Ray's Mom from "Everybody Loves Raymond" Dies

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I'm not sure if you guys have heard yet but actress Doris Roberts passed away a few days ago at the age of 90.
She is best known as Marie Barone, Ray's mother on "Everybody Loves Raymond"
She is also known for her major roles on the TV show "Remington Steele" and the film "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"

 

[D'Snowth]

I heard about this the other day and was really saddened by it, because Marie is perhaps the most disturbingly accurate fictional representation of my own mother ever depicted on television, lol.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Yes this is incredibly sad. For some reason, despite her age she was one of those people that you think will be around forever. Almost half the cast of "Raymond" is gone now.

 

[FraggleFrick]

Oh my gosh, I'm never watching Raymond again.

 

[D'Snowth]

Since they uncanceled GLEE so they could do a farewell episode to that one castmember who died after it was canceled, how about they uncancel Raymond and do an episode where Marie dies, and both Ray and Robert are left too stunned to react, meanwhile Debra represses her jubilation for now having complete control over Ray and not having having to put up with her anymore?

Just kidding.

But I just remembered how Season 35 of SST had those teasers with different celebrities before each episode sharing their favorite memory of the past, and Doris introduced the season premiere by saying her favorite memory was all 35 years, and talking about how she wished SST was around when she was a little girl growing up, so she could have been educated with humor and song and dance, adding, "it would have helped."

 

[Drtooth]

Raymond's a show that I really liked when it was on, but I don't think I'd bother tracking it down and watching it again. Maybe an episode here and there. But one thing's for certain, Doris and Peter were the true stars of the show. They had that perfect "married so long you think they hate each other, but they'd clobber you if you pointed that out" chemistry. Doris was the perfect overbearing mother, yet one you just couldn't bring yourself to hate (unlike certain ones I could mention). In fact, I'd say she was a lot less terrible than Ray's wife as a character. And yeah, I loved Brad Garret in this series, even though it was the first show to rob us of him being a voice actor (at this time, the then current Casper Cartoon recast Fatso with Jess Harnel, who was also good in that role). But what Doris and Peter did was pure magic. Shame that they're both gone now.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'll agree that Raymond was never necessarily a show I'd go out of my way to watch, but it is something of a guilty pleasure from time to time for a change of pace . . . I do really enjoy watching the tofu turkey episode around Thanksgiving, and there are a few episodes that stand out in my mind: Robert moving into his new apartment, Ray being jealous of Robert and Deb having so much fun swing dancing, Ray and Robert trying to meet the 1969 Mets, Ray and Robert being afraid of being alone in the dark, the Scrupples game, Ray trying to replace Deb's engagement ring, Frank and Marie crashing into the living room.

The consensus on the internet is that Raymond's one of those shows that you have to be married in order to fully appreciate it, which I suppose makes some sense (it kind of reminds me how when Jerry Seinfeld came to my town, he did a bit about marriage saying when he was single he had no married friends, and being married he has no single friends) - maybe whenever I'm married, I may watch it more to see if I get anything more out of it.

 

[Drtooth]

I really did like the show, but I can't get over how terrible Deborah is. I get that Marie seems to hate her because she's overbearing, but she's just a nasty character. I actually find it hilarious since Patricia plays the mother in The Middle, and at first she starts off as this haggered mother trying to make ends meet and make due in a neighborhood of perfect families, then she was Flanderized down to an actual terrible, selfish, lazy mother who seems to forget her youngest son all the time even when the others move out to college. I'm sure she's good to her family in real life, but between Deborah and Frankie Heck she seems to play just awful, unsympathetic characters. It's like, yeah, I bet Darran Norris is a good father if he has kids, but between Timmy Turner's Dad and Jack Smith you get the idea if he plays a father his kids get screwed up.

Of course, the mother in Malcolm in the Middle was far worse. I remember a Family Guy gag where she died and the father (they even got Brian Cranston to reprise his role) and then proudly proclaims "we're free!"

I like Ray and his moosey voice. A lot of the time I laughed at the series I laughed at how things sounded coming out with that voice. Like when he was taking the I.Q. test and he was asked who invented the Cotton Gin and he proudly said "Eeeeeli-i-i-i-i Wallach.... WHITNEY! WHITNEY!!!" And then I also loved the bit where the two twin boys were in the school play and the teacher narrated the appearance of the magical fairies (or whatever) and they just kept running around screaming and causing chaos. There's a lot of stuff I do remember liking, but the best parts of these were Ray's parents. Let's never forget how the series ended... Marie being so panic stricken over the thought of Ray dying, she ran in and interrupted Ray and Deborah's ...err...maritals.

 

[D'Snowth]

As far as Patty Heaton goes, it seems to me like that must be her "type," y'know? Like how David Ogden Stiers is so good at playing such stuck-up, pompous snobs (I swear, Cogsworth is like an animated version of his M*A*S*H character); or Walter Matthau as irritable, grumpy, curmudgeons; or Will Ferrell as one-dimensional, unlikeable, jerk, sketch-show-esque characters. But that being said, yeah, I think there's even the debate about it over at TV Tropes between people who are Pro-Deb and Anti-Deb. My own personal feeling is that it's one of those things that Depends on the Writer as to how unsympathetic she can be as a character.

As for Ray's voice and the way he talks, you'll get a kick out of this: I watched an interview with Tony Randall once talking about THE ODD COUPLE, and how Garry Marshall talks much like his sister Penny does, in that slow monotone voice, and that drawn-out New York accent; anyway, Garry was giving Tony direction once in an episode they were filming, and he was telling Tony a certain line to say, and it wasn't even a joke or anything, but the way Garry said the line to him made him burst out into laughter.

 

[Muppet Master]

RIP Doris Roberts, she was hilarious on Everybody Love's Raymond.