By Ray Richmond | The Hollywood
Reporter
Meet the writers who loved
going into the office every
day.
Scribes who work in TV
comedy often tell stories of
fractious in-fighting,
late-night rewrites and
perpetual exhaustion -- but
not so for CBS' "Everybody
Loves Raymond" bunch, who
have worked smoothly and
been able to get home in
time for dinner nearly every
night.
"We had an amazingly
civilized work schedule for
the writers," star/executive
producer Ray Romano says.
"No one ever had to pull an
all-nighter here."
Actually, 8 p.m. was a long
night, reports
writer/executive producer
Tucker Cawley. "We got in at
10 (a.m.) and left at 7
(p.m.), and that just
doesn't happen in this
world," he says. "I think in
our nine years, we ordered
dinner maybe twice."
According to
writer/executive producer
Steve Skrovan, the show's
organization stems from a
system instituted by
showrunner and de facto head
writer Phil Rosenthal. After
"Raymond's" second season,
Rosenthal came up with the
idea of having the staff
generate 10 story ideas
during the following
season's preproduction
period, which were then
expanded into outlines prior
to the staff's annual
two-month hiatus.
"So, during the hiatus, we'd
all be writing scripts at
our leisure," Skrovan says.
"By the time we came back
June 1, we'd (be) able to
hit the ground running; that
made a huge difference."
Although the earliest days
of "Raymond" emerged almost
entirely from scripts based
on the family lives of
Romano and Rosenthal, that
ultimately evolved to
include the lives and
personal experiences of the
writers.
"It was terrific to be able
to write about our lives and
have it enacted every week,"
Skrovan says. "Phil ran a
great writers room where
everyone felt they could be
heard, and great ideas could
come from anywhere."
Strangely, it was never
difficult to formulate
stories about a Long Island
family while operating out
of Los Angeles -- or, almost
never. "Only at the very
end," Cawley stresses. "The
middle seasons flowed like
water. But it got harder and
harder not to repeat
ourselves."
Skrovan emphasizes that
"Raymond's" writing staff
has been "dedicated to
keeping the interaction
real, above all else. It
can't just be about your
life over and over but the
lives of people you know and
observe. But it has to be
funny. At the end of the
day, that was our sole
criterion."
