Shark Bytes

The episode that stands out in my mind and still induces nausea is when Ray has to sleep in the same bed as his brother Robert only to discover Robert sleeping naked. Must get the Pepto Bismol.

Reading some of these reviews is making my head spin. The men say "Debra is annoying", the women say "Debra is great for putting up with Ray". I mean c'mon - that's basically the whole point of the show. There is a huge difference between a character who is intentionally annoying because it's part of their character and one who is annoying because they're an unbelievable terrible actor. Pretty much everyone on this show fit the former category until the introduction of Amy - who was possibly the worst actress in mainstream sitcom history.

I never watched this show until it went into syndication. My wife loves this show and has watched just about every single episode.

However, I'd have to say it's a "Day One" jumper for me. Being an avid sports fan, I just never bought into the premise of "Ray Barone as sportswriter" and I just can't get past that enough to enjoy it. The two sports-themed cameos that I can remember (Marv Albert and Terry Bradshaw) were just so contrived, they were laughable. And Romano just never sold his character to me as being a writer...for someone who was supposedly a pretty well-known, in-demand sportswriter, he certainly seemed to have an awful lot of spare time on his hands!

Personally, I don't feel it ever really jumped but I do have a question. Why is it that so many posters concerning this show and many others that make comments like the show was "terrible","sucked", "horrible" ectera and generally trash the show would take time out of their day to actually post on a forum of a show they can't seem to stand? And on top of that, these people seemed to have watched every episode during the entire eight year run of the show! Normal people would typically stop watching a show they didn't like, much less one they hated....

It has to be one of the best comedy shows ever. I was so enthralled by the excellent writing, imagination and excellent cast that i bought all the seasons. Holy crap!
The cast are my heroes. I know they had some bloopers, which are hilarious, but I am amazed how they kept a straight face most of the time. I don't think I could ever hold it together that well. I have trodden the boards in amateur dramatics but I'd be in tears laughing with an ELR script. Well, it would take a lot of takes!

Now I have to compare ELR with another great American comedy series called Soap from the late 70's/early 80's, which is now available on DVD, and I'll watch it again and compare it to ELR.
My wife, son and daughter also love the show and I often come home and see DVDs of ELR lying around on the coffee table and they're screaming with laughter. I was sad to hear that Peter Boyle passed away in 2006, just before I started to watch the show. Well, he has left a great legacy!

Never jumped. This one grew on me. I remember seeing Ray's commercial for the show which kept me from watching it at first, since it gave me another "it's-angst-ridden-so-it-must-be-cool-show" impression. But when I did get to watch it I awaited for each episode and rerun. The show wasn't meant to be taken so seriously; they're supposed to be that way. Unlike other shows they don't make their shortcomings cool or try to sound revolutionary (or rather defensive). It's stupid, as they intended it to be.

Incredibly entertaining show to me and it has never JTS. Sometimes I can't stand watching Raymonds parents insult each other (boring) but the rest of the cast is pretty funny. Ray is my favorite character. The way he always tries to get out of doing housework and then getting caught is hilarious.
I don't have a favorite episode, I love all of them. The writing on the show has always been consistantly funny for years. Even when Patricia Heaton started to get older (40+), she still looks great.

Never jumped the shark for me. Only because of the fact that I hated it, so to me every single moment of this show qualifies as a 'shark jump.' Earlier today I threw King of QUeens a bone, but I have nothing for you Ray Romano.

You were funny as a furry elephant paired with a sabertoothed cat and a retarded sloth, but as a human being you fail.

Again the same problems as KOQ, a cast of completely hate inspiring characters, though they take it to new levels, as I watch Debra piss and moan and wonder how anyone could find her sexually appealing.

I'm sick of these types of shows making women characters into such utter hags and then trying to make it 'justified,' like us men are just SOOOOO STUPID how could women not feel the need to scream at us and tease us by denying sex to their husbands. I'm sick of this whole tired concept. Make me a sitcom where the wife is a stupid woman-child, and the man is constantly fed up with her crap. Or hey, you could just ditch the whole concept and show us a realistic loving couple.

Yes I realise many marriages are just like this farce of a show, but hey guess what, everyone poops too, doesn't mean I want to watch a close up of Ray Romano's sphincter as he craps out another episode and then wipes his ass with his viewer's faces.

This is how I would have ended Everybody Loves Raymond. After all of the years that bitch Debra yells at Raymond he finally snaps and beats the crap out of her then take a double barreled shotgun and blows her brain out. Then he douses Debra with gasoline and lights a match.

this show is cute. i own almost all the seasons. i really like the children. they seem so close, not just cause they're really siblings, they 're just good kids. my favorite episode is the "home from school" where michael doesn't want 2 go 2 school. "he called the teacher mommy" "why, was the teacher yelling" was ray's response. and ally says it 2, at the end! i thought that was cute.

I really did not understand why they were so concerned about Debra acting mean in the "PMS" episode, it seems she was always snipping at everyone, all the time.

Debra from this show and Helen Hunt from "Mad About You" should have gotten together and opened up a castration clinic. Marie could have been the receptionist. They could have made a lot of money.

Fine, you like it - I don't. I watched a similar "growth" of a character on a show I loved - Seinfeld. George Costanza was a great character until Jason Alexander kept pushing himself into more and more scenes (mostly unfunny)in the later shows. I happen to think that the "Robert" character on Raymond was much better in a limited role, and that the shows that centered on Robert and Amy were the lamest and most irritating. Just my opinion, but it seems that when the big $ start rolling into these shows the actors start angling for more and more of it and the shows suffer.

Keifert...Brad Garrett liking the sound of his own voice? Why not? I like it too.

It was an occasionally funny show, but VERY annoying. Most of the so-called humor came from long awkward pauses, which were only awkward because the characters were unrealistically afraid of being direct. How many times can you laugh at Debra's facial expression at the mother-in-law's veiled insults? Silence and blank stares are not witty. It's further annoying that the old bitch is NEVER put in her place. And Raymond's inarticulateness, stuttering, and cowering nature is not likeable.

Compared to the average sitcom, there was probably 50% less dialogue, with external laughter in its place as we look at the stupid characters' drawn-out, silent reactions. THAT'S NOT FUNNY!! Now King of Queens, that's funny.