When Everybody Loves Raymond premiered on CBS back in 1996, it didn’t seem like it was going to be anything special. It was another sitcom starring a standup comedian (Ray Romano) turned actor you probably hadn’t heard of. He was given a family, and put in a house that looked just like all the other sitcom houses. The characters bickered, they had annoying parents and in-laws, but after thirty minutes, they’d make up and come together, only to do it all over again the next episode. It’s a tried and true formula, but one that’s not always that exciting.
Everybody Loves Raymond did okay in the ratings the first few years, but from Seasons 3-9 it stayed around the Top 10 in the ratings. That jump strangely happened when Seinfeld went off the air, as if Americans needed a new gang of self-centered smartasses to laugh at. The Barones were crazy, from the grandparents on down, but we loved them. They were hilarious, and the brilliance of the show was rewarded with near-yearly nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series, finally winning in 2005. Two decades later, however, some of the Barones’ behavior, while still funny, makes us cringe a little more than it used to.
The characters of Everybody Loves Raymond are over-the-top. Raymond is self-absorbed, a bit of a dolt who frequently comes up short of making his wife feel loved and respected. His brother, Robert (Brad Garrett), is a kind soul, but he’s got so many issues that even a therapist would look at him in wonder. Then there’s Ray’s parents, Frank and Marie, who live across the street. Frank is a grump who never wants to talk about feelings. Everything is a joke to him. He’d rather just watch TV. Marie is an extremely overprotective mother, constantly walking into Ray’s house without even knocking, and always insisting that she’s right about everything. Only Ray’s poor wife, Debra (Patricia Heaton), seems normal. That over-the-topness of the characters can lead to some rather cruel moments, with everyone so lost in their own wants and worries that they hurt everyone else. While Everybody Loves Raymond is far from cruel like, say, Married With Children was, there’s still a lot of pain to be found in the characters while we laugh at their antics.
Robert Barone Is Picked On Mercilessly by His Father and Brother
