American television sitcom (1996–2005)
Everybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom created by Philip Rosenthal that aired on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005, with a total of 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. It was produced by Where's Lunch and Worldwide Pants Incorporated, in association with HBO Independent Productions. The cast members were Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts, Peter Boyle, Madylin Sweeten, and Monica Horan. Most episodes of the nine-season series were filmed in front of a live studio audience.
The series received positive reviews and has been ranked the 49th all-time funniest television comedy by "Complex", the 60th best all-time series by "TV Guide", the eleventh-best sitcom starring a stand-up comedian and the 35th best sitcom of all time by "Rolling Stone", and (alongside "South Park") the 63rd best written television series by the Writers Guild of America. In a "Hollywood Reporter" poll of all-time television programs surveying 779 actors, 365 producers and 268 directors, "Everybody Loves Raymond" ranked 96th.
Series overview.
The show is centered on the day-to-day life of an Italian-American named Raymond "Ray" Barone, a sportswriter for "Newsday" living with his family on Long Island. Beleaguered and diffident yet dryly sarcastic, Ray takes few things seriously, making jokes in most situations, no matter how serious. He avoids responsibilities around the house and with his kids, leaving them to his wife, Debra, resulting in her being angry and stressed out quite often.
Ray and Debra have a daughter Ally (Alexandra) and twin sons Michael and Geoffrey; the Barone children are regular characters but not a major focus. Raymond's parents, Marie and Frank, live across the street with their older son Robert (who, later has his own apartment). The Barone relatives frequently make their presence known to the annoyance of Ray and Debra. Although she loves them, Debra's justifiable complaints about Ray's overbearing family serve as one of the show's comedic elements. Out of the three unwanted visitors, Debra is particularly resentful of Marie, an insulting, controlling, manipulative woman who criticizes her passive-aggressively and praises Ray, clearly favoring him over other son Robert.
Ray typically falls in the middle of family arguments, incapable of taking any decisive stand, especially if it might invoke Marie's disapproval. Robert, jealous of his younger sibling's position as their mother's favorite son and the success his brother has achieved professionally and personally, is Ray's biggest rival; Robert and Ray frequently argue like overgrown children, focusing much of their energy picking on or one-upping each other, although deep down they love each other dearly.
Frank Barone is a retiree prone to directing insults and merciless put-downs at everyone he meets. Largely an absentee father when Ray and Robert were growing up, Frank buries his feelings and rarely yields to sentiment. As the series progresses, however, several episodes demonstrate that he loves his family immensely. Unlike everyone else, Frank has no problem criticizing Marie and often comes to Debra's defense, whenever Marie comments disparagingly about their daughter-in-law.
Ray and Debra's marriage is fraught with conflicts. Ray prefers sports television over discussions with Debra on marital matters. Ray works full-time, as his father had, leaving most child-rearing responsibilities to his wife, and he is often forced against his will to help around the house. One of the show's recurring elements finds the couple having a long discussion in bed, before going to sleep.
Episodes.
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Development.
Conception.
In the 1990s, several television shows based on work from stand-up comedians, such as "Home Improvement" (1991–99) and "Roseanne" (1988–97), were successful. Ray Romano, a comedian for 12 years by the time "Everybody Loves Raymond" first aired, was one such comic to get development deals following a five-minute performance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" in the middle of 1995. "David Letterman" executive producer Rob Burnett recalled that "by the end [of the monologue] we already had lawyers lined up to work a deal with him."
In looking for a show-runner, Romano wanted somebody to share his tastes in humor, avoiding those who were into writing "devicey" material. Around a dozen candidates for the show-runner position were considered before "Coach" writer Philip Rosenthal, who sent a "Frasier" spec script to Letterman's Worldwide Pants. The company read the spec and sent Rosenthal a tape of Romano asking screenwriters to help him with an upcoming show based on his work; also in the tape, he stated that he had a hard time coming up with new material because of having to raise twin sons, and showcased a "new bit" of him shaking keys while saying "hey". Romano's sense of humor intrigued Rosenthal, reminding him of Bill Cosby's early work.
After viewing the tape, Rosenthal met with Romano in person at Art's Delicatessen &amp; Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard about being a potential show runner. The encounter consisted of Romano and Rosenthal each discussing their families. Romano told Rosenthal he wanted to do a series about a comedian discussing current issues with friends at a coffee shop, but Rosenthal responded that kind of sitcom already existed and was a hit. Rosenthal, intrigued by Romano's crazy family fables and wanting to work around his lack of previous acting experience, then stated it would be most "comfortable" for Romano to have the Raymond character be very close to his real personality and in family circumstances reflective of Romano's home life. Although Romano has a brother named Robert in real life, he based the Robert in "Raymond" on another one of his brothers, Richard. Rosenthal also incorporated his own family experiences into the show, with his mother and wife serving as the basis for Marie and Debra respectively.
Most aspects of Romano's real life are replicated in the series, except for its setting of Long Island instead of Queens; Romano and the writers initially wanted the show to be set in Queens, but CBS executives ultimately chose Long Island due to its broad appeal, as it was a suburb with urban elements. Previous prime-time television series set in Long Island, such as "The Hamptons" (1983) and "The Pruitts of Southampton" (1966–67), never went beyond one season. Romano also explained, "There's a lot more kissing on the show than in real life"; and his wife Anna continued, "and they talk a lot more in the show than we ever do at home." The title "Everybody Loves Raymond" originated from a response Romano's brother Richard made after Ray won a CableACE stand-up award: "I had a day where people were shooting at me, and you're bringing home trophies. Everybody loves Raymond, don't they?" In the show's pilot, Robert states "Everybody loves Raymond."
Rosenthal pitched the show to CBS president Les Moonves, CBS comedy vice president David Himelfarb, CBS comedy development executive Wendi Goldstein, and CBS comedy and drama development head Gene Stein. He kept the pitch very simple: "it's [Romano] and his family, and his parents live across the street with his brother." CBS was lukewarm towards the show's low concept, but found it enough of a low-risk investment for the series to be green-lit. Letterman's involvement with "Raymond" amounted to nothing more than a meeting where he signed Rosenthal's show-runner contract and told him, "just don't embarrass us."
Casting.
For the non-titular lead roles of "Everybody Loves Raymond", casting director Lisa Miller chose Patricia Heaton and Brad Garrett, who made several appearances in sitcoms before; and Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, both film actors. "Everybody Loves Raymond" was Heaton's fourth lead role in a sitcom after the short-lived "Room for Two" (1992–1993), "Some Like Me" (1994), and "Women of the House" (1995). When she read the pilot script during pilot season, she thought it was "beautifully written" although found the character of Debra uninteresting. Miller explained that she had to "Taft-Hartley" Romano, who did not have much acting experience before "Everybody Loves Raymond", in order to get around legal Screen Actors Guild requirements to star in the show. He also needed trainers to make sure he performed the character of a likable protagonist well.
Garrett (like Romano, also a stand up comedian) was the first actor to be cast after Romano, as well as the only actor to audition without Romano in the room. Garrett explained that while CBS initially wanted a small, Danny DeVito-esque character who had a "bulldog" attitude towards Raymond, he, a much taller actor, portrayed Robert as more "beaten-down" and "succumb to the fact that he's a loser" when auditioning.
For the auditions of Heaton, Boyle, and Roberts, they were in the moods of the characters in the scenes they performed, and their auditions were very quick. Heaton was in the middle of getting-by doing babysitting work and clipping coupons when auditioning, making her very stressed. Miller chose Heaton for the role of Debra for being "very focused, real, like Helen Hunt in "Mad About You"." Boyle, an actor recommended for Frank by Moonves, had a troublesome time getting to his audition location due to schedule changes and poor directions, which made him very grumpy and "in character" when he arrived. Rosenthal admitted to casting Boyle "out of fear" in response to Boyle's bitter attitude. Roberts was called by the casting team for the role of Marie after going through more than 100 actresses. She was initially reluctant to audition due to being busy with directing a 23-character play, but her agents insisted she had time; an "overwhelmed" Roberts did zero preparation, which was unusual for her, and performed her audition from her "gut reaction."
Production.
Each episode was created in a workweek that consisted of actors reading through and rehearsing the script on Monday, actors rehearsing and the writers tweaking the script on Tuesday, CBS running through what the actors rehearsed on Wednesday, camera blocking on Thursday, and filming on Friday. A typical writing session started with each of the writers discussing their lives, which served as the basis for episode scripts; as Rosenthal summarized the process, "talking, talking, talking and then all of a sudden, that's a story." Will MacKenzie, who directed for "Everybody Loves Raymond" on the second, third, and fourth seasons, recalled the writers being so efficient that thirteen episode scripts were completed by the time a season began airing. When shooting episodes, Rosenthal was very stern about the actors sticking to the script and avoiding ad libing, although "alternative" lines were put in the script for some episodes.
Garrett compared acting in episodes of "Raymond" to the improvisational methods used by the cast in "Seinfeld" (1989–98). Garrett had appeared in a "Seinfeld" episode, playing an obsessed car mechanic that steals Jerry Seinfeld's car.
The house used for exterior shots of Ray and Debra's home is located at 135 Margaret Boulevard in Merrick, New York and was worth $500,000 as of  2018[ [update]]; as in the show, it is located across the street from the home used for exteriors of Frank and Marie's house (house number 136).
Style.
For "Everybody Loves Raymond", Rosenthal went for a classic sitcom style a la "The Honeymooners" (1955–56), avoiding references to current culture in order to give it a timeless quality. Jeremy Stevens stated that the show differed from most sitcoms of its time for its focus on storytelling and reflection on most people's real lives.
Julie Pernworth, a comedy development president at CBS, categorized "Everybody Loves Raymond" as "one of the most traditional sitcoms to come along in a long time." As Rosenthal put it, "Raymond" was a "sophisticated" version of a family sitcom, which was emphasized via the show's piano-heavy background music and the use of "The New Yorker" typeface for credits. In composing the show's theme, Terry Trotter and Rick Marotta used the first few measures of a song from Woody Allen's film "Manhattan" (1979) and improvised the rest of the piece. Episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond" are emotionally dynamic presentations of otherwise prosaic premises typical for traditional sitcoms.
SUNY Press' book "The Sitcom Reader" (2016) analyzed "Raymond" was part of a trend in 1990s television of family sitcoms geared towards older audiences, which resulted in the scripts not focusing so much on the child characters and being entirely about grown-ups bickering at each other. While the second season was in production, Romano expressed the challenge of having to write "weird" adult humor within "parameters" of a show about a family: "I want to write a show where I have anxiety attacks, and we're all very concerned about that. Can the star of the show be a