Everybody Loves Raymond and The Golden Girls (Or At Least I Do)

Keeping journals for all these years meant I sometimes wrote about TV shows I liked.  I still love Raymond, one of the funniest sitcoms to come along in the last decade, and I still enjoy The Golden Girls when it occasionally shows up on cable.  A decade later, however, I actually find my review of Everybody Loves Raymond to be slightly off, as, over the years, Raymond started to become more and more like Tim from Home Improvement, and Debra started to become a bit of an overbearing shrew, like Jill.  I think my indictment of Home Improvement, however, was spot on!  I also think I was a bit off the mark in my review of The Golden Girls as something far removed modern sitcoms, and all one has to do is look at the character of Blanche to see it's easy comparison to those smutty, modern comedies.  Still, it's mild compared to what often passes for humor these days, and I still like the way they portrayed geriatrics as vibrant, contributing members of society, and not just old people passed their prime and usefulness just sitting around and waiting for the end! 

The show titles below link to some of the funniest scenes on YouTube!

Everybody Loves Raymond

I didn’t used to love Raymond.  I knew of him, and heard good things about him, but I never spent time with him.  Now that I have spent time with him, I look forward to our half hour on Mondays, and now, I love Raymond too.

     The reason this show is so good is, naturally, due to the writing.  As I have gotten older, I have realized that it is the writing that is so important.  Without the writing, it’s crap.  It might be pretty crap, all gussied up with special effects or a laugh track, but crap none-the-less.  To be really good, no matter what it is, it has to have good, strong writing.

     Raymond has that.  The characters are outlandish and funny, but also more real than what you find on most sitcoms, like Home Improvement.  I didn’t like Home Improvement because the characters were too broad and simple, and so was the writing.  The humor and situations and characters were very basic.  Tim was usually portrayed as a Neanderthal with a power fixation, and Jill was always the holier-than-thou modern woman who was smarter than Tim and had all the answers to any of Tim’s goofed up situations, and would teach him the correct way to navigate life.  She might get advice from next door neighbor Wilson, an older, enlightened man (whose chin we never see), and Tim always went to him for help, but for the most part, Jill was always right, Tim was always wrong (and rather stupid), and Jill needed to be Tim’s guide in a modern, liberated world that she understood so much better than him.

            Although Raymond’s household is similar, he strays from that blunt, cartoonish concept.  Ray’s wife Deborah is portrayed as a more normal wife and mother, and the two are on more equal footing.  Neither one comes off as "perfect" or enlightened.  He is actually no Neanderthal patsy, and they wisely kept the character of his wife in check, never allowing her to become the arrogant perfectionist Jill became.  Although shades of Tim and Jill run through the characters, this is still not the student/teacher relationship of Tim and Jill, and Raymond and Deborah were not the clueless schmuck and know-it-all; they are husband and wife, in a balanced relationship that is not perfect, but closer to the real world.  Add into the mix Ray’s wacky parents and brother, and you have a good, classic sitcom – one you don’t need to feel embarrassed to like.

The Golden Girls

The new shows are out, and while I continue to decide what’s good and what’s not good of the new series, and what’s going to last and what will pass away, as well as what has moral fiber and what panders to critics and riff-raff, I thought instead I’d take a few minutes to applaud this old show about four older women.  And you know what?  It’s funnier than most of the trash that’s out there as first run series now!  It was written well (by the makers of Soap), with humor and great characters.  Here’s an old show about old women, and it seems hipper and fresher than most of the new shows featuring teenagers and young people!

     The thing I really like about the show is the entire look and feel.  The lighting, the set design, and the wardrobe are inventive, inviting, and great looking without being pompous, and all suggesting that life doesn’t have to be all old folk’s homes and rheumatism for Senior Citizens.  Like everybody else, seniors and old people can be attractive, classy, and stylish without seeming like they’re trying to fit in with the young crowd.  What a neat message to keep in mind as we get older!  We can still have lives and interests, and be interesting.  If I could live a lifestyle like those old women on The Golden Girls when I reach 60, 70, or even 80, then I’d be happy in my old age!