The Barones invited viewers back into their living room on CBS’ Everybody Loves Raymond: 30th Anniversary Reunion. Hosted by star Ray Romano and series creator Phil Rosenthal, the special reunited the surviving main cast members of the Emmy-winning family comedy: Romano (Ray Barone), Patricia Heaton (Debra Barone), Brad Garrett (Robert Barone), Monica Horan (Amy MacDougall-Barone), Madylin Sweeten (Ally Barone) and Sullivan Sweeten (Michael Barone).
Filmed in front of a live audience last month, the special featured Rosenthal and the actors sharing stories about the hit show while sitting on the recreated main Raymond set consisting of Ray and Debra Barone’s living room and kitchen.
Romano and Heaton stayed true to their characters as they came out, with Romano entering through the kitchen door as Ray Barone often did, while Heaton walked down the stairs by a suitcase on the landing — an homage to one of the show’s most famous episodes, “Baggage.”
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There was laughter as clips from some of the show’s most iconic moments played, from the Fruit of the Month debacle in the pilot to the last scene in the finale. There were also tears as the special honored the late Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, who played Ray and Robert’s parents Marie and Frank, and Sawyer Sweeten, who portrayed one of Ray and Debra’s twin sons, Geoffrey, as well as guest stars such as Fred Willard and Georgia Engel. Featured in pre-taped interviews were key Raymond writers and producers, including executive producer David Letterman whose company produced the series after Romano impressed the veteran comedian with his standup set on The Late Show.
Here is behind-the-scenes look at Everybody Loves Raymond: 30th Anniversary Reunion with Romano and Rosenthal answering questions about the set, the script (or lack thereof), the special’s emotional tributes, what happened when the cameras was not rolling, what was cut from the 90-minute on-air version, what are Romano’s remaining Top 5 favorite episodes, was the fly scene his only on-set medical emergency and what was cut for time from the 90-minute on-air version.
Was this the original Raymond set?
The special started off by a short time-lapse video of how the set of Ray and Debra’s living room was built for the special at Television City. (Raymond filmed on the Warner Bros. lot for most of its run.) Were decors from the original series used?
ROMANO: No, no. Everything was just reconstructed, except for the couch. I took the couch home when we wrapped 20 years ago, and it’s been in my house, Phil has the parents’ kitchen furniture at his house, and then little odds and ends, someone has the fork and spoon. The only thing that they didn’t have to redo was the couch, everything else, the set decorator Donna Stamps did it again.
The big fork and spoon from Marie and Frank’s kitchen and another iconic Raymond prop, the toaster, were displayed on the living room table for the special.
ROSENTHAL: I think people watching this special will think that the set was there and we just went into it again. They tear down the set the moment you’re done filming the series. In fact, one of my favorite Hollywood stories is the moment we wrapped the finale of the show, I went to get a soda from the fridge backstage, and the fridge was gone. I said, ‘What happened to the fridge?’ and the guy said, ‘They need it for the show across the alley.’
That’s show business. When you are done, you are done. There’s no sentimentality, it’s like, we need this space, we need this fridge, we need all these pieces, and it goes somewhere else.
So the fact that it looks identical to the original set is really a tribute to Sharon Busse and Donna Stamps, the Production Designer and the Set Decorator who recreated painstakingly every detail of the set, it was like time traveling for us.
The set reveal you didn’t see
As the special showed, there was a curtain in front of the set so the audience couldn’t see it until the show started. Romano and Rosenthal had gotten an early sneak peek, which was not in the final cut. Here is what happened.
ROSENTHAL: They wanted to film Ray and I going on the set for the first time without the audience. I don’t think they wound up using it, but they did have that. We were absolutely amazed and kind of touched that they actually spent the money to build it and decorate it as if it has always been there.
ROMANO: Phil and I saw it at the same time. We walked out before the curtain opens for the audience. We were in awe of how it looked exactly like it. And then you’re also emotional, because it’s like going into the house that you grew up in. In a sense, it was this odd feeling of time, the time that had passed, it felt like so long ago that this was our TV home. And then after we went out there talking for a while, it felt so comfortable, like we had never left. It was one of those strange dual feelings, you know, but it was emotional.
ROSENTHAL: It was totally surreal to walk on, you get instantly emotional.
What Happened During Filming Breaks?
There were pauses during the taping of the reunion special. Here is what was going on while the cameras were not rolling.
ROSENTHAL: Then the other surreal moment was in between scenes of filming this reunion. I’m talking to the cast, and we had to stop and go. I just had this unbelievable feeling that we’re back 25 years ago, and I’m giving you notes in between scenes on the set. I was out there the whole time, and I was having such a good time just talking to my friends on the set while we had commercial breaks or got ready for the next segment. So it was really fun.
ROMANO: During the break, we would just marvel about the set. Most of it was about the set, like, can you believe this? It feels surreal that we don’t feel weird anymore. It feels like we’re here, we’re just going to do another show. And Phil said that during a break. This is exactly how it was during a break when we were filming, they were sitting with us, giving notes and whatnot. We were just marveling at this little trip back in time we were taking.
Where is the set from the special now?
ROSENTHAL: It’s in a museum on Long Island right now, which is very nice, because that’s where the series was set, that was the fictional land where we were set.
Is this a temporary or permanent exhibit?
ROSENTHAL: I don’t know if it’s temporary, maybe it’ll tour, it’ll go around so people can see that.
“This is a reunion, not a reboot”
As they got together on stage at the top of the special, Romano and Rosenthal had a message for fans.
“First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: this, I’m sure you know, is a reunion, not a reboot,” they said. “We’re never going to do one, because we’re missing three cast members, three family members, so we would never try to do it. It wouldn’t be the same. We have too much respect for the show itself and for the beautiful audience to keep it the way it is, and thankfully, the show is still on every day all over the world.”
Here is why the duo felt it was important to kick off the special with that statement.
ROMANO: Because people keep asking us, people feel that we’re not thinking of the audience by not having a reboot, which a lot of shows do. And the honest answer is, when we are thinking of you, we don’t want to do it, because it will never be as good. First of all, even if every cast member was alive and well, they’re never as good as when the show was thriving and we were younger. And the fact that the mother and the father and one of the kids is gone, and also a couple of the guest stars are gone, we would be doing a disservice to the show.
Was any part of the special scripted?
ROSENTHAL: We didn’t write any dialog that we were going to say for the special. I’m very happy with the way it came out, because it’s genuine. Everything you see was extemporaneous, everything you see is just how we were feeling at that moment.
We had bullet points: Patty’s gonna come out now, and you’ll probably talk about how she got the part, we’re going to talk about this episode or that episode, but we didn’t script what we were going to say, everything else was just friends talking.
ROSENTHAL: Even that part of the beginning, none of this was scripted.
In the opening, Romano engaged the audience, speaking with a fan from the Philippines who said she learned English from watching Raymond.
ROMANO: The lady from the Philippines was just me asking who’s from out of town, I was just going to do my opening and talk to the people. So I didn’t know where that was going to go. When we did the Q&A, we had no idea what questions were going to be asked.
ROSENTHAL: We had no idea what the audience would say. We had no idea when we did a Q&A with the audience, which I really wanted to do, because I find that so many wonderful moments happen when the audience is there.
What about Garrett’s dance?
The Q&A with audience at the end included a woman asking Garrett to recreate Robert’s famous night club dance with her, to which he obliged.
ROSENTHAL: Brad did not know that that woman would ask to dance with him. Nothing was planned.
ROMANO: The producer, to prepare where the cameras were going to go, he had the people write their questions on cards, so he didn’t prep them with the questions, he just picked the people. Why don’t we go to this person or that person or this one? But we had no idea, the cast had no idea what questions were going to be asked. No way.
Brad did not know that was going to happen. The producers knew because they had the music cue ready, the music cue, so they knew that the woman was going to ask. But Brad did not know that that was going to happen.
How did Garrett remember every move to pull it off?
ROMANO (laughing): He didn’t remember every move. He’s only got the one move. He only knows that one dance. He does a little bit of Michael Jackson. He spins around. I’ve seen him do that dance a lot. It’s already queued up in his head.
Holding it together during Boyle, Roberts & Sawyer Sweeten’s tributes
Amid the laughter and jokes, Rosenthal and the actors got choked up several times, especially when speaking about the Raymond cast members who have passed away.
ROMANO: Phil got emotional when he was talking, and I think that I got a little emotional when I was talking about Peter. I don’t know if you can tell on the special, but when I’m telling the story about how Peter gave me advice in that first pilot episode, I chilled up afterwards, and I kind of swallowed it down, but for a brief moment, that’s what I told Phil, go ahead, talk about Doris, because I can’t talk anymore.
We kept it in, we didn’t have to cut it all. The Sweetens, when they come out, it’s emotional, and we let that play. But, yeah, we both had our moments, Phil and I and, the cast too; I think Patty was wiping away tears on camera also.
ROSENTHAL: I got choked up just when Ray and Patty were sitting there, when I started to talk about them. You can see Ray pat my leg. He was starting to say something else and he patted my leg, as if to say, it’s all right, you’ll be all right.
But it was really sweet. It’s really how I feel about that time in my life, and about these people and about how great they are. And as you sit there watching these clips, and this goes for obviously, Doris and Peter too, you realize what beautiful actors they all were. Doris and Peter were seasoned actors who were phenomenal. My favorite thing about the cast is their level of commitment to the material, which of course, is sometimes silly because we’re doing comedy, but they play it as if it’s life and death, which makes it funnier. And then when they get dramatic, it really steals your heart. Add to the fact that we love them as people, and that’s when you get the emotion from us remembering them.
One of the most heartbreaking moments came when Madylin Sweeten, now a new mom herself, and her brother Sullivan spoke about their late brother, Sawyer, who died of suicide at the age of 19, and about their work with the Suicide Prevention Hotline to honor him.
ROSENTHAL: It’s the hardest thing in the world to talk about, especially with family members who’ve lost someone, especially such a tragedy, someone at such a young age. But I thought that Madylin and Sullivan handled it beautifully. I honestly didn’t know how it would go, but they handled it beautifully and and we’ve always been honest. The show is honest. We had one rule in writing this sitcom, which was, could this happen?
Many shows they’re great, but they don’t always follow that rule. So this is something that could happen, and if we treat it honestly, I’m really proud of the way they did it. I’m really proud of them, that they would come on in a public way to talk about this, and then, you know what? Maybe they help somebody. Maybe someone will see this and get help.
What’s better than that, we still celebrate Sawyer’s life and his life on the show and how cute and adorable and great the children were and we can still enjoy life ourselves, but we honor his memory and we try to help other people. That’s all we can do.
Romano’s other favorite episodes
On the special, Romano said that he has Top 5 favorite episodes of the show. He only listed one, “Talk To Your Daughter.” What are the other four?
ROMANO: Off the top of my head, I have them written down somewhere, I have more than five. I did a thing where I rewatched every episode during Covid, and I scored from 1 to 100 each episode. I watched 210 in order, and the one I mentioned, “Talk To Your Daughter,” was one of the highest scoring ones. The show called “Good Girls,” that was that ranked very high.
There’s one, we call it the PMS episode, but it’s called “Bad Moon Rising.” In the last season, the second episode [“Not So Fast”}, it’s when the parents voluntarily go to a retirement village, and we’re ecstatic, and in the second episode, they get kicked out of the retirement village. That, believe it or not, is one of the top ranking ones.
As for the others, Heaton chose “Baggage,” Garrett went with “Lucky Suit,” Horan with “Pat’s Secret”, Madylin Sweeten with “Marie’s Statue,” Sullivan Sweeten with the finale’s last scene.
What else was cut from the special?
Romano and Rosenthal’s first walking onto the recreated Raymond set was not the only thing that didn’t make the final cut.
While Romano filmed about seven minutes of banter with the audience in the beginning, only two were included in the special.
ROMANO: Well, it’s a 90-minute special, which is only 66 minutes [with no commercials]. We were out there for almost two and a half hours, three hours, maybe. And not only that, but all the [pre-taped] interviews with the writers and the guest stars. That’s why we’re trying to ask for a little more time for when it reruns on Paramount+, because there’s so much more good stuff.
The one thing that was hard for Phil and I to cut was we did a little segment about our fathers. My father and his father both did guest spots together as two buddies from the Elks Lodge.
ROSENTHAL: We loved doing that. They were hilarious together.
ROMANO: We showed a clip of them, and we talked about them. In the first cut of the show, they were in it. But then, when we realized we got to cut 20 minutes, we had to get rid of that, but hopefully that can get in on the rerun.
Romano’s father Albert died in 2010; Rosenthal’s dad Max passed away in 2021.
The fly episode was not Romano’s only on-set medical emergency
During the reunion, Romano shared how, while, as Ray, he was screaming at Garrett’s Robert that his new girlfriend had eaten a fly in the “She’s the One” episode, he started hyperventilating and almost passed out, as the clip showed him slumping after he said the line. There was another on-set incident that sent him to the hospital.
ROMANO: In one episode, I sliced my finger. We had to stop, and I had to go get stitches. In the episode, my brother has his own apartment. My character is excited because there’s a lot of single women, and it’s fun to hang out at his apartment. And I come in all excited, and I go, this is gonna be great. And here’s some cheese on the coffee table. I go, ‘All right, let’s have a little cheese’ and I go to cut the cheese. And when we filmed it, I say, ‘cut’. And I mean, really cut, cut the cheese.
My finger’s bleeding, and we had to go to urgent care. The audience stayed, and almost two hours later, I came back with stitches in my finger, and we did it again. It’s funny, the second time I do it, I come in, I go, ‘Oh, let’s have cheese. You know what, I don’t want any cheese.’
Rosenthal’s favorite line
During the reunion, the cast shared their favorite lines from the show. For Heaton, it was one of Debra’s trademark cries of desperation to Ray, “What did you do?”; Romano cited a punchline delivered to his character by a guest star in a hospital scene, “You tricky, tricky white boy.” Rosenthal did not get to share his on the special but revealed it to Deadline.
“Oh, my God, I have so many” he said before sharing the story behind a clap back delivered by Frank (Boyle) to Marie (Roberts) in a scene included in one of the reunion special’s clip packages. It comes after Marie protests that she has a mind of her own and not just some trophy wife.
ROSENTHAL: This line came to me, I swear, in a dream, and I woke up and wrote it down. This has never happened to me before or since. It is: “You’re a trophy wife? What contest in hell did I win?”.
On the special, Rosenthal identified another line as one of his favorites. It came in response to Marie (Roberts) symbolically trying to remove the big fork and spoon from their kitchen after decades.
“When did we get those?,” a genuinely puzzled Frank (Boyle) asks, which Rosenthal said perfectly encapsulates a long marriage.
Who didn’t make it to the reunion?
The special included a touching moment when Boyle’s widow, Loraine, who was in the audience, stood up to a big applause. There were also plans for relatives of Roberts to attend too.
ROSENTHAL: I believe her son was ill and couldn’t make it.
Those bloopers
The special ended with a gag reel featuring a couple of scenes where Romano keeps coming up with a different punchline in every take, often prompting his screen partner to crack up. Turns out this was typical and not improv work.
ROSENTHAL: That was every taping – Ray and some of us writers would gather before the show and come up with some alternate punchlines for jokes. Some we actually used in the finished show and some were just to crack up the other cast members and studio audiences. And we often came up with alternate lines in between takes, for the other actors too but there was no improvising.
To be continued…
If 90 minutes (66 without commercials) was not enough for Everybody Loves Raymond fans who want more time with the cast and creatives of their favorite show, they may be in luck.
ROSENTHAL: In 5-10 years, if we’re all still around, sure, why not revisit some of the things. I’m fine if people want to see that. It’s very easy for us to do because we love doing it. We love being together.
It really is a family reunion in many ways. One of my favorite parts of doing the reunion was a lot of crew and guest cast and writers. They all came, and I made sure that we had them all come out on stage, because audiences think sometimes the actors that they’re watching are real and that they write everything they say, and all you see is them. So that’s all you think is there making the show. So I’m thrilled to show everyone behind the scenes. We did a show for families, about a family, and pretty soon, while we were doing it, it was being made by a family.
The Everybody Loves Raymond: 30th Anniversary Reunion was produced by Fulwell Entertainment.