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Mike & Molly" is the biggest new comedy of the TV season.
No pun intended.
While it's a show about the relationship between two overweight people, it's really about the relationship, not the weight.
"Television would normally have cast Chris O'Donnell and Courteney Cox as the people who meet at Overeaters Anonymous," said executive producer Chuck Lorre. "But in this case we had the courage and, I think, the wisdom to cast people that are just people."
The show's two stars, Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthey, are overweight. Obviously. But series creator and executive producer Mark Roberts says he didn't set out to write a show about people with weight issues.
"I wanted to write a show about two people at the beginning of a relationship. That was the part of it that intrigued me the most. It's just a show about people with problems."
It's certainly not the first time a television comedy has featured an overweight star. From Jackie Gleason on "The Honeymooners" to Roseanne Barr and John Goodman on "Roseanne," there have been plenty of big sitcom stars.
And Roberts sees "Mike & Molly" (Mondays, 8:30 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2) — about a beat cop and a schoolteacher — as a throwback to those working-class comedies.
"The reason I wanted to do a show like this was to get real people back on TV," he said. "Most of the stuff on TV seems pretty unrealistic to me. People dress really nice, and their apartments are really nice. And I don't buy any of their problems."
Whereas Mike and Molly are middle-class folks who are struggling to find personal happiness.
"They're trying to make their lives better and find someone that they can love and be loved by," Roberts said. "And it may be odd for television, but I hope it's reflective of some kind of reality that people will experience."
"Mike & Molly" is not a documentary. It's a traditional sitcom, filmed in front of a studio audience.
It's one of the few real hits to debut this fall. It's averaging about 12 million viewers a week, and its viewership has grown since it premiered.
There has already been a shift in the show's humor. The pilot was replete with fat jokes — many of them self-deprecating shots by Mike. That has fallen off as the weeks have gone by.
"If we're talking about this issue come Episode 6, we've got a serious problem because it would get tired really quickly," Lorre said. "It's not enough to hang a series on, not by any stretch of the imagination. Mothers, sons, fathers, lovers, friends, money, health, work — those are the things you write about."
The weight jokes won't disappear completely.
"We're fat. The show's funny," Gardell said. "I don't know what else to say about that."