Earl is a suicidal office manager in "The One Where Rosita Dies" portrayed by Jason Alexander.
Biography[]
Phoebe gets a new job selling toner over the phone, and Earl is the first person she calls on the job. When she asks why he has rejected her offer, the bitter Earl replies that he doesn't need any toner because he's "going to kill (himself)" He goes on to say that he's stuck in a meaningless, dead-end job and no one even knows he exists.
When Earl hangs up on her, Phoebe decides to go down to his office in person to try and convince him not to kill himself. When she does, it soon becomes clear to her that the ignorance of him displayed by the people in his life around him is driving Earl crazy. Trying to convince him not to kill himself, Phoebe uses her mother's suicide as proof that she "knows about this kind of stuff" and tells Earl it's fate that connected her and him. She then offers some "similarities" between Earl and her mom Lily (though they weren't actually similarities so much as they were stretched truth and lies). Phoebe even tells Earl that her mom's name was Pearl (P-Earl). Earl appears to absorb Phoebe's words when she tells him that he doesn't need any of his uncaring co-workers to pay attention to him-but when he loudly announces this to them all and they ignore him completely, not even looking at him, he can't help but express to Phoebe that he'd like a little bit of attention from them. He is never seen again after this, but considering his apparent newfound friendship with Phoebe, which would presumably have diminished the feelings of loneliness that drove him crazy and caused him to feel suicidal, it is safe to assume that she was successful in her attempts to convince him not to kill himself.
Trivia[]
- Jason Alexander made an appearance in an episode of Friends. Courteney Cox earlier made an appearance in an episode of Seinfeld. Both are prominent sitcoms based in New York.