So America has this regular predictable way with sitcoms. What happens is, every five years or so some clever original idea, or excellent ensemble cast, rises above the glurge and makes its mark, forever being a part of pop culture and entertainment history.
Usually the rest of the world agrees on these fantastic shows and loves them too.
Examples include MASH, Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, etc. They somehow have that extra spark that makes them zing.
Then there are some that bubble under, that are popular despite formulaic and stupidity of premise, because despite everything, they’re still funny as hell: Married with Children, Perfect Strangers, ALF, Drew Carey, The Nanny…
Can someone please explain Everybody Loves Raymond to me?
It’s boring, it’s headed by a dull lunkhead with a soppy heart of gold (ugh!), his brother is a lumbering moron, the parents are annoying catty irritations, the whole premise is glurge glurge glurge. It’s like the soppiest episodes of Home Improvement.
And yet it’s the current ‘most popular show’ in the US (and plays about three times a week here in Aus).
I would take issue with that. I, an American, do not know anyone who watches the show more than occasionally, and certainly I’ve never heard anyone discussing it, or using an “Everyone Loves Raymond” line as a gag.
I get my entertainment news from many sources, both independent and mainstream (i.e., from net users as well as from entertainment TV shows), and that’s where I was getting the vibe it was a really popular show: winning Emmy Awards, constantly getting renewed for the next season.
I don’t like Raymond much, but I like Debra. Don’t think of Raymond as a new version of MASH or Friends - think of it as an example of how far we’ve come since Full House. It’s not the best comedy ever, but it’s a fairly pleasant half hour of family entertainment. I get a few laughs, and I don’t fall asleep while it’s on - that means I like it. It doesn’t mean I consider it the best show on television (:::cough:: :::simpsons::: :::cough::
And you liked Perfect Strangers and ALF?? Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!
Yeah, I laughed at ‘Perfect Strangers’ and ‘ALF’ - but I admit they do not stand up as being worthy of praise. I even liked about six episodes of ‘Full House’ (I always figured Kimmie Gibbler was cool).
You know what I love best about the show? They have 3 kids and you hardly ever see them! I HATE annoying sit-com kids and how most shows that have them usually end up being about the kids. Occasionally something the kids do ends up leading to a major plot point (like in the ‘Angry Family’ episode) but even then the show is centered around the adults reaction, not the children’s.
I don’t often watch the show, mostly because I want to slap four-fifths of the main characters until they either grow a spine or get some common sense.
Well, I love the show. The family is more disfunctional than mine, and that’s quite a feat. Them and the family of Malcolm in the Middle. I don’t look for perfect characters or at least characters that are better than me, like those yuppies on Friends. And I like it that the characters are not fucked up without a reason. Raymond has no spine because he’s always been a mamas boy. Robert’s detatched from the family because “everybody love Raymond,” even though he was the first born. Marie, quite simply, is my grandmother from head to toe.
could he be the worst dit-com actor ever? people used to say jerry seinfeld wasn’t great, but compared to ray romano…
ray makes me want to bash my head repeatedly against conviniently hard pieces of nearby furniture. there is nothing likeable about the show. it lacks balls, ray and his the guy who plays his brother cannot act, the parents are annoying, the kids are annoying, it’s too moralistic, and ray can’t act.
this thing should have been shot in the first series.
I do enjoy the show and will even miss the first 30 minutes of MNF just so my wife and I can watch something together but I’d certainly not put it up there with All In The Family, Cheers or Seinfeld.
It’s pleasant enough and has a lot of funny in-law stuff something that God knows some of us need any reason to find humor in.
I don’t necessarily watch it for Ray, more for Marie and Peter Boyle’s character.
Plus, and this is the biggie, there’s no competition. What the heck else is out there to compete? We’re not big on being a slave to any series but I’m so bored with the current lineup that this is about the only thing we’ll even taka a look at.
What’s really disturbing is that you think Friends is based on a “clever original idea” or has an “excellent ensemble cast.” The only excellent ensemble cast members in Friends are under Jennifer Aniston’s blouse.
But Full House was anomalous. With the exception of Small Wonder, everything before and since is inspiring in comparison.
What confuses me is that I have seen a lot of people, even some on these esteemed boards refer to this show as an example of excellent television. Having seen one episode(or perhaps two), I agree with the OP, it is indistinguishable from the vast majority of sitcoms. I suspect that its popularity is mostly do to timing and scheduling.
But I don’t really get sitcoms anyway. Everyone I know is funnier than the people on the typical sitcom, and funnier things happen to them. And I don’t know particularly funny people. Maybe people think the sitcom characters are funny because they are little tiny people in the TV set. Give me the Simpsons, even in their current decline, and you can do what you like with the rest of TV.
It’s funny for me because it reminds me of my sister and her husband. My brother-inlaw is called Ray and his brother is a cop. My sister is a bad cook. Her mother-inlaw is a pain in the ass. I love it when Debra calls Ray an idiot. I just smile, nod my head and think “Yup! That’s them.”
The thing that has me completely buggered is that Australian TV networks will happily spoon-feed us crap like Everybody Hates Raymond, Becker etc until we’re pumped with more sugar than my first cup of coffee in the morning (now that is a LOT of sugar!), but they refused to show stuff like Family Guy - which is as funny now as The Simpsons was when it peaked.
If it wasn’t for the cable, the net and unnamed file sharing programs (:D) I would REALLY be pissed.
Oh yeah, screw you Raymond, you unfunny no talent ‘hey look ma i’m on TV’ wankbag.
‘Becker’! Now there’s a bad show!! And Ten has been playing the most horrible ‘Weber’ in a fairly good timeslot too. Ugh! I hate, Hate, HATE those shows!! At least ‘Raymond’ is superiour to those two. How ‘Becker’ is still on the air is beyond me, though Mr Cazzle will watch it from time to time because “Jadzia is in it”.
I like sitcoms. I didn’t mind ‘The Nanny’, and I loved ‘Married… with Children’. Hell, I even liked ‘Herman’s Head’. I just like the concept of a show that runs for half an hour, follows a formula so no thinking is required on my behalf, provides a couple of laughs, a few giggles and one or two smiles, and then ends happily. What more could you ask for from a show on free-to-air TV?
