If you did see it, you should already know that the surviving cast members from Everybody Loves Raymond were among those who were honored. Sadly, the Barone family patriarch, played by Peter Boyle, and Debra's father, who was played by Robert Culp, are deceased, but their contributions to the show were remembered with fondness by star Ray Romano.
Anyway, I felt inspired this week to compile my top 10 moments from that show. I can't say it was my favorite show when it was on the air, but it was a show I enjoyed watching, and I enjoy it even more now:
This one isn't particularly funny to me, but it certainly rings true.If you watched the show with any regularity, you were familiar with Robert's difficulties with women. His first wife was — shall we say? — less than committed to him, and he was forever encountering barriers to happiness with the women he dated — until Amy (Monica Horan) came along. But we'll get to her later.
Anyway, in "She's the One," which aired during the seventh season, Robert thought he had found the one — until Ray saw her eat a fly and tried to warn Robert. As usual, Robert thought Ray was trying to ruin a good thing for him, and he waved it off. Then he went to Angela's apartment and saw her "roommates."
At that point, he made a beeline for Ray's place, where he had to listen to the litany that should be familiar to anyone who was still single after a certain age.
I admired Robert's response. It was kind of a "wish I had thought to say that" moment for me.
This is a two–part highlight. This part is funny by itself, but it puts the next part into context.They're both from "Lucky Suit," a sixth–season episode in which Robert interviews for a job with the FBI.
Robert was overjoyed to get the interview, and his mother tried to help him by pressing his lucky suit. But she singed it, and Robert had to wear a different suit.
He was not happy about that, to say the least. Nor was he happy about having to wear a substitute for his lucky suit to the interview.
Then, when the interview was done, Robert came back to Raymond's house, where he found his mother in the living room with Ray and Debra.Their confrontation was a classic.
When Robert says things were going well until the interviewing agent received the fax from Marie — and Marie, who is oblivious to the nature of Robert's predicament, explains that she hadn't been sure the fax went through because it was the first time she had ever used a fax machine — I always crack up.
Both Brad Garrett (Robert) and Doris Roberts (Marie) won Emmy Awards for their performances. Deservedly so. Robert's glare when he entered Raymond's home was worth a thousand words.
Whenever a show has children, times come when they take the spotlight.(I make exception, of course, for shows that are focused on children, and the adults are merely supporting players.)
And the kids were frequently in the spotlight on Everybody Loves Raymond.
They were at the center of "Left Back," an episode about an all–too–real problem with which some parents of twins must cope.
One of the twins had developed faster than the other, and the pre–K teacher recommended that the slower one be held back a year. Ray and Debra had to decide whether to hold the other one back as well.
It's a good episode, although it probably has more relevance for parents than it does for me. But I always enjoy the final scene, when the twins do their comedy routine for a talent show.
Ya gotta admit, they're cute.
Early in the final season, in an episode titled "Boys' Therapy," the Barone women talked Ray and Frank into going to Robert's therapy sessions with him. But they went to a race track instead and had to invent a cover story to satisfy their wives.Considering the show was in its ninth and final season, it was an amazingly creative and thoroughly thought–provoking episode that explored some of the issues between generations and fathers and sons in a typically Everybody Loves Raymond style.
It was honest, and it was funny. Well, sometimes it leaned more to the honest side and less to the funny side.
Like in the attached clip, you can sense a real shift in the mood during the conversation between Frank and his sons. Maybe that was appropriate.
Take it from me, those father–son relationships can be complex.
Maybe Everybody Loves Raymond was a little too honest at times.Perhaps the best example was "Bad Moon Rising" from the fourth season.
Debra (Patricia Heaton) was a tad irritable during her time of the month. Ray tried to get a remedy in the form of a pill that he thought could help with all of her symptoms.
I've never been married, but this seems to resonate with my friends who are married — both male and female. And, as TV.com observes, Heaton said much the same thing about this episode on the DVD release.
Heaton apparently said she really liked the episode and showed it to some married friends because she thought they would be as amused as she was, but they watched it in silence and seemingly were stunned by how on the nose the comedy was.
I guess one of the things I find endearing about the show is the family bond that is always there.Sure, the Barones were a dysfunctional family. But, somehow, you always knew they would be there for each other.
Like the sixth–season episode "Cookies," in which Ray was trying to help his daughter sell enough Frontier Girls cookies to win the first prize — even though Peggy, the troop leader, had taken the best sales location for herself and her daughter, and she had given Ray and his daughter one of the worst. Undeterred, Ray and his daughter set up their table at the best location, incurring Peggy's wrath.
It was the start of the Ray–Peggy rivalry.
Enter Debra, who often criticized Ray and the rest of the Barone family "freak show," but when the chips were down (perhaps that should be chocolate chips), she left no doubt whose side she was on.
Thanksgiving gets a bad rap.Well, that's my opinion, anyway. And I feel exceptionally qualified to pass judgment on Thanksgiving. I was born on Thanksgiving.
Anyway, I often hear people complain about having to spend the day with their relatives and having to listen to them spout off while trying to choke down some holiday dish that had earned an extremely negative family review over the years. That was never my problem. I came from a comparatively small family, and we all got along. On top of that, my mother was a great cook, and our Thanksgiving dinners were fantastic.
When I got older, I didn't always get to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I usually managed to spend Christmas with them, but I often had to choose which holiday to take. I spent many years working for daily newspapers, and someone had to put out the paper. Typically, I took Thanksgiving. For most of my co–workers, family lived nearby, but my parents lived more than 300 miles away from me for many years. When I worked on a holiday, it meant I wouldn't be seeing my family at all.
But when I did spend Thanksgiving with my parents and my brother, it was never the family ordeal that many have described. So I couldn't really relate to the issues the Barones always had on Thanksgiving. And, back in the series' third season, a new problem was thrown into the mix: Marie got some medical test results that indicated her cholesterol was at a dangerous level so, like many Americans, she resolved to cook fat–free meals.
On the menu for the Barones that Thanksgiving was a turkey made of tofu.
The episode was called "No Fat."
Anyway, back to Amy.By the time the last season began, she and Robert had married, following an on–again, off–again courtship. When the series wrapped up, it appeared that Robert had finally found what he had always desired — a happy marriage.
And the season started with a family bombshell in "The Home." Frank and Marie had visited a retirement home 85 minutes away. They liked what they saw, and they decided to move in. They also decided to sell their house to Robert and Amy.
And there was much rejoicing, as you can see.
Then came the punch line — or should that be the punch in the gut line?
Whichever it was, it was a doozy. Debra, of all people, crumbled when the elder Barones moved out. She got nostalgic, even teary–eyed. I honestly wanted to include that scene here, but I couldn't find it.
Well, I'll always remember the best part. Debra talked about having spent more time with Marie and Frank than Ray or Robert or Amy in the previous decade. "I've been with them morning, noon and night," she said, almost as if she were delivering a eulogy.
And Robert said, "That's why you should be dancing around naked in a fountain!"
Speaking of dancing ...I suppose, if I had ever been married, I might have the same kind of emotional connection that many folks have to episodes in other TV series about weddings. So, for the most part, I can take wedding episodes — or I can leave 'em. I think I've seen most of the best ones that have been produced in my lifetime — when Klinger got married in the finale of M*A*S*H, when Ted and Georgette tied the knot on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and when Rhoda and Joe got hitched on Rhoda.
But I will watch the Everybody Loves Raymond episode in which Robert gets married any time it is on — mostly to watch Robert and Amy do their newlywed dance. I think it's a classic.
But Ray's toast to the bride and groom is a classic, too.
By the way, a little trivia for you here. Robert and Amy's dance apparently was inspired by real life. I've heard that the producer of the show and his wife, who plays Amy in the series, actually did a dance like that at their own wedding.
Anyway, I guess that naturally leads us to a reflection on how Amy and Robert met.Their wedding took place in the seventh season. They met in the first season, in "Who's Handsome?"
In between, they dated, broke up, reunited and then married.
And I guess that's an appropriate way to wrap up this retrospective. It was Raymond's name in the title, but, in so many ways, the show itself was more about Robert — his struggle to find an identity separate from his brother, to find a loving and supportive partner, to find his place in the world.
That can be a lot more complicated than it appears.
And, by the time the series ended, it seemed that he had found the things he sought.
And this is simply a Barone family bonus for you. Enjoy.
