Prior to his amazing portrayal of the late great Jackie Gleason in 2002 and his long running stint on Everybody Loves Raymond, comedian Brad Garrett was among the crop of up and coming young comedians in the '80s that started out on the stand-up circuit with the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, David Spade, and more. When Everybody Loves Raymond closed its doors in 2005, it didn't take long for Garrett to find sitcom success for a second time on Fox in 'Til Death where he plays he plays Eddie Stark, the cynical, emotionally flat-lined husband of actress Joely Fisher.

As 'Til Death makes its Season 3 return on Wednesday, September 10 at 9pm on Fox, our own Troy Rogers sat in on a conference call with journalists where he did his own improv with Brad Garrett to get the goods on the upcoming season of 'Til Death. As an added bonus, Garrett also filled everyone in on the September 15 Crackle.com premiere of his new online reality series called Dating Brad Garrett, which sees the 6'8 tall funny man head out on a number of blind dates with unknown women to see what type of hilarity can ensue.

THE DEADBOLT: In between seasons, is there anything you do to get to know Eddie a little more? Or by the end of the first season, do you know him inside and out?

BRAD GARRETT: I have to tell you, it took me a couple seasons to really get to know Eddie. How I played him early on, I wasn’t in love with it, I felt he had to be tempered a little bit. And I felt he had to be a little more vulnerable and a little more open, so I’m always tweaking him. It’s funny, he’s closest to myself as anything I’ve ever played and if I could just keep that into it and spice him with a little bit of humanity.

I feel that the last part of season two, the last part of last year where I had that swimming episode where I learned to swim because I wanted to do something great for Joy, take her to Hawaii where she always wanted to go, that’s really where the guy lives. He’s really just a big kid with crazy ideas and schemes to get to that next place in his life where he thinks he belongs, where he can make a better life for Joy.

That’s the wheelhouse where I want to keep Eddie, and I think it’s - Joely hit this role when she was playing Joy, she hit it out of the gate, immediately. She knew who she was and I came from playing such a very different part for nine years that it was important that this one was as different as it could be from Robert, but still had the quality of believability and who I was.

THE DEADBOLT: From your early days of stand-up and appearing on Carson, is there anything that has stayed with you that helps you on ‘Til Death?

GARRETT: Sitcoms are great for people with stand-up roots because you’re in front of that live audience. I think the fear I had when I was on The Tonight Show at 24, you get through a night like that, regardless of how the set goes, and the set was okay, you get this feeling of, "Wow, I could almost do anything."

I walked out on Carson, I did this, and it’s all a matter of - to this day, I have anxiety. To this day, I get worried or nervous, it never, ever leaves you, but you just get better at it. That’s what I learned. I look at what I did on Carson when I was 24 and I thought, "Oh my god, I couldn’t do those jokes if there was a gun to my head today."

The key is to always grow and always get better, always risk and do things that scare you, like the prostate thing. I know it sounds crazy, I was scared, nervous to death. But you know, you get away from something like that, and it’s literally about conquering the fear, which makes you just a better performer, whether you’re a painter, a singer, or an actor, really.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Brad Garrett on whether he thinks Eddie and Joy will always be together on 'Til Death:

"I don’t really know if that’s what we want to do on the show. I’m sure we’re going to address how a marriage can evolve or doesn’t evolve, and I think we may have a bump or two along the way. I don’t know if we’re really going to get to where we’re exploring single life, per se, but you never know, they do have a lot of interesting stories coming up, and I think maybe one of us may, but I don’t know if it would be where we’re both out and about. I think we have more of a kind of relationship with that.

"We’re very vocal about it, we’re very expressive, and even though we seem to be yapping and nipping at each other’s heels a lot, we do express it and get it out and I think it’s the couples that don’t do that, that really have the biggest risk of looking outside the marriage."

On how Dating Brad Garrett came about:

"Yes, we have one spot available. Actually, it’s important for people to understand that this isn’t Brad Garrett looking for love; this is Brad Garrett really making a window around what it’s like when a guy going through a semi-midlife crisis is out there in the playing field of the single world, that’s really what this is.

"These are real participants. It has been a very humbling process. The Website has been up and running for a couple months and out of all the women in the country who felt they might possibly want to go out with me, only 27 women uploaded their video. One was a guy, and one was a bear. This is very true; you can go to the Website and see it. It has not only been humbling, but it kind of gives you an idea of what hurdles I have in real life dating.

"What it really is, it’s just me going out with various women, with various ideas and attitudes and wishes and dreams, like all single people have and how I either berate them or try to get to know them or vice versa. It’s really just the anti-Bachelor, is really what it is, it’s the realistic take of a bachelor."

Garrett on what's to come this season on 'Til Death, including how his neighbors have moved:

"The neighbors have moved on to different projects, to be honest, and sometimes when you start a television show, you really don’t know what it’s about until you get into it. We have discovered the strength of the show really seems to be the chemistry that Joely and I, fortunately, have been able to captivate over the last couple of years.

"Joely and I had never worked together; we didn’t really know each other. When she came in to read for the part, it was really, really instant, and we’re just trying to focus on that marriage, and then have characters that kind of come in and out of our lives, like J.B. Smoove, who has been a wonderful addition who is back for a full season this year as well. Our daughter has just been cast as Lauren Storm who is terrific; Tim Sharp is coming back as her boyfriend. We’re doing a lot of exploring, but at the end of last season, as the end of year two, I think we really started to kind of get our momentum and we’re really trying to see what the show’s about."

On the origins of the idea of Dating Brad Garrett:

"It actually started one day, I had a meeting regarding ‘Til Death and I went in there, and the night before, I had a disastrous date, and I started talking about it to a couple of executives over there. We just started laughing and talking about what it’s really like to be a semi-celebrity, if you will, living in a single world with 30-something to 40-something year old women. It was really just a very odd date and we started laughing about it.

"I said, 'You know, because I’m not big on reality shows because most of them aren’t realistic.' My thing was I would like to just take a camera, go out on a date, go to a restaurant, have totally every single date was non-scripted, and just show what it’s like, as much as we can, to be on a date on this day and time, with a sense of reality of what it really is. A lot of it’s really my humor, my cynicism, my take on marriage, and we throw these poor innocent women in the middle of it. Some of them are really funny and some of them couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and a couple followed me home and not in a good way, kind of in a stalker way."

Garrett on what he's ideally looking for in a woman:

"Someone who won’t run to the authorities, someone who understands that I’m just a big kid who has trouble growing up. It’s a sweat, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m a strong cup of coffee, at least that’s what the shrink keeps telling me. I’m open, we have one slot left, I don’t know what you’re looking for, but if you don’t have much pride and dignity, I could be the guy for you. Oh, she hung up, that’s not a good sign.

Garrett's most memorable moment from Dating Brad Garrett:

"From the show, I have to tell you, gosh, I know this sounds like a debacle, it was kind of like a dream date for me. What happened is there was one lady; actually, she was the last date we filmed. Ironically, she was picked by my mother on the panel, to be a good date for me, and she was a very attractive gal. A little Hollywood as far as her various parts, I felt, had a lot of work done. Do you know what I’m saying - which is totally fine. I, personally, believe in evolution and I welcome it, hence the way I look.

"We started talking about why women feel that augmentation is so important, and how I felt it was very sexy and attractive for a woman to really be who she is. I found that acceptance of someone to not change their body was kind of cool and the whole thing and we started talking about her attributes, if you will. It kind of got a little defensive in one way and she ended up exposing her 'blouse clowns'. That was kind of off the wall, even for a guy like me, I was quite taken aback, and we’re engaged. No, I’m kidding, we’re not engaged, there’s a paternity suit and a restraining order. That was kind of off the wall, nobody expected that."

Why people should keep tuning in to watch ‘Til Death:

"I think because it’s - hopefully, they see themselves in this relationship. The majority of people that are married, or in a relationship, are trying to make it work - the majority, I’m going to say 90% of people that are involved with someone. It takes a certain amount of work, and I think when viewers can see themselves in a relationship or different colors that their relationship has, I think it’s a feeling of comfort. It’s a feeling of, 'Yeah, this is okay. This is what I’m going through. Oh my gosh, my husband just did what Eddie did. Or my wife did something that Joy did.' That’s why we keep the mantra I learned from the Raymond people, which I’ve tried to bring over here is - Can this really happen? And if we keep the writing and the performances within the realm of everyday reality with relationships then whether something is funny or not, if it’s real and believable, we’re halfway home. I’m hoping people find themselves in these characters."