Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Inside Schwartz: Cast Photo

Inside Schwartz aired from September 2001 until January 2002 on NBC.

Young, Mild-mannered Adam ( Breckin Meyer) was the vice president of marketing for his dad's sandwich chain, The Pita Factory but his passion was sports. He had an occasional gig as announcer for a minor-league baseball team, but ever optimistic, hoped for bigger things. Unfortunately it didn't look like he would get much help from his incompetent agent , a black dude named William Morrris ( Dondre T. Whitfield). Get it? Eve ( Maggie Lawson) was his former girlfriend , who had dumped him , though he hoped to get back together; Julie ( Miriam Shor), his smart, sardonic pal at Dad's offices; David ( Bryan Callen), a sex-obsessed friend; and Emily ( Jennifer Irwin), David's put-upon wife. Gene ( Richard Kline) was Adam's clueless , gregarious father, who wanted Adam to stay in the sandwich biz.

Sports was such a passion for Adam that he imagined his entire life as a sports contest, complete with fantasy announcers " calling" the progress of his dates and other interactions, and plenty of sports lingo ( " I took a few shots to the head this week, but I'm still in the game"). Each episode opened with real-life commentators Van Earl Wright and Kevin Frazier on a Sportscenter-style set, setting the scene; sometimes they would then walk into the middle of scenes ( unseen by the participants) and " call the play"there as well. Guest sports celebrities like Dick Butkus, Mills Lane , and Bill Walton also appeared to comment.

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

SERIES DEBUT 8:30-9PM INSIDE SCHWARTZ (NBC, TV-14) What sounds like a Catskills porno flick is actually another crappy Thursday-at-8:30 sitcom for NBC. Breckin Meyer (above center) plays a wannabe sports announcer whose thoughts are played out via color commentary by semi-famous former athletes (think SportsCenter meets a less-funny Herman's Head). But if you thought watching Bill Buckner trying to act was painful, just wait till you catch the imaginary referee who follows single guy Meyer around, calling inane penalties such as ''illegal use of tongue; loss of second date.'' More like loss of second viewing. D+

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 11, 2001

Q&A
Wild About Larry
EW talks to Richard Kline about his role on NBC's ''Inside Schwartz''

By John Sellers

He's put away the leisure suits and his hair's gone gray, but it's still easy to recognize Richard Kline, best known as sleazy neighbor Larry Dallas on ''Three's Company.'' The former sitcom womanizer, now 50, is back on the boob tube playing Breckin Meyer's daft dad on NBC's new post-''Friends'' sitcom ''Inside Schwartz.'' ''I see him at work and say, 'Hey, I saw you last night on ''Three's Company.'' It was a great episode where there was a misunderstanding!''' jokes Meyer. Here, we subject Kline to even more good-natured ribbing. Work with us, Lar!

You inspired a generation of horndogs. What do you have to say for yourself? Get a life! So many guys come up to me and say, ''You're my hero, man!'' And I go, ''Oh, I'm your hero because you come on to women, you borrow money, and you get your friends in trouble?'' Hello?

Did your contract require you to expose at least 10 chest hairs per episode? Larry was known as a three-button guy, meaning you had to open three buttons on your shirt. And you had to blow-dry the chest hair before every performance. I had a normal hairdresser and then a guy that came in and blow-dried my chest hair. I'm just making that up, but you can put that in.

The 25th anniversary of ''Three's Company'' is next spring. What would Larry be up to now? He'd be married to Rosie O'Donnell, and basically he'd be carrying her bags. He'd be totally under the thumb of a domineering wife.

Were you as swingin' as Larry in your heyday? Playing Larry was like fulfilling some bizarre male fantasy of going up to any girl...which I could never do in high school because I was always the short guy. I didn't grow until my sophomore year in college. I was not very successful with girls.

What advice do you, Larry Legend, give the young cast of ''Inside Schwartz?'' Don't buy your house yet.

What runs through your mind when you watch ''Three's Company'' reruns on Nick at Nite? I miss my hair! You know me as a young guy, 10 pounds lighter, 5 more pounds of hair, and now you'll see me as an old guy. It will freak you out.

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on November 21, 2001

Television News
'Inside' Job
The benched NBC sports-themed sitcom will return after November sweeps

By Lynette Rice

Hmm, do we sense a trend here? Similar to what happened to the Steven Weber comedy last February, NBC is using the November sweeps to give its post-''Friends'' sitcom ''Inside Schwartz'' a much-needed time-out. Though ''Schwartz,'' about an aspiring sportscaster (Breckin Meyer) with an athletics-themed fantasy life, remains the highest-rated new comedy among adults 18–49, the Peacock wants producers to start retooling. Explains NBC's head of current programming Ted Frank, ''Our sense was that the show needed to make some course corrections... based on our reactions and what research was saying.''

As a result, the fantasy sequences and sports-figure cameos have been scaled way back to give ''Schwartz'' a more ''universal appeal.'' But even Frank admits that it's an uphill battle to keep viewers tuned in at 8:30 p.m. ''This show is in a Dickens time period -- it's the best of time periods and the worst of time periods. You have the greatest lead-in, but 'Friends' is so hot this season, you could even [air] any game of the World Series and it still would be falling off from 'Friends.''' Unless Rachel was throwing out the first pitch.

For a Webpage dedicated to Breckin Meyer go to http://the-grand-panjandrum.tripod.com/breckin.html

For a Webpage dedicated to Breckin Meyer go to http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/7739/breckin.html

For The Official Site of Richard Kline go to http://www.richardkline.net/main.shtml

For a Website dedicated to Maggie Lawson go to http://www.maggielawson.net/

For Bryan Callen's Official Website go to http://www.bryancallen.com/