Everybody Loves Raymond: 10 Unpopular Opinions (According To Reddit)

The hit comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond was critically and commercially acclaimed, running from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. The series revolved around a couple that is trying to make things work on an everyday basis, and the tug-of-war of their relationship with their eccentric but lovable extended family.

The series might have been well-received, but there have been fans on Reddit eager to voice their disapproval of certain aspects of the show. Here are 10 strange grievances fans of the show took to the internet to make known.

10 Everybody Doesn’t Love Raymond

The series won numerous accolades throughout its nine-season run and was well-received by the masses and critics alike. However, not everybody loved Raymond! There are those who weren’t keen on the show’s subject-matter, the troubled relationships between parents and children, as well as between spouses. The constant bickering that was presented comically for audiences seemed tedious and didn’t go down well with everyone.

9 Debra Was Written Poorly

The central protagonist Ray Romano’s wife, Debra is one of the only characters on the show who is touted as generally logical and without the glaring personality quirks of almost everyone else.

However, this Redditor feels that Debra is not a very well-written character, in the first place. She often behaved irrationally, nagged constantly, and portrayed double standards that were highlighted by the writers as sane and justified. Moreover, if Debra was the rational one, then there was no justification for her parents to be as eccentric as they were shown to be.

8 The Show Wasn’t Funny At All

Some fans didn’t get why the show was considered funny at all and became such a huge fan-favorite in the mid-1990s.

This fan states quite unabashedly that the series wasn’t worth the amount of time it required to watch it in its entirety, as there was nothing particularly entertaining, engaging, or even comic about it apart from a handful of episodes.

7 Characters Were Obnoxious

The characters on Everybody Loves Raymond were its central focus, each one defined by his or her quirks that were then given a comical spin.

However, one fan thinks the characters were boring and obnoxious, thus making the series one of the worst-ever sitcoms. It seems that, in the 21st-century, some of the characterizations that were considered fun and light-hearted on popular television way back in the 1990s don’t really fly, thus failing to appear funny at all.

6 Ray Romano Wasn’t Appealing

Unfortunately, the fans’ ire and unpopular opinions sometimes extend beyond the fictional characters and attack the stars behind them.

Ray Romano is often considered to be one of the most beloved and endearing comedians of all time. He earned multiple Emmy nominations for his role as the beleaguered family-man, Raymond, and finally won the award in 2002. However, this Redditor feels that Ray Romano’s portrayal of Raymond was annoying, to say the least, and his voice and dialogue delivery apparently failed to appeal to all.

5 Raymond Was The Least Funny On The Show

Not just the actor, but even the character is touted by some with unpopular opinions to be the least funny on the show.

Raymond Barone was an ordinary man beaten down by an overbearing family. Much of the situational comedy revolves around Ray’s struggle to keep his both wife and mother, who hate each other, happy. But the character, these fans seem to think, wasn’t fun at all, thus indicating that the hype surrounding Ray was perhaps undeserving.

4 The Show Put A Callous Spin On Serious Issues

The interaction between Doris Roberts who played Ray’s domineering mother and almost every other character on the show contributed to some of its most hysterical moments.

Yet, one fan on Reddit points out that the relationship between Ray and his mother was actually creepy and even parasitic, and thus far from funny. Moreover, this fan hints that it wasn’t fair for the show to have made fun of Ray’s older brother, Robert, who was approaching middle age and had some serious life issues to deal with. The neglect and mockery that Robert faced from his family simply weren’t comic and shouldn’t have been treated callously by the writers.

3 The Perceived Homophobia

The series has been called out for being deeply homophobic, and that it made a show of being accepting of homosexuality.

That character of Robert Barone, as a fan points out, was the perpetual scapegoat for creating hilarious moments. A running gag was that he would be mistaken for being gay, which would make him uncomfortable and force him to deny it. This, in retrospect, could have been construed as a degree of homophobia underneath a layer of pretentiousness.

2 The Show’s Premise Became Tiring

One Redditor seems to have simply grown tired of the entire premise of the show, which is the selfish and self-centered behavior of each and every character.

The fan agrees that the show is funny but gets tiring after a while, unable to hold on to attention for long. The petty selfishness of the characters aren’t interesting enough, and, since the entire comedy relies on the characters, it gets tedious after a point.

1 The Series Stereotypes Both Men & Women

The way the show portrays people of both genders is something else that fans have raised an unpopular opinion about.

Men are shown to be lazy and end up complimenting their wives only with the promise of sex afterward. Women, on the other hand, fall into a stereotypical trope, being portrayed as scheming and conniving, manipulative, and irrational for the most part. The relationship between Debra and Ray and the way they fail to communicate with each other is also considered unhealthy to be shown on popular television.

About The Author