My schedule often brings me home later and more tired in the evening than I’d like. I know: Who possibly can relate to that? … Now, I sound like Ray Barone, comedian Ray Ramono’s alter ego and lead character on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Yes – and I say this largely so my own kids will know – I realize the sitcom completed its nine-year run in prime time on CBS in 2005. (By the way, kids, I also know what the term “binge-watching” means!)
But like a lot of people my age (2½ years younger than Ray himself), I enjoy seeing reruns of shows I really like that remind me of when my children were young, for one thing… And, the fact that his family bears some striking similarities to my own birth family. (After all, we called our parents’ marriage The 40 Years War.)
And, you know what? Like everybody else, mostly I really do love Raymond… But there are a few things that sometimes … well, get on my nerves! As a lifelong Kentuckian, I’ve had my fill of people mocking and belittling the Southern accent, especially when Ray’s Long Island accent can drive me up a wall! The word at which I cringe the most is when he says “ruined.” The three syllables always come out as one: “roond.”
I also have tremendous difficulty relating to his parenting situation, where despite having three young children, when the script doesn’t need them, they suddenly and miraculously are transported to sitcom limbo, sometimes for hours, even days at a time! You’d think that occasionally, the adults at least would mention the lost child milk cartons, where surely the kids’ faces are plastered. When his kids are around, his incompetence as a parent rivals that of Homer Simpson! And, he’s not much better as a husband, son, or brother.
Clearly, the producers wanted to give Ray Barone a testosterone-laden job, but come on… You’re telling me this man who won’t read a book actually writes them? This guy who revels in his own inarticulateness is a wordsmith? … Obviously, after the first year or so, the producers gave up any pretense of what a New York sportswriter’s travel schedule must be!
Now, having sufficiently vented, I also must say that all-in-all, I love the show! … No, really! Why else would I watch reruns for the third and fourth times?
Oh, but there is one more thing I’ve noticed that I’ve never heard anybody say before… The Barone family is obsessed with … SANDWICHES! Obsession with food is supposed to be part of their Italian heritage… But, I’m talking sandwiches specifically.
In fact, it’s to the point that it rivals the “Hi, Bob” game associated with “The Bob Newhart Show,” where the star portrayed psychologist Bob Hartley. College kids (who else?) created a game where every time a fellow cast member says, “Hi, Bob,” each player in the drinking game chug-a-lugs an entire beer. That happens so often, the players are bombed out of their gourds by the end of a 30-minute episode.
If everybody in the room watching Everybody Loves Raymond scarfs down a ham-and-cheese-on-rye every time the characters say “sandwich,” by the closing credits, they’d each need a full, family-size bottle of Pepto-Bismal for any possibility of preventing projectile-vomiting.