by Ed Bark
TV is trimming the herd of tubby hubbies married to contrastingly curvy babes.
In fact, the species is likely to be extinct by next fall. CBS' The King of Queens airs its milestone 200th episode on Monday, April 9 (8:30 p.m. central, 9:30 eastern), with the series finale set for May 14. And ABC is unlikely to renew According to Jim, the sitcom starring Jim Belushi's oft-bared gut.
Other recent entrants -- Still Standing, Rodney, Listen Up, Daddio -- already have gone belly up. So this could be it for a while, the end of a not so noble sitcom tradition that dates to The Honeymooners, which King of Queens basically is.
Meanwhile, you'll have to look long, hard and futilely for the flip side -- a chunky wife married to a svelte spouse. Roseanne provided one of the very few litmus tests, but she got the even beefier John Goodman.
"We get that all the time," says Kevin James, who stars as Doug Heffernan on King of Queens. But he has a trump card. In real-life, James married fashion model Steffiana de la Cruz in 2004. So he did "pretty well," in his view. Still, James sorta gets why some people might wonder how loudmouthed, bulbous Doug could land a hottie like Carrie (Leah Remini). And why it never works out the other way, at least in prime-time TV land.
