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Is Comedy Inherited?
RD: I can imagine.Romano: I called him and said, "Dad, that's very funny, but don't do it." A day or two later he not only found out how to play our messages back, but he found out how to change our outgoing message over the phone. So, my wife and I are out somewhere. We call our house, but instead of hearing my voice, I hear my father, "Hey, you've reached Ray and Anna. If you want them, leave a message. If you want me, Al Romano, I'm at 268-20 whatever." He thinks it's funny, and my wife is literally in tears, in tears, furious.
So, yeah, is comedy inherited? I guess. But my brother could never do stand-up. Not that he's not funny, but he just doesn't have it in him to get up in front of people. He's a cop, and he's always said he'd rather face a man with a gun than have to go onstage.
RD: It's supposed to be the No. 1 fear of Americans. That and death.
Romano: So imagine if you had to speak at your own execution -- that could be someone's total nightmare.
RD: The show was based originally on your life and your family. Over the years have the two diverged?
Romano: Separated, you mean? Don't use big words, please. In real life my parents didn't live across the street; they lived about ten blocks away. I had a wife, I had twins, I had a daughter, my brother was a cop who was divorced, back living with my parents. The characters start from there, and they evolved into what they are. Even my character: I started as myself and I evolved into this guy.
RD: The TV Ray is emotionally dumber than you are, right?
Romano: Yeah, believe it or not. We actually have a contest on the set: Who's dumber, me or the character -- and he's starting to win. The scriptwriters on the show have a board on which they list what they call Rayisms, which are words I mispronounce. It's filled with big words that I think I know, only I say them in the wrong context or mispronounce them.
RD: Such as?
Romano: Let's see, this one's ironic: miss-pro-nun-see-a-shun. Or ein-steen.
RD: So Ray Barone says ein-steen instead of Einstein?
Romano: No, Ray Romano.
RD: I'm confused.
Romano: I'm talking me, not the character -- this is the sad part. So, that's just an example that this character is kind of, I don't want to say dumb, but I guess he is a little bit. There are simple qualities to him.
RD: Almost everyone who works on "Raymond" is married with kids. Does that give the show its reality?
Romano: Everybody lives it, you know? It's like on the old "Dick Van Dyke Show." Carl Reiner, who was the show's creator and lead writer, would ask the other writers, "What did you guys do this weekend?" And that's kind of what we do. It gets us in trouble sometimes with our wives and relatives. When we have an argument, my wife always says, "I better not see this on TV!" And my response is, "You have to see it on TV. Do you like that pool in the backyard? What do you think? It fills itself?"
RD: Do you ever stop and take notes?
Romano: Well, this happened to one of the writers: His keys fell down an elevator shaft and the kids were bothering him and he was getting so frustrated. His wife said, "Well, look at the good side. You can do a story about this." And he said, "No. This is just something crummy that's happening to me in real life. We already did a show about this."
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