Who played Ira before John Pankow?
Only one actor has played Paul’s cousin Ira: John Pankow. As a childhood buddy, he serves much the same function on the show as Selby (Paul’s college buddy) did. Introduced in [1.15], Ira as a character has been developed beyond the habitual womanizer/bachelor that Selby portrayed, interacting well with Jamie, Lisa and Fran in season #2 [2.1, 2.7, 2.9]. In season #3, he established a steady relationship with Jamie’s friend Susannah Gould [3.12] and took over his uncle Burt’s sporting goods store [3.5]. Ira still runs the store, but now two seasons later, he is roaming again. The two ‘buddy’ characters share another trait: both get slapped by Paul on the back of the head from time to time. But Ira reacts, both as a kid [2.7] and as an adult [3.2]: “Hey! Watch the hair!” Lately, even Jamie has acquired the habit of slapping Ira on the head [3.22].
