Long-Lost CBS Sitcom Crossover Footage Unearthed

The shared scenes between The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker, and Cosby haven't been seen in over 25 years.

In 1999, CBS hoped to drum up viewership for sweeps with a four-show stunt: cross-pollinating its entire Monday night comedy lineup. But while two of those shows remain some of the most syndicated sitcoms today, the results of the crossover between The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker, and Cosby went missing from history following their broadcast.

In the years since, errant episode synopses on streaming services and DVD box sets have touted guest appearances that don’t exist—something that has caused confusion among casual viewers.

Now, thanks to an enterprising Youtuber, some of those scenes can be viewed for the first time in over a quarter of a century.

Read on for a history of CBS’ “Shameless Crossover Mondays” — and to see the as-broadcast scenes between Kevin James, Ray Romano, Ted Danson, and Bill Cosby that have lived in obscurity since 1999.

What was CBS Crossover Monday?

“You won’t believe what happens when four comedy giants appear on one show…” the promo touted. While it’s no stretch to say that was an oversell, the idea was an attractive one: CBS had declared November 16, 1998, “Shameless Crossover Monday.”

Conceived for sweeps, the stunt was nothing new: a crossover between multiple CBS sitcoms. (For instance, exactly a year prior, Cosby hosted an Everybody Loves Raymond crossover.) But CBS was gung-ho to make the most of this crossover, and the results were decent. Three out of the network’s four Monday-night sitcoms took part.

On Shameless Crossover Monday, Cosby kicked off the crossing of worlds with “Judgement Day,” which features The King of Queens’ delivery man lead Doug Heffernan (Kevin James) delivering Hilton Lucas (Bill Cosby) a package. Since Cosby’s lesser known sitcom resides in relative obscurity these days, Doug Heffernan’s turn on Cosby isn’t often seen. Take a look below.

At 8:30, The King of Queens kicked it up a notch with “Rod Rayge,” which featured a major guest spot from Ray Romano, as well as appearances from Brad Garrett and Peter Boyle, as their Raymond characters. At 9, the Raymond episode “The Lone Barone” found Ray awaiting a deliveryman. That delivery man was, again, Doug (not to be confused with Kevin James’ earlier recurring Raymond character, Kevin). But the crossover lost steam again there, with Doug and the Barone brothers only sharing the screen in a single scene.

At 9:30, the Ted Danson doctor sitcom Becker did its own thing, no inkling of a crossover seen nor heard. Why? Probably because the show was still finding its footing. It was just three episodes into its run, having replaced the short-lived Brian Benben Show. (Had Benben still been on the air, a crossover would have proved difficult: while the other four shows took place in New York, Benben’s show was set in Los Angeles.)

CBS must have been happy enough with the results of its big sweeps event night, because in May, the network decided to double down for their next sweeps period, dubbing May 3, 1999, “Even More Shameless Crossover Monday.”

This time, they said, all four shows would take part. What’s more: The character crossovers would build over the course of the night: Hilton Lucas crossing paths with Doug Heffernan, the both of them encountering Ray Barone—all in the waiting room of one Dr. John Becker, who would join them in an episode of Becker for the night’s grand finale.

Indeed, the idea as advertised sounded like a big undertaking. But what resulted was, in a way, more of a half measure: At best, some misleading advertising. At worst, a poorly executed collection of scenes that lightly entertained fans but muddied the timeline of each individual episode’s plots, then had the audacity to remove itself from the annals and archives of television and linger in obscurity following its initial broadcast—robbing die-hard fans of the content forever more, but dangling carrots of misinformation in front of them.

Dramatic? Maybe. But crossovers are serious business. As Doc Brown would say, “the time continuum had been disrupted, creating a new temporal event sequence resulting in this alternate reality.” Not handled properly, crossovers can result in major casualties: the tragic loss of content.

Here’s the deal: Despite the increased character interactions, Even More Shameless Crossover Monday dialed back the sitcom cross-pollination a whole lot. For the most part, the crossover scenes were glorified interstitials, tacked onto the closing moments of each show’s episode.

At the end of Cosby, Hilton winds up at Dr. Becker’s office. At the end of an otherwise irrelevant episode of The King of Queens, Doug winds up there, too. (Case in point: Doug was hit by a foul ball at a baseball game—something that wasn’t a part of the episode at all.) Cosby’s Hilton is still there, confirming that this waiting room narrative has its own timeline. At the end of Everybody Loves Raymond—again a completely separate narrative—Ray shows up at Dr. Becker’s as well, chatting it up with his pal Doug.

Becker breaks the format for the finale, opening its episode with those three guys still in the waiting room. The show’s opening credits even roll, and after, we’re still back in the waiting room, where Dr. Becker finally appears. But following that scene, the episode’s actual (unrelated) plot begins, sans Hilton, Ray, and Doug.

After Even More Shameless Crossover Monday, each of those crossover scenes would seldom be seen again. Perhaps it was because the legal ownership of those scenes was unclear; maybe it’s because the scenes are (even more) narratively out of place when not viewed as a whole. For whatever reason, the crossovers were excised for all home media and streaming releases of the four sitcoms. (Aside from shifting up the shows’ end credits, there was minimal editing needed. In Becker’s case, the revised version of the episode begins with the opening titles and cuts right to the scene that followed the crossover’s finale.)

But while the content ushered itself toward the scrap heap, its legacy lived on and birthed confusion. Still today, synopses of these shows on episode guides and streaming services bear vestiges of the lost storylines, misleading first-time viewers into expecting guest appearances that never come. (One of these synopses even made its way into the liner notes of a King of Queens Season 1 DVD.)

A sampling of the misinfo:

Well, now this muddied sitcom history can be cleared up once and for all. Here now are two of the three crossover scenes that made up CBS’ Even More Shameless Crossover Monday.

The below scene aired just before 9pm as the ending to the King of Queens (“Where’s Poppa?”), leading into Everybody Loves Raymond (“Be Nice”). The second crossover moment of the night, you’ll notice Cosby’s Hilton Lucas has already crossed over at this point.

And these scenes aired at 9:30pm as Raymond rolled into Becker. Note how Raymond’s credits are already rolling, putting all of these scenes squarely in Becker territory.

CBS’ crossover stunts continued long after the ‘Shameless Crossover’ moniker went away. To wit: The King of Queens would bring Ray back three more times during its run, and Doug paid another visit to Everybody Loves Raymond. More safely housed within an episode proper, those crossover scenes remain intact everywhere.

Now, those moments can be joined in the annals of television history by two more. If only I could figure out whether or not these crossover scenes are canon…