Carey's got game

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Drew Carey makes a great game-show host, because the guy clearly loves the job.

That will be good for "The Price Is Right" when he takes over that show in the fall; it's good for the new prime-time show "The Power of 10" when it debuts tonight (7 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2).

Carey is obviously having fun as the host of a show that can give away up to $10 million. And, just as obviously, he didn't take the job because he had to.

Hey, the guy is set for life. He did have a hit sitcom ("The Drew Carey Show") and a hit improv show ("Whose Line Is It Anyway?") and he made tons of dough.

While he "loved every minute" of working on those two shows, Carey was tired of being a TV star. Burned out. He liked being an ex-TV star. And he was in no hurry to find a new TV gig.

"I didn't want to do TV ever for the rest of my life," Carey said. I was, 'Screw TV.' Man, I was done with it.... It was just, like, I was on TV enough, man."

It wasn't a great time for Carey. He had heart surgery shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks; his mother died shortly after. His sitcom and "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" both went off in 2004; a permutation of "Whose Line?" — "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show" — lasted only five episodes on The WB that year.

So he was ready to sort of retire. And, unlike so many ex-TV stars who are desperate to return to the limelight, Carey understands that "It's entertainment.

"Any show can disappear. The world's not going to stop. Once this gets out of your life, I was, like, 'Wow. Big deal.' The sun still comes up and, actually, my shoulders are a little lighter. I have a little more pep in my step. I'm sleeping better. I don't have to worry about pleasing people. It was just a great time, and I thought, 'Who needs TV?'

"In my experience there's no one like Drew Carey in show business — no one," said "Power of 10" executive producer Michael Davies.

"You gotta stop that," Carey interjected.

Carey said he genuinely wasn't looking for a new job when "Power" came along. He returned Davies' call only because the producer, who was an ABC executive at the time, championed "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" at the network.

"Believe me, I was having such a good time, like, not (being on TV)," he said. "I traveled and went to Europe and stuff, and I was having such a good time not being on TV. I had all this free time, I had all kinds of money, and people loved me. And I could do stand-up, and people would be really nice to me. I could go to restaurants, and they still recognized me.

"And I had all these benefits of TV, but none of the work or anything like that."