For the rest of this week, everybody really is going to be loving Raymond.
Everybody will be talking about Raymond.
And most everybody will be watching Raymond.
“Everybody Loves Raymond” has been the last bastion for the family-oriented sitcom and defeated the odds for nine years.
“It wasn’t the buzz show,” star and executive producer Ray Romano said last week in a teleconference. “It wasn’t the water-cooler show; it wasn’t sexy and flashy and young and all that.”
No, it wasn’t.
But it remains the only 30-minute sitcom among the top 10 watched shows in its ninth and last season.
The second-to-last episode of “Raymond” airs at 9 tonight on KIRO-TV, and the series finale broadcasts at the same time on May 16. A one-hour retrospective will air at 8 p.m. before the finale on May 16.
Falling in line behind last year’s exits of “Friends,” “Frasier” and “Sex and the City,” the departure of “Raymond” marks yet another blow for the genre.
There are only three other half-hour comedies among the top 40 shows this season, but “Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal said the sitcom’s time will come again.
“It’s always been tough to get a comedy on the air and make it work,” Rosenthal said. “Everything is cyclical. Everything is dead until the next big hit.”
Recalling the early days, Romano said he never liked the name of the show and still doesn’t.
“I’ve never warmed to it,” Romano said. “It just breeds a resentment and contempt to say you’re gonna love this guy.”
The name was meant sarcastically, something his real-life police officer brother would say after being shot at and yelled at … “and everybody loves Raymond.”
“They told me if (the show) is top 10 you can change it to anything you want,” Romano recalled. “But we didn’t make it to the top 10 until the third year and they said, you can’t change it now – it’s been three years already.”
The finale was filmed more than two months ago, but Romano and Rosenthal have spent much of that time with show-related activities.
They still marvel over the attention the show is getting, even landing on the cover of “Entertainment Weekly” this week for the first time in its nine-year run.
Rosenthal isn’t giving any hints about what’s in store for the big finish, refusing to even say whether it will strive for an emotional wrapup or just some good last laughs.
“I wrote the story for the finale a year and a half ago, because I never thought we’d go past the seventh season,” Rosenthal said. “I knew it was a good final story, so I kept it in a drawer until we were ready.”
Romano said filming the final episode was emotional, with his on-screen wife Patricia Heaton crying when they first read the script.
“At the final episode, everyone was kind of like in some kind of shock almost,” Romano said. “At the curtain call, it got emotional for a lot of people. I was surprised.”
Romano said his 12-year-old twins were in tears.
“That surprised me, caught me off guard,” Romano said. “Then I started to think, they’ve known this show for their whole lives.”
“My accountant was crying,” Rosenthal quipped.
Romano isn’t sure what the future holds, possibly some stand-up comedy and some movies if things work out.
“It’s not pretty,” he said. “Who knows? I’m gonna be riding around on a bike yelling, ‘Remember me?’”
Columnist Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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