Everybody Loves Raymond - Series 1 (DVD)

...first heard people talking about Everybody Loves Raymond, I honestly thought nothing of it. I presumed it was just another one of those nothing American comedies, and decided I'd just stick to 'Friends' and the like. It was the sort of show people would watch before going to school in the mornings, not the sort of show you'd stay in at night for and with that in mind I never really wanted to make any effort to watch it. Not until having nothing to ...
...without the actors, but in Everybody Loves Raymond's case the cast has been perfected to a tee.

Ray Romano, as I mentioned previously, plays the lead character - Raymond Barone. The premise of the show is that he lives with his wife, Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton), and his daughter and twin boys. Across the street live his parents, Frank (Peter Boyle) and Marie (Doris Roberts). Ray's older brother, Robert (Brad Garrett), also lives ... more

When I first heard people talking about Everybody Loves Raymond, I honestly thought nothing of it. I presumed it was just another one of those nothing American comedies, and decided I'd just stick to 'Friends' and the like. It was the sort of show people would watch before going to school in the mornings, not the sort of show you'd stay in at night for and with that in mind I never really wanted to make any effort to watch it. Not until having nothing to do in the daytime and sitting down to a Paramount Comedy double bill have I seen what an absolutely brilliant show it is.

The very first episode aired on the 13th September 1996, when I was just 7 years old. From there it went on to be a weekly hit, with 22 episodes making up its debut season. Those episodes are; Pilot, I Love You, I Wish I Were Gus, Standard Deviation, Look Don't Touch, Frank the Writer, Your Place or Mine?, In-Laws, Win Lose or Draw, Turkey or Fish, Captain Nemo, The Ball, Debra's Stick, Who's Handsome?, The Car, Diamonds, The Game, Recovering Pessimist, The Dog, Neighbors, Fascinatin' Debra, and Why Are We Here?

Although the show ran for almost a decade, the show did not begin to get released on DVD until about a year before the last episode aired. The show has won Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Show, and been nominated for Golden Globes with Ray Romano being up for the Best Performance award. Of course like any show, it would be nothing without the actors, but in Everybody Loves Raymond's case the cast has been perfected to a tee.

Ray Romano, as I mentioned previously, plays the lead character - Raymond Barone. The premise of the show is that he lives with his wife, Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton), and his daughter and twin boys. Across the street live his parents, Frank (Peter Boyle) and Marie (Doris Roberts). Ray's older brother, Robert (Brad Garrett), also lives with them across the street. Whilst moving across the street from them so that they could babysit and the like may have seemed like a good idea at first, Debra has came to hate the fact that they live so close.

Debra's relationship with Marie is anything but sweet, with Marie always judging Debra for not being the perfect housewife. Marie will constantly ridicule Debra for something, whether it be for her cooking or her cleaning. It's a typical mother-in-law relationship, with Marie not willing to give up her favourite son. Ray is a nerdy sports writer, who can't believe his luck to be married to someone as beautiful as Debra. Ray hates to have people mad at him, and that is why he constantly tries to keep everybody happy.

Robert is jealous of the fact that Ray is the favourite son, hence the title of the show, and feels that his employment as a prestigious policeman goes unoticed because Ray has a column in a newspaper. Frank is without a doubt many peoples favourite character of the show, and is generally just there to annoy people and argue with his wife. Frank also has his own catchphrase, 'holy crap', and everytime he says it there is no need for canned laughter as the live audiance the show is filmed in front of naturally errupt because he is such a funny guy.

What actually inspired me to write this review was that Paramount Comedy just had an Everybody Loves Raymond weekend, airing episode after episode, as well as a documentary on the making of the show. Interviewing the writers it is very obvious that a lot of the storylines on the show are taken from real life experiences and that is what makes the show appear so natural. One bad thing I could say about the show is that the subject of sex constantly seems to come up almost every other episode between Ray and Debra. Whilst it is funny, it's the thing that makes this show a PG or a 12, rather than a U.

If you've never seen the show, I would definitly recommend the Pilot episode and it shows what it is all about. Whilst the Pilot wasn't actually the first episode I ever saw, I saw it the other day and thought it was brilliantly put together. Some of the sets are quite different to how they are now in future episodes, and the characters look so much younger, but the comedy is still the same. My favourite moment of the episode has to be where Marie asks Ray not to get her fruit as a birthday present again because she's got too many pears, when Ray reveals that the birthday present was Fruit Of The Month (meaning a new fruit will come every month), Marie and Frank begin to freak out thinking that Ray has joined them up to some sort of cult when they could quite easily walk to the shop and get their own fruit. It may sound a little far fetched but it is hilarious, and shows the difficulty people can have buying presents for their parents.

Overall, the first season of ELR lays an excellent framework for the rest of the shows lifetime and it is no surprise that when the show finally came to an end in 2005 that it was such a tear jerker. I would recommend it to anyone, and can definitly be a brilliant show to sit down to and watch as a family and laugh, provided you are willing to give it a chance. If you don't want to laugh at your own dysfunctional family, you will find it much easier to laugh at this one because from Marie to Ray to Robert to Debra to Frank, everything is practically perfect.  

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