Everybody Doesn't Like Raymond- Page 3

[KelRel]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:28pm

I use Everybody Loves Raymond as the basis for why my husband and I should never move near his mother. She is alot like Ray's mom, but worse. Other than that the show has no real value to me at all. Its just there.

[Forester]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:35pm

I find the show boring. It's overhyped.

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:41pm

Come on, who can honestly sit here and say WILL & GRACE is better than THE GOLDEN GIRLS? That's ridiculous. GG was brilliant, and still is.

My parents laugh their asses off every time they watch Raymond. They tell me it's because "as parents they can relate to these characters and situations."

Some episodes are funny, but I wish Housewives won the award.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:43pm

Well I loved Raymond when it was on the air, and I'll miss it now that it's gone. It made me laugh every single week, and the cast was uniformly strong, though my favorite will always be Doris Roberts (who for me, was the funniest woman working on television).

I thought Heaton was just wonderful on the show (and I could care less about her political views). The whole thing with her character, to me, was that she was always the outsider. It her and the Barrone family, and even after 9 seasons, she still isn't really a part of that group, nor does she "get" them. I thought she played it really well.

Now, I happen to strongly dislike Arrested Development, and I know I am in the minority on that one...

[Pippin]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:44pm

in the words of a musical running on broadway right now:

ethnic jokes might be uncooth,
but we laugh because they're based on truth.
don't take them as personal atta-ah-ah-acks.
everyone enjoys them. (da, da, daa, da da) SO RELAX!!

just change ethnic jokes to stereotypes, and you'll see where i'm going with this. people are so PC nowadays and easily offended. please, people. it is a sitcom. it's supposed to be outlandish. I am a gay man and have never, ever been offended by jack or any of the characters on WIll and grace. I enjoy it for what it is for 23 minutes, then move on.

oh, and by the way, I also love Married with children- one of the funniest shows of all time, and third rock is in my top five sitcoms. looking for reruns...

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:15pm

I hate Everybody Loves Raymond WITH A PASSION! So painfully unfunny.

[cserannie]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:27pm

thanks Pippin...I agree with you totally.

[midtowngym]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:37pm

Just because you don't like Raymond doesn't mean it's unfunny, it simply means YOU think it's unfunny.
Raymond remained top-notch for nine seasons--it's got my respect. It touched upon important topics--overbearing parents, family dysfunction, a bored (and bitchy!) housewife who wants to work, child rearing, extra-marital temptation, etc.
How many sitcoms can say that? How often did The Mary Tyler Moore Show cover important topics?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:42pm

"That's still a stereotype--and by the way, I have known plenty of gay men over the last 30 years, and not one was as stereotypically "gay" as Jack."

I guess it's all who you know, then. I've known several that would make Jack look like a womanzing construction worker. It could also depend on the stereotype you envision for "gay" as well, which is constantly evolving. The effeminate gay stereotype is the oldest and most common of stereotypes, but I find that the buff circuit boy clone is creeping its way in as an iconic figure just as disturbing. I've always found Jack to be quite unique in his gayness. I can't think of another gay character that has played "gay" in the way he has done it. And it probably has to do with his approach to the character, which has been intentionally not to play a gay man at all. THAT is what makes him different.

"The character is never allowed to grow, to change. He's stuck, and that's kind of sad, really."

The character is written as a shallow egomaniac who doesn't really want to change. He enjoys being vain. He revels in his shallowness and he loves every minute of it. It's not like he's chronically depressed or angry. He tries new things, gets bored, and goes back to doing what he loves to do. His circle of friends accept him for better or worse and love him for who he is. I find that quite the opposite of sad, myself. He did have some life-changing episodes involving his mother, his father, and his "son" that were quite interesting and sometimes touching, but in the end, Jack really just wants to be Jack.

Now Married With Children.....that is a show I never liked. Every episode was so forced, it was like the longest SNL skit ever conceived. The only episode I liked was when they got stuck on the freeway on Memorial Day (or was it Labor Day?) and Peg walked back to the house to take a nap.

[robbiej]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:42pm

Just the existence of The MTM Show in its day was hugely important. Don't forget, the show even had an episode that dealt with homosexuality in a lighthearted, non-judgemental way loooong before it was cool to do such a thing.

[Plum]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:50pm

Who says the characters in Seinfeld never had to face the consequences of their actions? The episodes were built around the consequences of their actions, exected and unexpected. And part of the show's sour humor was that even well-intentioned and kind acts will be punished, often in totally absurd ways.

Maybe I don't find it to be comparable to Raymond because the latter show is about a family. Seeing Jerry battle Newman isn't quite the same as seeing the casual verbal abuse in the marriage of Raymond's parents.

[Pippin]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:52pm

and remember where Jerry and his co-horts ended up. they had to face the consequences.

[ckeaton]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:54pm

I don't know... the Love Boat was pretty gay on its own.

[robbiej]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 4:56pm

Now, now, Christopher...MTM was a whole 7 years before THE LOVE BOAT. Which, you are right, was pretty gosh darn gay.

And Plum...'casual verbal abuse'...PERFECT way to put it.

My parents have been married for 47 years and they NEVER talk to each other like that!

[robbiej]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:18pm

But the tone of each show is VASTLY different. AD has a dark edge to it. ELR tries to pass itself off as this family-centric, lovable sitcom.

[xxnewgirlxx]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:22pm

Really? I never got the "family-centric" vibe in the nine years I watched the show.

It's always addressed how dysfunctional the Barones are ie "the Angry Family" episode.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:40pm

newgirl - Same here. I always found it to be a show about the dysfunctions of the family. It is family-centric in the sense that they are all close, but not that they are always picture-perfect loving and supportive like The Brady Bunch or anything like that. The whole springboard for the show was the idea of the most irritating in-laws now live across the street and are intruding on your life every day. As for Frank and Marie's treatment of each other, it was pretty much the same as Fred and Ethel spoke to each other in almost every episode of I Love Lucy. She'd call him old, fat and stupid. He's call her fat, old and naggy. Roseanne and Dan Connor did the same. I had the idea that it was just their way of communicating and it worked for them. Frank and Marie gave each other crap every day, but couldn't imagine ever being apart. Not everyone's parents are like that, but I believe there are a lot of them out there. They were a generation that did not get divorced when things became inconvenient, they worked things out and stuck to their vows. I don't find it that unbelievable. There was an episode that faced their communication issues head on that really explained everything much better than I can.

[wink]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:45pm

I tried to enjoy "Everbody Likes Raymond" and "Friends" just so I wouldn't be left out of the TV-centered conversations at work. I just never found either one of them appealing. Sometimes the deadpan humor on Raymond was just dead. And the characters on "Friends" were interchangeable and uninteresting. I used to record "Will and Grace" faithfully and watch at the first opportunity. It's not as funny as it used to be, but I still think the cast is very talented.

"The Simpsons" is the only show that guarantees me a laugh. Maybe I expect too much out of sitcoms.

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:49pm

Everybody Loves Raymond has the same hit or miss quality as Saturday Night Live.

[Plum]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 5:57pm

I've only seen about 1.5 episodes of Arrested Development, and I didn't hate it. I was more puzzled than anything else, but the complete lack of context probably explains that.

Family dysfunction can be the stuff of black comedy- just look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. But Raymond isn't horryfying and hilarious that way- it isn't reaching for the darkest of dark comedy depths, so its negativity just comes off as nasty and mostly unfunny and lame.

Posted: 9/19/05 at 6:12pm

Can Doris Roberts get a decent wig?

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 6:23pm

I enjoy Everbody Loves Raymond, I think it's a decent show, but of all the shows nominated I think it least deserved to win.

[TheHumanTorch]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 6:55pm

Agreed colleen_lee.... I don't know a single person who actually finds Everybdoy Loves Raymond funny or at least watchable...its just bad, really bad.

On another note, I was dissapointed (although not surprised) that Zach Braff and Scrubs didn't win. I think that show, of all the others nominated, deserves some emmys... its just so funny and heart-warming at the same time.

[Jon]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 7:16pm

With Garrett and Boyle gone, hopefully John C. McGinley can get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for SCRUBS next year. Not only is he hysterically funny, he is also great in the show's serious dramatic moments, such as the episode where he had to break the news to his best friend that his son was autistic.

[TabooPhan1]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 10:58pm

Well, going back to Jack, I think it's really how YOU perceive the character. I always looked at Jack in a more satirical way, poking fun at the stereotype that all gay men can't have a monogomous (sp?) relationship, or that they all want to be actor/singer/dancers, or they are obsessed with Kevin Bacon. The whole point of a sitcom is to entertain you, and thus it cannot always be taken seriously. Should straight men be offended by the way Raymond acts sometimes? He can be selfish and stupid and rude, and one could argue that that show is BLATANTLY sexist towards men, since Deborah is constantly the voice of reason/sanity. Maybe police officers should be offended by Reno 911 because it depicts all policemen and women as fools. Or what about friends? Almost every character on that show represents a social stereotype. Let's just ban anything that depicts any character in an unrealistic, stereotypical manner. Should we start in on stereotypes in the theatre? Cause that discussion could last several years, I think.

Mister Matt- I totally agree with your comment about Sean Hayes NOT playing him as gay. The whole idea with Jack, like Matt said, is that he's an egomaniac. The same goes for Karen. Think of them as the comic relief. What if the show was just Will and Grace? I, for one, would be bored without the out-of-this world characters of Jack and Karen. The fact that they might be unbelievable does not make them boring. If that were the case, musical theatre, horror movies, and Liberace never would have existed.