Since 60 Minutes apparently felt its journalistic credibility hadn't suffered enough in the past year, they decided to air a story on Ray Romano last night. In an amazing coincidence, Romano's show - Everybody Loves Raymond - which also airs on CBS, is ending its nine-year run later this month.
I'm not one of those holier-than-thou types who utter the word "television" with the same distasteful inflection they might give "Velveeta." Or "Polish vodka." I don't watch much TV, but I also won't pretend that I've blocked out everything on my Dish guide except for Discovery Health, the History Channel, and C-SPAN2. I favor cartoons and Comedy Central, and I'm not above taking in the occasional CSI derivation or...ahem...Gilmore Girls.
That doesn't keep me from heaping scorn upon shows I've never seen, of course. I don't need to sit through the full 22 minutes of the According to Jim episode where Jim says something boorish and has to elaborately make it up to his wife (with side-splitting results) to know the show is an affront to all that is good and decent in society. Most TV shows, in fact, broadcast their malevolent nature quite readily in the previews. Watching Kevin James howl as he slides out of control on his ass down a ski slope or getting a glimpse of the "Urkel-Bot" are just further examples of how nature says, "Don't touch."
I'd like to say this same tactic has kept me from seeing an entire episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Unfortunately, I have sat through exactly one. And I should apologize in advance, for I may have played an unwitting role in the show's longevity.
In the spring of 1997, yours truly (along with infrequent commenter TheDave and two others) traveled to Las Vegas for no real reason other than why most people go to Las Vegas (fine ceramics). It was Saturday afternoon and the four of us were walking somewhere behind the Strip. The time was about 4:00, the magical hour when that morning's hangover has at long last slipped away and that evening's bender is, literally, just around the corner (I think we were headed to the Barbary Coast).
A conservatively dressed woman (something that always catches your eye in Vegas) standing outside a small, windowless building asked us if we were interested in participating in a test screening for a TV program. She emphasized that it wasn't a pilot screening, but an existing show that was going to be retooled. I didn't see how that was much of a selling point, since a pilot at least had the potential to be entertaining, while a show going under the knife must have some serious problems. For some reason, and even though at least half of our party wanted to commence binging in earnest, I convinced them to follow this unidientified person into a building with no visible emergency exits and take part in the exercise. And to think we all had Master's degrees.
As those of you with functioning cerebral cortices have figured out by now (the rest of you have obviously arrived here by mistake from Michelle Malkin's blog), the show in question was Everybody Loves Raymond. It had performed underwhelmingly in its first season, and CBS - for some reason - felt that asking for feedback from drunks yanked off the street in Sin City was the best way to improve their troubled show.[1] I wish I had a copy of the questionnaire, but I remember being especially critical of such things as: the shrewish mother-in-law, the meddling parents in general, the precociously wiseass kids, and the already worn-out trope of the hapless husband. We turned in our answers, were thanked for our participation, and were dumped back onto the darkening streets of Vegas without even an autographed Doris Roberts photo for our efforts. We hit the bar as soon as out feet could get us to one, and it wasn't until a few years later that I saw a promo for the same show on TV and blurted out, "That piece of shit is still on the air?"
I then apologized profusely to my aunt's bridge club.
Trouble is, I couldn't tell you is the show's subsequent success (#30 in its second season, and no lower than #12 since) had absolutely nothing to do with my suggestions (as The Wife opines), or if my sarcastic comments were somehow incorporated and played some part in the show's resurgence. I tend toward the latter explanation, since I put "Clergy" in the "Occupation" field on my form, which might have seemed suspect given the copious amounts of profanity sprinkled through my comments.
On a slightly different note, ELR is one of the handful of TV shows in my experience where those watching (my grandparents, as it turns out) have consistently hushed entire roomfuls of people while it's on. The others are Murder, She Wrote (friend's mother), Buffy and Angel (former roommate), and Hunter (ex-girlfriend).[2] So make of that what you will.
[1] In that light, network programming makes a lot more sense.
[2] And the 1993 Stanley Cup finals (me).
UPDATE: As kodi points out in the comments, I already touched upon this very subject a year ago. So much for originality.
"Watching Kevin James howl as he slides out of control on his ass down a ski slope or getting a glimpse of the 'Urkel-Bot' are just further examples of how nature says, 'Don't touch.'"
LOL Pete, great biology/TV critic analogy there. Conjured up images the red skin of poison dart frogs or the spines of a sea urchin. Perhaps anything featuring Alan Thicke on television is another example of 'aposematic coloration' as seen on the small screen.
Hey, 1 brick velveeta, 1 can Ro-Tel, 1 pound ground hamburger. Brown meat, put all in crock-pot, go to work. Tasty Queso. I don't know about Polish Vodka, but if it's really Vodka (tasteless, ordorless, and colorless), then it's pretty unobjectionable. The Kaluha and the Milk pretty much cover the Vokda, too..
Velveeta > Vodka > TV.
I once watched a Tom Wopat pilot for similar purposes. It was teeth-grinding.
Yes, I watch Gilmore girls for the wonderful writing and remarkably competent acting, as well. Thank you Jeebus, for the fact that telepathy doesn't exsist or I would roam the frozen Alakan forests, shunned by all mankind.
I think you also made comments like, "Sarcastic mother-in-law? Brilliant!" and "Let me commend CBS on yet another sitcom featuring a clueless goof of a husband and an occasionally annoyed but ultimately forgiving wife. This should play well to all three of the Laotian mountain tribes that have yet to sit through something similar."
How embarrassing. I've finally reached the point where I need to start searching my archives to keep from repeating myself. Good catch.
I've never seen the show either and I don't find Ray Romano funny in the least. Also bothersome is his skany TV wife who somehow wasn't given shit for getting one of the worst boob jobs I've ever seen. Thanks God it's almost over...now Romano can fade away in a ne'er to be seen way ala Jerry Seinfeld. Not dissing Jerry, it's just that he's a Johnny Carson sized hermit without the drinking and smoking problems.
My college roommate demanded absolute and complete silence during X-Files. During commercials I would make remarks questioning Dana Scully's sexuality just to see the smoke pour from his ears. Good times.
--Chris
Michael:
I thought we were tolerably certain that the existence of the Tom Wopat pilot was to justify audience vetting of the commercials?
Funny ... I was just commenting to a friend earlier today, that I very rarely watch T.V., but when I returned home from our Mother's Day get-together, I just felt like sitting down with a news program. Since we don't have cable or satellite, network T.V. would have to do. I started with Dateline on NBC to see that they had a segment on the Simpson sisters, and how fame had affected their lives. Puke. So I switched over to 60 minutes, and there was the Ray Romano segment. What happened to news analysis?? I turned of the T.V. and listened to my new Aimee Mann cd.