By David Kronke | LA Daily News

For those keeping track, Thursday night's affair was the third farewell party for "Everybody Loves Raymond." The first was thrown in January, before the show even wrapped: The taping of the final episode was delayed a week when Patricia Heaton fell victim to laryngitis, but the wrap party was thrown anyway, a week early, as it turned out.

The latest round of goodbyes took place Thursday in a hangar at Santa Monica Airport, where cast, writers and crew gathered to congratulate one another for nine successful years on what, at this point, could be the last sitcom to be a consistent Top-10 hit. The set of the home inhabited by Ray and Debra Barone (Ray Romano and Heaton) -- as well as the kitchen belonging to his intrusive parents (Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle) -- had been reconstructed in the hangar for this farewell.

Romano declared that he had already wept, so he remained resolute. Heaton, in a dress so sexy cast member Brad Garrett upbraided her for its revealing nature, succumbed more freely to her emotions.

Before the final episode had been shot, Heaton admitted, "I've been gabbing about how I'm ready to leave, and I'm not an emotional person and don't like this sappy stuff. I have not stopped saying how I'm going to shut down and not respond until after the show is over, and (at the final) table read, (she emulated a wrenching bawling)."

Garrett rounded out the show's cast as Ray's brother, Robert, the divorced sad sack who eventually got remarried, to the kindly Amy (Monica Horen, wife of series creator Phil Rosenthal). The cast and writers will reunite one final time in New York on May 16, when the last episode is aired.

CBS chairman Les Moonves recalled, to those assembled, green-lighting the show, giving work to "an unemployed stand-up comic" (Romano) and "a writer who was not exactly James L. Brooks at the time" (Rosenthal). As Moonves remembered, at the time CBS was "so desperately in last place, everyone made fun of us.

"We began the comeback nine years ago with a little show called 'Everybody Loves Raymond,'" trumpeted Moonves at the party. "I can't (say) what 'Raymond' did for our comeback -- it was the center of our schedule for years and years and years." Today, CBS boasts the most viewers of all networks, ranking first or near it in even the most valued demographic, adults ages 18 to 49.

"Everybody Loves Raymond" emerged at a time when the sitcom was king, specifically those centered around groups of free-wheeling, wisecracking singles ("Seinfeld," "Friends," "Frasier"). The family sitcom had died with "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties" -- series centered around idealized, loving nuclear families.

Oh-so-subtly, "Raymond" returned the family sitcom to the subversive '70s (the show even included part of a set that had been last used for "All in the Family"), examining a family perpetually on the brink of meltdown. The title, which Romano famously resisted (fearing a critical backlash that never came), was intended ironically: Heaton's exasperated Debra stared down Romano's dithering Ray with withering contempt far more frequently than she did with gauzy adoration.

"Two words explain that: That's marriage," creator Rosenthal said with a laugh at the party. "Two things explain why they're still together -- one, he makes her laugh, and two, under everything else, he has a sweet soul."

Romano is even less sentimental: "When women tell me, 'You remind me of my husband,' I apologize."

Rosenthal charged his writers to ruthlessly explore the conflicts within their own families, and, at its best, the show hilariously and insightfully mined the sheer difficulty, or near impossibility, of a contemporary American family to stay together without going nuclear. The show won Emmys all around, for best sitcom, best script and multiple honors for its cast (save Boyle, who already had an Emmy for a guest appearance on "The X-Files").

In the beginning, however, it was Romano's dry, nasal delivery that inspired the series -- David Letterman's production company signed him to a development deal after a successful appearance on "The Late Show."

"It was odd to think that (the entire cast and crew) were making a living because I had a funny voice," Romano admitted. "But there was no pressure to keep it going because of that -- I was too worried about myself getting fired and stinking and not doing it right."

"Raymond" spent its first season in 1996 struggling to find an audience on Friday nights. In early 1997, it moved to Mondays and became a hit.

Soon thereafter, other studios pursued Rosenthal's services, and he signed a $10 million contract to develop programs for Disney. Ultimately, however, he decided to stay with his first love, and opted out of the deal.

"It's important for people who create shows to stay with them," Rosenthal explained. "I hope it made a difference. We'll never know, but I like to think it made a difference. I knew at the time that I shouldn't leave. I couldn't live with myself if I left."

"There was a threat of him leaving, and that was very scary," Romano recalled. "And in the end, he didn't, he chose to stay. Without Phil, we wouldn't be here. You can tell with other shows, when the creator leaves, you can tell the difference. For us to last this long, I don't think it would've happened without Phil.'

No one revealed what happens in the finale, though Romano allowed, "We don't have a lot of loose ends to tie up. We don't have cliffhangers. We don't have story arcs. There's no Rachel-Ross thing going on. We just want it to be funny, and the expectation is to have a little emotional resonance, and it will, but not too much because we'd never do that. It may have a little more poignancy than usual, because that's what you do for a finale, but it won't be life-changing for anybody. We just want it to be a good episode."

As much as those involved attempted to portray Thursday's party as business as usual, after all the niceties were completed, Romano and Heaton wandered for a last time over the simple complexities of their living-room set. Their eyes betrayed their efforts to diminish the moment.

One could see, as their gazes drifted from the board games to the staircase, an understanding that their work space had become a piece of pop-culture history.

Peter Boyle comfortably plopped himself in the leather chair that had served as his character's ersatz home for nine years.

Heaton, however, after a brief, affectionate gaze into Romano's eyes, lovingly stroked the Barone family's cheesy couch. Stepping from the stage, she announced, "I'm having such a freaking reaction!"