Memories From the Set: Comedy Great Richard Kind Looks Back on Mad About You, Spin City, Scrubs, Curb and More
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In these polarizing times, we can all agree on one thing: Richard Kind is a national treasure.
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The veteran character actor has been a beloved small-screen staple for more than three decades now, with a chummy yet persnickety persona that makes every TV show he appears on just a little bit better. Kind has had key roles on long-running hits like Mad About You and Spin City, but he’s also made dozens of memorable guest appearances over the years, and he just logged another one of those earlier this month on NBC’s Night Court, playing Sy Hoffman, a washed-up Broadway producer and a hilarious thorn in the side of John Larroquette’s Dan Fielding.
So when TVLine recently spoke with Kind about his Night Court role, we took the opportunity to let him reminisce about his storied TV career, from his first breakout role on a Carol Burnett sketch comedy series to his ongoing appearances on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and everything in between — including an appearance in a Sharknado sequel that he barely seems to remember. Read on to get Kind’s recollections of filming some of his best-known roles, and be sure to hit the comments to share your favorite Richard Kind TV credits.
Carol & Company
Kind’s first breakout role was on this NBC sketch comedy series led by the legendary Carol Burnett. Debuting in 1990 and running for two seasons, the series boasted a promising ensemble that included not only Kind but future Emmy winner Jeremy Piven and Terry Kiser, of Weekend at Bernie’s fame.
“We had a magnificent cast. That was a challenging show. I call it The Twilight Zone for comedy, because it was an anthology series, and every week, you had a half-hour play, and in a play, you have to introduce characters, tell them what the problem is, see the problem and then resolve it. All with about six or seven people, the center usually being Carol. That’s a difficult proposition. But I would say 62 percent of the time, it was really good. Like The Twilight Zone. There were some clunkers on The Twilight Zone. They were not all perfect. And there were one or two where people, to this day, come up to me and quote some of those things. They probably were kids home on a Saturday night.”
Mad About You
Kind co-starred with Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt on the hit NBC sitcom, playing Mark, the doctor pal of New York newlyweds Paul and Jamie, and reprised the role in the 2019 revival.
“That was a lovely show. The two of them were brilliant. I used to call myself parsley on a plate of meat and potatoes. But I didn’t really do any after the second season. I wasn’t invited back, believe it or not. And then later on, about Season 7 or 8, I came back and did a few guest spots. But I had gone off to do Spin City.”
Spin City
Kind appeared in every episode as press secretary Paul Lassiter on this ABC sitcom, which debuted in 1996 with Michael J. Fox starring as deputy mayor Mike Flaherty.
“I did four years with Michael, who I adored. Still adore. I still keep in touch. He’s just one of the most marvelous men… if you’ve seen the documentary they did on him [Apple TV+’s Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie], it showed how brave, how funny, how talented, how smart [he is]… He’s everything you want to be, except shorter.”
When Fox had to leave the series after Season 4 due to complications from his Parkinson’s disease, Charlie Sheen took over as new deputy mayor Charlie Crawford.
“I’m gonna tell you something, and this is going to be antithetical to the Charlie that you know, or that is now famous: Charlie was a true gentleman. He was faithful to the job. He had [co-creator] Gary David Goldberg as a father figure, which is something that he really, really cherishes. He came to work first the first day, lines memorized. He was grateful, always on time, doing his work. He never flubbed lines. He never cracked up. He was a consummate, consummate professional. Great, wily sense of humor. And I adored Charlie in those days. I will also tell you: He definitely did not do drugs during those years. Definitely. Gary would have been very upset, and he did not want to upset Gary. Gary was truly his father figure, and I have had those in my life, professionally: those who you don’t want to disappoint. He lived to show Gary that he was good. It was unbelievable. It’s almost sad, when you think of what happened. He was like Mike Tyson was with his trainer, Cus D’Amato. When Cus D’Amato died, Mike Tyson just crumbled. The same was true with Gary.”
Scrubs
Kind appeared in four episodes of the NBC medical comedy as hypochondriac patient Harvey Corman.
“Bill Lawrence, who co-created Spin City, and Tim Hobert, they liked me. And they knew I did comedy, and it’s so easy to plug a patient into a hospital. So when they had something, they sent it my way. And that’s what I did.”
Sharknado 2: The Second One
Kind played former baseball player Harland “The Blaster” McGuinness in the 2014 Syfy sequel — although, when asked about it today, he’s not even sure if his character was eaten by a shark or not.
“I don’t remember! Are you kidding? You show up for two hours to the Mets stadium, you do what they want you to do, and then you go home. It’s years ago. I never saw it!”
Big Mouth
On the raunchy Netflix animated comedy, Kind provides the voice for Marty Glouberman, the often-enraged father of puberty-stricken teen Andrew, played by John Mulaney.
“You read the page, and you give them three temperatures of rage: You give them full-on, then you give them half and you give them subtle. And they pick what they want. But [co-creator] Nick Kroll, he’s an absolute doll. Close to a genius. You know what? He and John Mulaney are geniuses. And they’re gentlemen. So it starts with two G-E-N’s: They’re geniuses, and they’re gentlemen. And they’re genteel, even though their comedy can be very biting. I cannot talk highly enough about both of them. And I’m grateful to be with them, whenever I’m working or whenever I’m in their company.”
John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch
Kind appeared alongside Mulaney again in this 2019 Netflix comedy special, most memorably in a segment titled “Girl Talk With Richard Kind,” where the actor takes questions from a group of precocious young girls.
“I loved talking to those girls. They were charming little lovely people. John is just somebody who likes me, and I love him, and I get the joke. John is smart enough to write a joke. Do you get it? Can you use your imagination and enhance the joke he wrote? I’m lucky. I can, and he likes me. Have you ever seen [the Documentary Now! episode] ‘Co-op’? ‘Co-op’ is a piece of brilliance. That was the heights. But I got the joke. He had seen me in plays and lots of stuff, because theater is what I love to do. So he cast me in Sack Lunch Bunch.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Kind has appeared in eight episodes of the HBO comedy, starting in Season 3, as Larry’s cousin Andy.
“That was a recurring role, and every time I got to show up was just one of the highlights of my week. I just loved being with those people. Jeff Garlin is one of my dearest friends. He’s one of the funniest people I know. Larry… it goes beyond. How do you sum up that man? And for how many seasons… it’s crazy. I don’t know how he does it. I simply don’t. I once saw him years before Seinfeld, or just a year before Seinfeld, and I asked him what he was doing. That was on the golf course. And then later on, I asked him if he was a chess prodigy. Because he thinks three to four steps ahead of what we’re thinking of. So he presents a problem that he knows will be resolved within the story that he’s presented, many, many scenes later. Resolving a scene is one thing, but resolving a story so much later on… He did it on Seinfeld, with three or four storylines about the characters. They never intersected until the end, and they all had an effect on each other. I still marvel at them.”
East New York
Kind co-starred as police captain Stan Yenko on the CBS drama, which was cancelled after one season — and which, unfortunately, this reporter has never seen.
“Did you see East New York? You write about TV, but you didn’t write about East New York?… Then I blame you for its cancellation.”
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