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1%%* {{Anvilicious}}
2* AlternateAesopInterpretation: In the episode “Somebody Hates Raymond”, Ray meets up with renowned writer Jerry Musso, who Ray was told did not like him. While Musso confirms he doesn’t like Ray, the episode makes a point on how condescending and snide the man is to Ray. With this in mind, the moral of the episode could come across as “you might not be everyone’s friend, but that’s okay because your haters are just total [[JerkAss Jerkasses]] whose opinions don’t really matter”.
3* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The series was pretty much built on this. Any one of the five main characters can be viewed in a positive or negative way, depending on which side you choose to take.
4** Is Ray a hardworking, basically good guy whose nag of a wife won't give him a break, or a lazy {{Jerkass}} who won't lift a finger to help at home?
5** Is Debra a {{hypocrite}} who doesn't appreciate the nice life Ray has built for her, or a put-upon housewife who gets no help from anybody?
6** Is Marie a controlling, manipulative old harpy, or a passionate matriarch who means well for her family?
7** Is Ray really the favorite or does Marie just think he's too weak to function on his own? Does she dismiss Robert's success as a cop because she's so worried for his safety? Or is he simply a pawn in her manipulations?
8** Is Frank an ignorant, unappreciative asshole who is emotionally abusive to his wife and kids, or a family man who made them a damn good life and did better than his physically abusive father and grandfather?
9** Is Robert a good guy who can't catch a break, or a perpetual complainer who dug his own rut?
10*** This was part of the original genius of the show. It was a groundbreaking idea at the time not to designate a hero, but rather to leave it up for interpretation and let the fans choose whose side they were on. This in turn generated a wide fanbase of all different kinds of people who liked different characters for different reasons. Most [[DomCom Dom Coms]] and sitcoms in general have followed in this path since, making it [[OnceOriginalNowCommon harder to realize now]] why ELR was so wildly popular back in the day.
11** For young couples raising kids in the 2020s, it may seem difficult to grasp Debra's annoyance with the elder Barones in their lives. As intrusive and obstreperous as Marie and Frank may be, most people in today's day and age would be more than happy to have built-in babysitters, assistance with housekeeping, and a constant flow of free food into the house.
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13* BaseBreakingCharacter: Given the above, it's pretty much inevitable that the characters inspire mixed feelings among the fanbase.
14** Debra. To people who can identify with her, she's a beleaguered, long-suffering heroine with the patience of a saint. But to her detractors, she's a hypocritical SmugSnake and KarmaHoudini. To most, she's somewhere in between.
15** Raymond in later seasons. He became much more insensitive and spineless, terrified of standing up to Debra or Marie except when one pushed him to take a side, and sometimes not even then. Others view him as just put-upon and tired as the years kept going and their feud just got more and more bitter, so who can blame him for not wanting to be part of it if he can help it.
16** Marie, hand-in-hand with AlternateCharacterInterpretation. Her fans view her as a loving mother who doesn't realize how overbearing she is, or does it in the name of keeping her family together, while her haters view her as a meddling, selfish hypocrite who uses fear and passive-aggressive behavior to keep her family obedient and under her control.
17** Amy's parents and brother Peter, particularly in the last two seasons when they're promoted to regular characters. Depending on who you ask, they're either funny new characters that added a breath of fresh air to the show when the familiar Barone dynamics were becoming stale, or abrasive newcomers whose oddball personalities didn't really fit into the show's formula.
18* BrokenBase: Depending on who you ask, "Bad Moon Rising" is either the best episode in the series or the worst episode in the series. The same could also be said for "Marie's Sculpture" and "The Faux Pas," albeit to a lesser extent.
19* CharacterRerailment: For the most part, Debra is a lot less cranky and irritable in season 8 than she was in seasons 6 and 7.
20* DesignatedVillain: Jerry Musso in "Somebody Hates Raymond". While definitely arrogant, he nonetheless doesn't even dislike Ray personally; the former just doesn't find the latter's work entertaining, something which falls under freedom of opinion instead of anything actually evil, and though he does come across as rather harsh towards Ray when forced to tell the truth, it's mostly because he loses patience with Ray nagging him about the reason for his disliking. Furthermore, Musso has every right to decide who's allowed to guest-host ''his'' show and who's not. Nevertheless, the episode seemingly vilifies him as someone so bad that even Robert, himself at odds with Ray throughout most of the episode, is ultimately appalled enough to give him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech for Ray's sake (granted, it ''is'' awesome and heartwarming at the same time, though).
21** However, even though Musso does have a right to not like Ray, and despite the fact that he was polite to Ray before admitting the truth, it should be noted that he also told Ray that he should be the co-host of his show, while completely denying that he wasn't a fan of Ray's. With that said, Robert may not have been justified in standing up to Musso so much because he hated Ray as because of his insincerity about the whole matter, as while Musso did try to be nice, it may as well have been a setup to humiliate Ray in the future, which, judging by Musso's attitude, may not have been very beneath him.
22* DiagnosedByTheAudience: A large number of viewers interpret Marie Barone as having [[UsefulNotes/PersonalityDisorders narcissistic personality disorder]], owed to her constant intrusions into her children's lives, her manipulative nature, her self-centeredness, and her tendency to throw fits whenever things don't go her way. The fact that she dotes on Raymond while scapegoating and belittling Robert and Debra is also cited by survivors of narcissistic parents as a hallmark of the kind of abuse they went through growing up.
23* EnsembleDarkhorse: Frank, whose snarky behavior brought forth many SugarWiki/FunnyMoments.
24* GrowingTheBeard: The early episodes of the show weren't bad, but the characters hadn't been fully realized yet, which meant the show was originally kind of generic, and even kind of slowly paced. However, once the show and characters found its footing (around the end of season 1, beginning of season 2) the show became memorable, relatable and pretty consistently well-written.
25* HarsherInHindsight:
26** Robert's eating quirk of always touching food to his chin before he eats it was seen as humorous and odd. It becomes sad later when he explains how his quirk started; whenever he got food on his face, Marie would pause whatever she was doing with Raymond to wipe it off. Getting food on his face was the only way for Robert to get any real attention from his mother, and he's been compulsively touching food to his chin ever since.
27** One episode revealed that Debra (and Marie) would tell their kids to think less of their fathers and covertly try to make themselves as the more adored and likeable parent. The episode treats this as a sneaky but wacky act on Debra's part (she pokes fun at Ray's inability to tell when she's gotten a new haircut, or how he's not always zipped up), but more serious on Marie's part (she derided Frank and told her young son how she couldn't understand how anyone can live with him). In real life, this is called Parental Alienation Syndrome, and is found in many mean-spirited and bitter divorces.
28** Jokes about Ray's big nose or nasally voice don't seem quite so funny when you see the finale and find out Ray's adenoids need to be removed.
29** When Robert comments on how he doesn't picture Frank outliving Marie. Peter Boyle died shortly after the series ended, with Doris Roberts surviving him by a whole decade.
30** ''Left Back'' deals with the issue of Michael being held back a year and being separated from Geoffrey. In 2015, the actor who played Geoffrey killed himself, leaving his sister and twin brother, his co-stars as the Barone children, alone and grieving.
31** When Robert and Amy are about to have sex for the first time in "Robert Moves Back," Robert tells his pet dog Shamsky to "beat it." In real life, the bulldog who played Shamsky died [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim so the character was]] [[KilledOffForReal written out of the series]].
32* HilariousInHindsight:
33** A running joke in the series is how Debra is a bad cook. Debra's actress, Patricia Heaton, would later go on to host a cooking show, which would win an Emmy award for Outstanding Culinary Program.
34** A character in one episode is presented as a loser for writing about and discussing sports on the internet when compared to the prestige of Ray's position as a local newspaper columnist. In today's world of nationally syndicated podcasts and sports blogs, the characterizations would arguably be reversed.
35** The show's title became this after ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' introduced a cat character named Raymond who became ridiculously popular to the point of people paying hundreds of real-life dollars to have him on their islands.
36** In the episodes where Debra hustles for "political office" with the school PTA, she dresses in a stern business suit and has her hair restyled in a very formal sort of way. This may have gone under the radar at the time. But especially in ''Getting Even'', when Debra presides over a school charity auction, Patricia Heaton has an un-nerving resemblence to a dark-haired UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton.
37* InformedWrongness: Ray in some episodes of the later seasons is portrayed as being wrong no matter what, whether or not it actually makes sense. Even in episodes where Debra does the exact same thing or does something worse, ''Ray'' will inevitably be the one forced to apologize and/or the one who gets humiliated at the end of the episode.
38** For all the instances of IW on this show, "Ray's Ring" has to be the worst example. Ray was simply minding his own business in the airport when the lady hit on him, and he promptly turned her down when she did. Of course, Debra acted as though he threw the ring away on purpose and welcomed the advances of the woman.
39* ItsPopularNowItSucks: Initially, the sitcom was highly-touted by critics as a great new show that wasn't as popular as it deserved to be. Once the ratings started growing and the show became huge, it became an easy target for people mocking "modern sitcoms".
40* JerkassWoobie: He was usually TheWoobie, but Robert did have some {{Jerkass}} moments.
41** Ray as well. Not only does Debra become harder to live with as the series progresses, but Marie's smothering ''really'' screwed him up. For just two examples, he mentions having nightmares about a "crazy tree lady" who followed him to school (which Robert reveals was Marie), and she held him back a year in pre-school just because she liked their walks to it. And consequently, he is a lazy, whiny, [[ManChild immature]] MamasBoy.
42** Debra, to an extent. Admittedly, part of her frustration can be traced to living opposite Raymond's parents, who drive almost everybody crazy with their intrusiveness. Unfortunately, she chooses to take it out on Raymond, who doesn't exactly care much for this setup either.
43* MemeticMutation: The title is one of the most famously easy ones to do comical variations on. Among the more famous examples include the similarly-named ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'' and [[SomebodyDoesntLoveRaymond a trope]] on Website/ThisVeryWiki.
44* RetroactiveRecognition:
45** Creator/KevinJames and [[Series/InsomniacWithDaveAttell Dave Attell]] show up in the early seasons as friends of Ray's.
46** Creator/JeffGarlin appears as a produce employee that Debra tries to flirt with, after Ray was hit on while not wearing his wedding ring.
47** Creator/BobOdenkirk appears in two episodes as one of Ray's old high school friends.
48* RonTheDeathEater: Ray for some people, particularly those who are actually married, Debra for those who are not.
49* SeasonalRot: Most fans would agree that the series had definitely run its course by the final couple seasons. The writers were clearly grasping at straws by this point, as seen in the heavy flanderization of Ray and Debra and the more frequent use of DenserAndWackier sitcom plots. It didn't help that Peter Boyle, who played EnsembleDarkHorse Frank, was in seriously failing health by the show's end and had lost much of the comedic timing that made the character so funny.
50* ShipToShipCombat: Robert/Amy shippers vs. Robert/Stefania shippers.
51* {{Squick}}: From "Whose Side Are You On?", when Marie compares Ray to Frank:
52--> '''Marie:''' This is a good husband! Anytime you wanna trade places just say the word. I mean, if I was forty years younger and he wasn't my son-
53--> '''Ray:''' ''OKAY, MA!''
54* StrawmanHasAPoint: As the seasons went on, Ray generally morphed into the show's main strawman. A lot of times the show would seemingly attempt to paint Ray's opinion as the "wrong" one, even though Ray often ''did'' have a good point.
55** Frank, of all people, can fall into this as well. For example, in "Pet the Bunny", Frank becomes outraged when Ray adds a story of him petting Ray's childhood bunny to his eulogy. While Frank is portrayed negatively for his behavior, Ray really had no right to mention Frank's private affairs to others without his permission, and the rest of his family, especially Marie, treats the story like it's everybody's business, even after Frank had made it clear he doesn't care to remember it.
56** Marie is almost always [[InformedWrongness painted as being unreasonable]], but she often [[StrawmanHasAPoint has a point]]. A good example is in The Christmas Picture, where Marie is the villain as usual for not reacting graciously to Debra's proposed compromise of spending Christmas Eve with her parents and Christmas Day with the Barones. Debra's plan would essentially be for the grandchildren to spend Christmas Eve with her parents, wake up on Christmas morning with her parents, and then make a token appearance with Ray's parents in the late morning when the kids have already enjoyed all the traditional holiday activities and just spent five hours in the car over two back-to-back days ... on what was supposed to be the Barones' turn to have the kids exclusively, which Marie has already been looking forward to.
57* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
58** When Debra forced Ray into going to marriage counseling, it could have been a great opportunity to explore Debra's faults and emotional problems, especially her lack of interest in sex. Instead, it turned out to be a pretty standard episode with Ray moping and complaining until everything is finally swept under the rug at the end of the episode.
59** Ray's relationship to Peggy. The character was originally a one-shot SitcomArchNemesis, but she returned in the following season and more insight is given to why she behaves the way she does [[labelnote:Note]](short version: She had a selfish husband)[[/labelnote]], and she and Ray even come to something of an understanding by the end. Unfortunately, she reverted to SitcomArchNemesis status in her appearances in seasons 8 and 9, undoing any potential for character development between the two.
60** Many fans believe that Debra should have gotten a job, as it was somewhat unbelievable that such an assertive and outspoken woman would be content as a stay-at-home mom or that Ray, a writer for the local newspaper, could be the sole breadwinner for the family. Aside from one episode where she tries going back to work (and loses her job almost immediately), the show never explores this possibility. Debra having a career would have also given the show a tangible reason as to why she and Ray had to put up with Marie, as they would have needed her help to watch the kids and keep the house while they were at work. A flashback episode even revealed that Debra pushed Ray to move next door to his parents so that they could help with taking care of their kids, giving some potential set up for the idea.
61* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
62** Debra. Marie's criticisms of her can be incredibly venomous and nasty at times, to the point where we ''should'' be able to sympathize with Debra -- but her own {{Jerkass}}ery towards Ray often mitigates that.
63** Robert. He might have gotten a raw deal of being the unfavorite to Ray, but some of his resentment towards him can be unnecessarily mean. At one point he admits that he sometimes prays to God for Ray to fail. And was actually happy when he does.
64* ValuesDissonance:
65** Frank's sexism and homophobia were generally PlayedForLaughs and shrugged off as the harmless musings of an ignorant old man. These scenes can be somewhat cringe-inducing to watch today, notably the episode where he implied that he would disown Robert if Robert turned out to be gay.
66** Debra's moments of physical abuse of Ray (including one instance where she sucker punches him in the groin) would be a lot harder to be played for comedy nowadays for what's supposed to be a light-hearted Dom Com.
67* {{Wangst}}: Robert's frequent bitching and moaning about how charmed Ray 's life is, and about his own problems in general often dips into this territory, especially since a lot of what Robert complains about is a) very petty or b) his own fault. But even when he's complaining about stuff that isn't either of those two things the way that he whines makes you want to smack him in the face rather than give him a hug.
68* TheWoobie: Robert as the show's resident ButtMonkey. Constantly made fun of by Ray and Frank, neglected by Marie as a child, divorced, and constantly trying and failing to get away from his parents. Perhaps the hardest episode to watch for a Robert fan is the one where Marie, Judy, Stephania and Amy force him to sit down and listen as they discuss every single character flaw they can think of, even if they aren't actually flaws and are just things about him they personally dislike.

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