Comedy snobs tend to see a show get popular and write it off, then sneer at people who love that show, saying it’s not proper comedy. Take Mrs Browns Boys as an example, a show that is basic in its comedy yet everyone seems to love it. So there must be something there, I don’t see it, but there must be something.
Everybody-Loves-Raymond-image-everybody-loves-raymond-36475933-1024-768Writing a show off because of its popularity is a dangerous path to take, because that way lies the torture of missing out on something special. Yes, there’s something great about being on the fringes of popular culture, discovering shows that will never infiltrate the mainstream consciousness and yes, occasionally, the snobs are right but more often than not they are dismissing something before investigating it properly.
With a show like Everybody Loves Raymond – a show that ran for nine seasons, had constantly high viewing figures and has a loyal fan base that watches episodes over and over again. You’d be churlish to argue that on the whole everybody doesn’t in fact like Everybody Loves Raymond.
But there are people out there who insist on venting their ire at the fact that the show ever existed. 10 years since its final season people still insist it was a pile of steaming dogshit. These are the comedy snobs, and I intend to tell you some of the reasons why they are wrong for turning up their noses at the Barone family.
Everybody Loves Raymond is set up around a basic premise:
Ray Barone (Ray Romano) lives across the road from his overbearing parents Frank (the excellent Peter Boyle) and Marie (the equally brilliant Doris Roberts), and his cop brother Robert (Brad Garret) who is insanely jealous of him
His wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) complains a lot about it
It’s not rocket science.
But the thing about Raymond is the writers would be able to sell you on ridiculous ideas, like in the series 7 episode ‘She’s The One’ where a woman eats flies or the classic series 5 episode ‘The Wallpaper’ where Frank and Marie open the show by driving through Ray and Debra’s wall. Or where the writers would play with the format, for an example of this see the series 8 episode ‘Golf For It’, which is almost completely confined to a car with Ray and Robert.
But here’s the genius part. Although Everybody Loves Raymond isn’t necessarily a show you have to watch religiously to follow – as with all the best shows, you watch one you might enjoy it, you might laugh – however, invest in it and you get a multi layered joke fest with recurring characters that often have nothing to do with the main plot but who enrich the show by just being there.
Beneath the bluster of the main characters lies a supporting cast that take the show from funny to classic. Over the years the show notched up a list of players that were either comedy or acting royalty.
Shows like The Simpsons are praised for the fact that they have jokes weaved into the background – but a show like Raymond? It’s just seen as a straight forward sitcom but it’s oh, so much more. It might have started out as such but it rewarded loyal viewers again and again.
Everybody loves raymond parents – headstuff.orgIn the first series we get introduced to Debra’s parents. Warren (Robert Culp) and Lois (Katherine Helmond). They work so well as they’re the opposite of Ray’s parents – less overbearing, freewheeling, non-traditional, unrelentingly positive – and as such rub up the Barone’s the wrong way. After they’re introduced, subsequent appearances don’t patronise you by explaining the situation all over again and they just come in expecting you to know them, sometimes all the setup you get is a passing remark from Ray or his parents expressing discomfort. Just another example of the economy of writing in the scripts
Ray has a small, but effective circle of friends that broaden his comic scope and give him a sounding board outside his family. In the first series this includes the ubiquitous Kevin James in an embryonic version of his King of Queens character Doug Heffernan, here called Kevin Daniels for the first two series before inexplicably undergoing a name change. Dave Attell also makes a couple of appearances as Dave (no surname) who mysteriously gets bumped after appearing in only two episodes. We can only assume Kevin killed him which is why he had to change his name to Doug.
andy everybody loves raymond – headstuff.orgAndy Kindler (now found in the brilliant for different reasons Maron) plays the similarly imaginatively named Andy, Ray’s first true friend in the series who sticks around without getting himself killed by Kevin, or changing his name, or moving to Queens. Then there’s Bernie (Tom McGowan), special amongst Ray’s friends in that his character not only survives for the whole nine seasons but also is the first to have a name that’s different his
