Better Off Ted's Jay Harrington On Finding An Audience

Good to hear. And sometimes the series delves into touchy subjects. Like with last season's episode "Racial Sensitivity," the company develops a water fountain activated by motion sensors but the motion sensors fail to recognize African Americans by some glitch in the technology. So at one point in the show, the company re-installs a manual water fountain with a sign underneath that says "For Blacks Only." Do you ever get squeamish about filming scenes like that?

No, the episode was so well-written and handled so well because it was talking about the ignorance of the technology and it was a direct parallel to the ignorance so the comedy came from the situation and how we reacted that it was wrong. Even Portia's character knew that it was wrong but she did want everyone to know that the technology recognized Asians and Jews. [Laughs] That's really funny stuff. We have an episode coming up that deals with sexual harassment.

With Linda and Merrin Dungey's character?

Right, Merrin was with us last season and is back this season. She is great, I actually worked with her on Summerland. But Linda accidentally harasses her and I try to smooth things over but end up harassing her. [Laughs]

How do you accidentally sexually harass someone?

There's a moment when I told Sheila that Linda was just trying to be friendly. She did not mean it that way. I think you misunderstood. Maybe we should all just go out and get together the three of us, you two girls and me. The three of us could really clear this up. What Portia decides is that the company should treat sexual harassment like a disease, much like alcoholism, and you can't be responsible. So the entire office begins sexually harassing each other. It's like Caligula in the office, everybody's flirting and making out with everyone in the office. It's very funny.

That's brilliant. Do we ever get to meet Ted's ex-wife this season?

Not yet. No. That's something we've talked about but [the writers] are not quite sure what kind of person she was. It's fun to think about what kind of actresses you'd like to play her but at this point, she's sort of like Vera on Cheers, people talk about her but you don't see her.

Well you had Taye Diggs on the season premiere. Do you have any other big guest stars planned for the season?

Well, we have Kyle Bornheimer, who was on Worst Week. He plays a nemesis of mine. Khandi Alexander (NewsRadio) is playing Malcolm Barrett's mother in an upcoming episode ["Battle of the Bulbs", which aired last week]. Eddie McClintock plays my brother.

I heard something about Eddie and a Cadaver of the Month Club.

Yes! The funny thing is that Eddie and I been going up against each other for years for all sorts of stuff so it was fun to actually hang out and work together. We're roughly the same age and have played a lot of the same characters. But he plays my brother, who is kind of down-on-his-luck and I get him a job as a medical supply salesman. And he convinces the manager to buy all sorts of things they have no need for, including a cadaver, and not just one, but one per month. So my character tries to put the fire out there. That's what's been nice about this season. My character is a little less in control as maybe he was last time and I get myself in a little bit more trouble than the previous season.

How many episodes will Ted's brother be in?

He did just one, but it was the last episode of the season. So hopefully when we get renewed, Eddie will be back.

I haven't seen many Better Off Ted advertisements this season. Do you know if ABC has a game plan for promoting the show in January?

Well what they are doing this season, which is pretty big news for us in the last few days, is that ABC is going to air Better Off Ted directly following the Rose Bowl [on January 1 at 8:30 PM EST]. So that will be our first significant lead-in with a huge number to see how we do. Because we've kind of struggled with Tuesday night at 9:30.

Why do you think ABC didn't put Ted on Wednesday nights when they canceled Hank?

My theory is that 8 PM is more of a family-oriented time slot, not that Better Off Ted is not family-oriented, because it certainly is when you bring [Ted's daughter] Rose into the conversation but 8 PM is usually reserved for the show that in ABC's recent past has been According to Jim or George Lopez or Hank. We would certainly love to fit in Wednesday nights but unfortunately there is no room right us now.

It was nice that ABC made all of the Better Off Ted episodes available on Hulu before the season started.

Right, but I still have friends that haven't seen the show. They're not quite sure when it's on, but I'm doing my best to get the word out. I really hope that maybe after the football game, a new set of viewers will get to see Ted. The people that do see the show, stay with it and enjoy it. We don't have a lot of people that watch it and say "That's not for me."

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