On Sept. 13, 1996, CBS premiered a new sitcom called Everybody Loves Raymond starring a then-fairly unknown comic named Ray Romano. Airing on Friday nights was never the biggest vote of confidence for a new show since, back when broadcast television still ruled our TV sets, Friday nights were low viewed. What Raymond had going for it from the start, though, was solid writing and a great cast.
The series starred Romano as sports writer Ray Barone who lived in Long Island with his overworked wife Debra (Patricia Heaton), their three young children and, living directly across the street, Ray’s parents, overly loving Marie (Doris Roberts) and cantankerous Frank (Peter Boyle), and his cop brother Robert (Brad Garrett), who was always jealous of Raymond. The comedy came from relatable marital issues between Ray and Debra, Ray’s family bursting into his life as well as the friction between Debra and Marie, who always knew better when it came to running a home.
Despite being creatively strong from the start, it faced an uphill battle airing on Friday nights, though there was one distinct advantage. “You get a time slot where they never did any business and so you’re not expected to do great business,” says Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal. “We had some time there to grow and we did grow.”
However, it wasn’t until the show was given a tryout on the more popular CBS Monday schedule that it found a permanent home and truly took off. Over nine seasons and 210 episodes, Raymond was nominated for 69 Emmys, winning 15 including two Outstanding Comedy Series trophies and acting accolades for Romano, Heaton, Garrett, and Roberts.
Here , two-time Emmy winner Rosenthal looks back at creating the show, Romano’s attempts at changing the name of the show and why even though he’s found great success in front of the camera on his Somebody Feed Phil food/travel unscripted series, he never appeared on Raymond.
Gold Derby: What are the origins of the show, given you and Ray didn’t initially know each other?
Phil Rosenthal: It’s like being set up on a blind date. What happened is, I’m writing on Coach and I’m looking to write a pilot. And then wouldn’t you know it, I get a videocassette of a comedian who had been trying to get on David Letterman for 12 years. And after one five-minute appearance, Letterman said, “There should be a show for that guy.”
And so the way it works in Hollywood is they set about looking for writers to create a show for the comedian. And as a writer of sitcoms, you’re looking for a funny guy to write a show for. So, I get the videocassette and I put it in. It says Romano. And I remember seeing the appearance and sitting in bed with my wife [Monica Horan] and laughing. And I said, “Sure, I’ll take that meeting.”
Now he’s meeting like, I don’t know, 10 guys and we hit it off. For every story he had about his Italian family, I had one about my fakakta Jewish family. And it turns out we’re not so different, right? He tells me he’s got twin boys and an older daughter. His family lives close by. They’re always bothering him. His older brother’s a police sergeant, he’s divorced, lives with his parents and “he’s kind of jealous of me.” He saw an award I won for stand-up comedy, and he said, “It never ends for Raymond. Everybody loves Raymond.” I thought, “That’s a good place to start.”
But I was not his first choice, either. He wanted a cool guy from, I think, Friends because that’s the hit show. Coach isn’t really the cool show. But the cool guy wasn’t available, so I was the second choice.
Do you think there was an advantage to the fact that at that time Ray wasn’t a polished actor?
Yes, I’ll tell you why. He was kind of afraid to look like he was acting. Every single thing had to be real to him. It had to not be what he called “sitcommy.” He didn’t want what he called Lenny and Squiggy entrances [from Laverne & Shirley], right? It got to the point where we had something in the show Debra’s cooking is so bad, even the coffee’s terrible, right? He’s like, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t really drink coffee.” I said, “OK, it’s TV, so in your cup can be anything you like.” And he goes, “Nah, I don’t know.” Without realizing it, he’s doing the Method. This is what Robert De Niro does. They live the part. No artifice, no fake. I was OK with some of the tropes of sitcoms and there were certain things that he was going to have to do because we’re in a sitcom.
Were there different pilot versions that you wrote?
Just the idea. In other words, [the network] asked me, “What will the story of the pilot be?” And I thought of something, and they said, “Nah.” They didn’t like a premise pilot, like where they move in across the street from their parents in the first episode. And then I had another idea establishing that he can work from home watching sports but he doesn’t want to, and they said, “No, no.” Then I thought of Debra’s birthday. They wanted a typical episode for the first one because, and they’re kinda right, all the episodes are going to be like that. But you know what I did? If you know the show, I used both those [ideas in] later episodes.
Which was the toughest role to cast of all the main characters?
Debra was the hardest part because it’s the most complex. You don’t want just the ’50s housewife. “Here’s your lunch, honey.” You want someone who gives it back to them. I was thinking of Alice Kramden [from The Honeymooners] a little bit. You wanted to be tough, vulnerable, sexy, smart, funny, all these things. I saw 200 women for that part.
And then you found Patricia Heaton.
I mean this as the sincerest compliment, [she was] the best wife on TV at that time. I couldn’t think of anyone better because she really was all those things. She could cry funny like Mary Tyler Moore and it was really fun to have her be wrong once in a while. I loved working with every single person in that show, even my wife I liked working with. [Laughs]
Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle were so great together but how did you lock them in?
I saw 100 women for the mom. I had a very specific mother in mind and that was my mother. And then Doris Roberts came in, she read the fruit-of-the-month scene [from the pilot], and that was it. Game over. They didn’t look alike really, but there was an attitude.
What was funny at the beginning was Doris didn’t really want to play the Bickersons. She said, “We’re always fighting.” I’m like, “Yeah?’ She says, “I have to tell you, the victim wins the Emmy.” I said, “Who told you that?” I think she had won one for playing a victim. [Roberts won the Best Drama Supporting Actress in 1983 for St. Elsewhere].
And I’m like, “Oh my God, how do I tell this great actress that if she does that, we don’t have a show?” Like Peter Boyle insults her and she cries? That wouldn’t be good. Give it back to him! I thought of this to say — this was my best note as a director — “Everything you do comes from love. You butt in because you your son so much, you love your family so much.” And to her credit, she took that idea and then it was great. She was unbelievable and she won four Emmys for the same role. Pretty good.
Peter Boyle was the head of CBS’s idea. I’m like, “I didn’t even know a movie star would consider a sitcom with two schmoes he never heard of.” We arranged a meeting and he couldn’t find the office. It was a hot day and he came in and he was angry and he scared me and I just gave him the part!
The show premiered on a Friday, which is traditionally not the best night for TV.
They hadn’t had a hit in that time slot since Gomer Pyle [in the 1960s].
But then you got a Monday tryout. Since David Letterman was an executive producer and had his late night talk show, did he help make that happen?
No, it’s kind of a blessing in disguise. Monday night was [CBS’] big night. [Murphy Brown anchored the night] There were maybe two shows that weren’t doing very well, but the critics and the audience that was watching liked our show so I got a call. “We’re going to give you six episodes starting in March.” And then we go, “Wow, that’s fantastic.” I hang up the phone and I tell Ray, and — this we do have in common — we both go, “Oh no!” because now you are expected to do well. It’s like getting into the World Series. Then, the first night at that time slot, the ratings doubled. The next day, Variety said, “It looks like Raymond has found a permanent berth on Monday night.” I clipped that little thing out and put it in my wallet.
Was Everybody Loves Raymond always the title?
I wrote [that line] in the pilot script. The brother actually says it, and it’s something that Ray’s brother actually said [in real life]. When my wife read the script that had no title, she goes, “That should be the name of the show.’ I said, “You’re right. I’ll put it in.” And Ray goes, “That can’t be the title. I don’t want to be the guy that everybody supposedly loves. I can see the reviews already. Not everybody loves it.” I said, “I hear you. I’m just going to keep it as a tentative title, and then we can make it whatever you want.”
So, he starts coming up with titles, and he can’t think of anything good. There was a bulletin board on the wall in the writer’s room of the worst titles you’ve ever seen. That Raymond Guy. … Raymond. Raymond’s Tree. He calls the head of CBS and he says, “I can’t live with this title. I can’t.” The guy goes, ‘look, we tested the title and it tested well so this is it.’ Then he goes, “Listen, if you’re a Top 10 show next year, we’ll call it whatever you want.” The next year we’re a Top 10 show and he calls Les Moonves back and he goes, “OK, it’s a Top 10 show. Can we change the title?” He says, “You can’t change it now. It’s a Top 10 show!”
Phil, you’ve had such a great career beyond the show being on camera but yet you never did a cameo or jumped in and did a role on Raymond. Why?
I tell people when I do their shows, like I did Curb Your Enthusiasm, I did 30 Rock, I did a few other things even before my show. But ‘why didn’t you ever do your show?’ I said, ‘I cared about that show.’ The truth is I was busy as the showrunner. You’re writing and editing and directing and doing all these things. It would be selfish and almost impossible to throw myself. But to be honest, I never wanted to. Honestly, I was very happy doing what I was doing, I really was.
And the show did eventually win Emmys but only several years in, which usually isn’t done. Typically, if a show doesn’t hit it out of the gate, they just don’t get that Emmy love.
Dry, dry, dry. I don’t think we were nominated for the first three seasons. Here’s what I think in retrospect. We were talking about cool shows and the family sitcom is not the cool show. But look at the history of TV and these shows are the actual building blocks of networks. They’re very popular and they can build a night off of them, right? They’re usually 8 o’clock. Ours happened to be 9 o’clock because it was maybe a tiny bit more sophisticated.
We’re in the era of Seinfeld and Friends and Raymond was a show for adults about adults who had kids. It was not about the kids. We went out of our way to even say that but you can’t help the poster. The poster is a guy with his kids so if you don’t watch it, it looks like Full House. It had to be watched and I think that’s what it was.
Then, after nine seasons, you and Ray decided to wrap the show.
Yes, we wanted to get off the air before somebody said, “Hey, you should get off the air.”
Was that an easy decision because the show was still doing well?
That shouldn’t be the reason to stay. The money shouldn’t be the reason to stay. We all know the shows that stayed past their due date, right? Even from the beginning I thought, “I want to make a show that’s going to have lasting value. Why not go for that if you’re getting the golden opportunity to make one of these things?” But you have to stick the landing. You have to end well. I felt not that we had run out of ideas, but I could see a point where we were going to. Two hundred and 10 episodes of anything is a lot.
You definitely stuck the landing with the finale which, like the pilot, is a typical episode. [In the episode, Ray has a very brief brush with death during an adenoids removal procedure that shakes everyone up.]
I had the story for the finale at least a year before we ended. It was a typical episode and there was something about it that I thought, “I think that’s the finale.” A finale without being final, without anyone moving away or God forbid, dying. But what if they thought for a second that Ray was going to die?
And that last shot of everyone at the table eating and talking like any other day was perfect.
It makes me cry because I love the little pullback. These are your friends and they’re going to be there. Remember, we had gone into syndication already so I knew that the show could be an endless loop.
Now, if you were a Bill Lawrence or a Mike Schur or somebody else, you would have gone on to create many more shows. Why didn’t you?
It’s not because I didn’t want to. People said, “You’ve got to write another pilot.” I thought that was my purpose in life, to write another pilot so I wrote another pilot and nobody wanted it. And then I wrote another one and nobody wanted that either. And I’m like, “What’s going on?”
They said, ‘well, the business changed in the 9 years that you were doing Raymond, so they don’t want that kind of show anymore. Everything is single camera now. Everything is hip and edgy. Could you be more hip and edgy?’ I said, “Well, you got the right guy. I’m Mr. Hip and Edgy.” I kept striking out. I worked with younger people but it didn’t matter. The shows were single-camera shows, 30 Rock, The Office, these shows that I freaking love, they’re some of the best sitcoms of all time. It wasn’t the sensibility that I could write as well as them. I’m going to say it’s my fault that I couldn’t do it but to be fair, it’s also a little of the business’s fault.
I’m selfishly glad things didn’t work out there because then maybe we wouldn’t have gotten Somebody Feed Phil, which is going into Season 9.
And moving from Netflix to YouTube. It’s the first show to move to YouTube. I’m so excited about it because one of the things I loved about Raymond is that it was free and still is. I like the message of our little travel show being free to the world.
With the show going to YouTube, can we expect the show to be the same?
Exactly the same. I own the IP so I even get the [theme] song!
Everybody Loves Raymond streams on Paramount+ and Prime Video. Somebody Feed Phil Seasons 1-8 are available on Netflix with Season 9 coming to YouTube in 2027.
This interview was edited and condensed.
