What TV series are you currently watching?

[hopefullytrusting]

Ray's parents, mostly.  The episode Misery Loves Company is nearly as perfect an episode of a show as Last Exit to Springfield from The Simpsons, which is the single greatest episode of anything, ever.  The pivotal scene's dialogue is below.  The target audience, especially all these years later, is probably people who want to watch imaginary couples bicker.  If you've been in a relationship long enough, the writing becomes funnier, or it can.

Okay, this is super helpful, and it definitely gives me some insight and a perspective I hadn't really considered. That is a great episode of The Simpsons, and that analogy - I think I can see what you're saying regarding Everybody Loves Raymond.

My longest relationship of the type needed to understand Raymond is, at best, a few months, so I think now plays a larger role than I had previously thought when it comes to understanding the comedy - it also probably explains why a lot of sitcoms don't work for me - I'm seemingly missing a core component of the average/normal human experience, lol.

Thanks a lot for that post.

[Brian]

I need some help. I've been trying to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, but what am I meant to be laughing at? Quite literally everyone on the show seems like the most miserable person in existence, even the kids seem like they are horrible people.

Am I missing something?

It trades on 25-year-old cliches about how married life is miserable, men are idiots, women are crazy, communication is impossible, etc. Very boomer coded. My parents and grandparents loved it but I found it as dour as you do, although I still remember an episode where Mrs. Ray slips socks into her bra to pretend she's gotten implants.

I have not ever seen a real life relationship that looks like the one depicted on the show, but my friends mostly do not have kids so maybe the message of Raymond is that kids ruin everything.

[hopefullytrusting]

It trades on 25-year-old cliches about how married life is miserable, men are idiots, women are crazy, communication is impossible, etc. Very boomer coded. My parents and grandparents loved it but I found it as dour as you do, although I still remember an episode where Mrs. Ray slips socks into her bra to pretend she's gotten implants.

I have not ever seen a real life relationship that looks like the one depicted on the show, but my friends mostly do not have kids so maybe the message of Raymond is that kids ruin everything.

Okay, this makes a lot of sense as well, as I think you and I are similar in age.

Yeah, I can't relate to any of the show, and I don't know if any of my friends have kids, lol - they all have advanced degrees though, so that might be the confounding factor for my group.

The only episode I recall liking was when Raymond was sincerely impressed by Robert when he saw him halt a robbery.

[Todd]

Okay, this is super helpful, and it definitely gives me some insight and a perspective I hadn't really considered.

The point of sitcoms, as I understand it, is to poke fun at more or less mundane life experiences.  (There was a time when sitcoms did occasional serious episodes.  Oof.)  Tastes differ, of course, but for me the best family sitcom remains Married with Children.  Not only does it go for outrageous, vulgar characterizations of family life, but it offers some of the most profound philosophical insights ever aired on the TV.  For instance, Al Bundy once uttered the line: "If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I'd be talking".  It doesn't get more profound than that.

I have not ever seen a real life relationship that looks like the one depicted on the show

I should hope not, it's a sitcom. 

Kids do ruin everything, except when they provide life experiences that no other experiences come close to matching: being born, taking their first step, saying their first word, laughing so hard they fall over, throwing up on your clean clothes when you are trying to leave for work.

[hopefullytrusting]

The point of sitcoms, as I understand it, is to poke fun at more or less mundane life experiences.  (There was a time when sitcoms did occasional serious episodes.  Oof.)  Tastes differ, of course, but for me the best family sitcom remains Married with Children.  Not only does it go for outrageous, vulgar characterizations of family life, but it offers some of the most profound philosophical insights ever aired on the TV.  For instance, Al Bundy once uttered the line: "If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I'd be talking".  It doesn't get more profound than that.

I should hope not, it's a sitcom. 

Kids do ruin everything, except when they provide life experiences that no other experiences come close to matching: being born, taking their first step, saying their first word, laughing so hard they fall over, throwing up on your clean clothes when you are trying to leave for work.

I did like Married With Children, for one, it had an excellent treatment of race - being that I am black, it is always nice to see blacks as part of the show without mentioning that they are black - and I loved Al always referring to the glory days - that was a show I could relate to. I don't think I ever found it funny in a sense that wasn't ironic, but I also imagine I was not its target audience, but it did have characters I could relate to - although, those kids were clearly kids of the 1980s, lol.

Yes, I do like those kinds of interactions with children - I used to teach pre-school, and I worked a lot, for a time, with grades K-3, and I will say there are few things better than a baby belly laughing - those are some of my favorite videos on the Contagious Laughter subreddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ContagiousLaughter/comments/1j8n72z/finding_happiness_in_the_most_mundane_moments/

Could watch that all day - I think if anyone watched that and didn't smile - I would think considerably less of them and assume, rightfully, that they are a sociopath.

[Todd]

Yes, I do like those kinds of interactions with children - I used to teach pre-school, and I worked a lot, for a time, with grades K-3, and I will say there are few things better than a baby belly laughing

I can say that I have fond memories of my kids laughing so hard that they vomited (sometimes in projectile fashion) or messed themselves.  It is the intense cuteness that makes cleaning up the aftereffects tolerable.  As a father, I was constantly in search of obtaining just the right level of unrestrained mirth, where they would laugh and laugh and remain clean.  Applying scientific rigor, I did eventually arrive at the proper mirth levels for each kid.

People who do not react positively to young children laughing creep me out.  Fortunately, that has been very rare in my experience.