miller), who shows him a letter she wrote to Drew detailing her love for him.
The following day, Mr. Wick tells Drew that the viewers dislike his boring life and he plans to get a woman to live with him for the show.
[4] When Drew leaves his house, the webcams continue to stream events involving other characters that the television audience does not get to see.
[5] Sequences include: Mr. Wick being tempted into his office by a woman wearing a dominatrix-cowgirl outfit; Ed McMahon bringing Drew a check for $10 million, only to find Drew is not home; the neighborhood dogs holding a party in the kitchen, dancing ghosts re-enacting a murder,[3][5] and Oswald's "Belly Button Theater.
[3] After being given the green light, Helford prepared scenes for the webcast, but most of his ideas rejected by the director, Sam Simon, and Carey himself.
[5] Keeping the connection speeds in mind, Simon got the actors to slow down their movements for the pre-taped webcast, so they would not create a blurry effect on-screen.
[3] Helford, executive producer Deborah Oppenheimer and ABC.com representatives met with Jim Banister and John Kaufman from Warner Bros. to discuss the event in June that year.
"[3] John Geirland of Network World reported that companies spent more than six weeks debating who would host the webcast, how the web traffic would be shared and the details of promotion and advertising the event.
[2][8] Media company RealNetworks entered into negotiations to distribute the webcast, but talks collapsed and ABC and Warner Bros. decided to go with Microsoft instead.
[9] Since "Drew Cam" was going to be broadcast in three time zones, bringing in potentially thousands of online viewers, other partners were brought on board to help out.
[3] Helford predicted the event would be the biggest "in the history of the internet", even outperforming the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show webcast that aired earlier in the year.
[12] It received an 8.6 ratings share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, and was the second highest-rated episode of the fifth season, following "Drew Live", which aired the week before.
Entertainment Weekly's Noah Robischon said the premise "sounds like typical high jinks for The Drew Carey Show.
"[13] Network World's John Geirland concurred, calling the episode "one of the most ambitious experiments in convergence programming to date.
"[15] Tony Davis of The Sydney Morning Herald included the episode in his "TV previews" feature, but gave it a negative review.
