Everybody Tolerates Raymond

Everybody Tolerates Raymond (aka Everybody Tolerates Retards) is a popular comedy of the United States that has been run on TV across the country for as long as anybody cares to remember.

The show itself centres around the character of Raymond, a spastic schizophrenic nerd-dork-dweeb with autism who is cared for by his nagging mother, Italian father and working wife in the downtown suburbs of Manhattan (Kansas).

The plight of the show has successfully captured the hearts and minds of millions after following on from the popular show Everybody Loves Raymond (aka Everybody Loves Retards), in the last episode of which, Raymond was hit by a heavy-goods vehicle.

This spin-off has succeeded in enlightening the public to the strains on family life that result from taking care of such people, whilst at the same time, offering an unparalleled comedic value.

The general plotline of each show usually begins in an inane form, with the various characters going about their daily lives, caring for Raymond, and usually, an independent variable will be introduced that causes chaos, in some episodes, the plots have been considerably convoluted, and other times, scripts have focused around mundane things such as a chair being out of place.

The usual result of this is that Raymond becomes aggressive and violent, smashing up most of the house and experiencing mood swings. They are your average Italian-American family who would scare away the real authentic Italian people out of America.

Traditionally, this results in strained attempts to calm Raymond down, with his mother attempting to physically restrain him, during which, hilarity ensues, and usually ends with Raymond's father - Frank, firing a tranquiliser dart into his leg.

Plot variations

In the final episode of Season 1, we see the family engaged in a conference, with Raymond tied to a chair wearing a straitjacket; the family are discussing the possibility of killing Raymond, and enter into a heated discussion as to both the morality of such an act, and how to perform the act.

Eventually, they agree that such an act is indeed immoral and appear to disregard the event.

In actuality, however, each member of the family has secretly devised a method for attempting to kill Raymond.

We see his mother poisoning is food with a cocktail of sleeping pills, laxative, citrus toilet duck and warfarin with a brilliantly amusing outcome; the viewer is treated to seeing Raymond doubled up on the rug in a fetal-like position 'firing from both ends' and also turning yellow in the process (presumably an attempt by the make-up artists to emulate the effects of liver failure).

However, after this brief sequence, Raymond is in fact not dead, and with Raymond alone in the house with his father, who observes him regurgitating the last globules of his meal, appears to be at first merely taking on a usual role; he removes the tranquilliser gun from the closet, takes aim, and, in a twist, shoots him in the chest with a dart, but then fires an additional 4 into him, at which point Raymond stops moving.

Raymond is left alone, and the viewer observes a slight twitching, it appears Raymond is still not dead, despite the large amount of bodily abuse he has suffered. Debra now appears in the doorway, observing Raymond and the puddle of merged vomit and fecal matter.

At this point, the viewer is naturally expecting for Debra to make her attempt, however, she never does. The reason is unknown, and can either be construed as a clever plot twist, or an expiry of ideas.

Show evolution

The show originally existed in a conceptual form, being the invention of Ray Romano after his original show was effectively axed, by the introduction of the slightly open-ended finale to Everybody Loves Raymond that saw him run over.

Since then, Romano decided to take his concept forward, and spent many months with people in the group that he was aiming to emulate, and actually suffered a number of injuries in the process, also calling for one particular individual to be destroyed after an almost lethal incident involving a particularly pointy wedge of old cheese.

Nonetheless, Romano appears to have soaked up a lot of the behaviour, although many popular urban legends are indeed floating around that Romano is in fact genuinely retarded as a result of an undisclosed incident; with much speculation hedged towards the theory that he fell from the fourth floor of a hotel he was staying at.

Acclaim

The show has received much popular acclaim as one of the most amusing American TV productions to date, although some have declared that Everybody Tolerates Raymond is offensive towards the mentally challenged.

Despite this, the show has received a number of television awards, including a Grammy and an Oscar, earning it a high status amongst the worshippers of daytime television.

Raymond is an idiot, he makes George Lopez and his family sitcom look "funny".

However, Everybody Tolerates Raymond was given the special I-Talians in the media award for a "fair, more accurate and non-stereotype potrayal of Italians on television. The award was given to Raymond by Tony Danza, Frank Sinatra Jr. and Rudy Giuliani, president of Donta Fucka wita us capice? Italo-Americano Anti-Defamation league.

Episode list and synopsis

• Moving Crawling in - Raymond is located to his new Manhattan home.
• Everybody hits Raymond - Raymond has to be restrained after a visitor arrives.
• Everybody loves GBH - Raymond becomes uncontrollable, and hospitalizes his family.
• Everybody teases Raymond - A 10-part series of episodes when the family does what they know is best for him.
• Forsaken Pills - Debra forgets Raymond's pills and Raymond suffers a seizure.
• Raymond plays games - Raymond gets beaten by an angry neighbor for wanting to play with his neighbor, she's 10 years old.
• Everybody sections Raymond - Raymond is briefly sectioned, but the family cannot live with this.
• Everybody Loves Hypnotoad - I LOVE HYPNOTOAD. AND I AM NOT BEING MANIPULATED IN ANY WAY TO SAY THAT.
• Everybody kills Raymond - Final episode in which we see the family try to kill Ray.

Other characters

The other characters follow relatively the same character relationships as in the previous show, although we notice a somewhat more direct rivalry between Debra and Raymond's mother, sometimes resulting in exchanges of verbal abuse that usually sets Raymond off whom then generally swipes both parties in the face, causing their faces to bleed profusely.

Debra now works however, and the children are cared for by Raymond's mother with the presumption that they are also receiving financial support from the US government for Ray's condition.

Possibility of a future series

Currently, there have been no announced plans for a future version, although insiders have said that there may well be a second introduction, possibly with new characters being added to the show with a variety of different disabilities that characters will be intended to react to humorously, such as quadriplegia, thalidomide-limbs and a host of other undisclosed possibilities.

See also

• Everybody Hates Emo Raymond