LOS ANGELES — The fictional family on the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" has always seemed pretty real. Oh, there's the inevitable "heightened reality" that accompanies any TV show. But Ray, Debra, Robert, Frank Marie and the kids seem a lot like real people.
Which explains part of the reason the show is such a success.
A lot has been written over the years about how the characters and situations are based on Ray Romano's real life. But there's more to it than that. The characters have always been a combination of Romano's family and creator/executive producer Phil Rosenthal's family.
"This show is successful because of the confluence of Ray as the talent and Phil as the show runner," said executive producer Steve Skrovan. "That was a great, symbiotic relationship.
Romano did indeed live adjacent to his parents, and Robert (Brad Garrett) is based on his brother. "That was all true — all real from his life," Rosenthal said. "But what I didn't know about, having never met the people, I kind of filled in with the characters that I knew — my crazy family. So that's kind of this happy or unhappy marriage of our two families.
"And then we're all bringing in stuff that we find is relatable and we can tweak it a little bit to fit our stories, our characters."
Which essentially means that all the writers mine their own lives and families for stories for the sitcom.
Rosenthal recalled going to his son's school when the boy was in first grade for a kids-read-their-stories-out-loud day — a trip that turned into a very good episode of the show.
"I went with my wife. And my parents happened to be in town, so we were all there," Rosenthal said. "And a little girl got up and told a story of 'The Lion Who Had Chicken Pox,' and it was very cute. . . . And then a little boy got up next and told a story of 'Escape from the Blue Planet,' and it was very cute.
"Now, Ben Rosenthal gets up . . . opens his book and reads 'The Angry Family.' Well, I was mortified because everybody turned and looked at us. But then in the next split second, I thought how lucky I am to have a child who writes for my television show."
It's not just kids that provide storylines, it's wives. Like when executive producer Tucker Cawley and his wife fought a battle of wills over a suitcase — which turned into Ray and Debra (Patricia Heaton) fighting a battle of wills over a suitcase.
The Cawleys returned from a trip and were too tired to put their suitcase away immediately.
"So we just left it by the bed and said, 'We'll get it later,' " he said. "And I got home from work the next night and it was still there. And I thought, 'Oh, I guess my wife hasn't gotten to it yet, but she'll get to it sooner or later, I guess.'
"And then a week or two later it was still sitting there, and I started to sense that she was waiting me out. And I decided she was going to wait a long time."
So he went to work grumbling about it.
"I came in and just threw it out as an idea and everyone really kind of seemed to spark to it," he said. "And we kind of beat it into a story idea.
"And we told him to wait — don't lift that suitcase!" Rosenthal said.
On the show, the suitcase led to a major blowup between Ray and Debra. In real life, "It stayed there long enough that we had to go on another trip," Cawley said, "so we just picked it up on the bed and put new clothes in it."
"But the resentment remains," Rosenthal said.
Not that it always works out as they might hope. Skrovan recalled a time when executive producer Lew Schneider was on vacation and he dropped his keys down an elevator shaft.
"He was kind of trying to look for them and it was a hopeless kind of thing. And his wife . . . said, 'Well, maybe you can get an episode out of it.'
"He said, 'No, we already did a thing where Ray dropped his ring down a drain. This is just something (crappy) that happened. We've already done that show.' "
Sometimes Rosenthal's parents are happy to see themselves portrayed on TV, albeit for rather odd reasons. He recalled watching an episode with his mother and father in which the fictional Ray calls his fictional parents "psychopaths."
"And my mother hits my father (and says), "Hey! We're the psychopaths!' " Rosenthal said.
Not everybody is happy to see real-life people adapted into "Everybody Loves Raymond" characters all the time. Like when Debra's parents (played by Katherine Helmond and Robert Culp) were "kind of loosely based" on the in-laws of Rosenthal's brother.
"We had our parents in the show not like these parents, so there would be conflict," Rosenthal said. "And at the end of the half hour, my phone rings, and it's my mother calling from New York: 'Are you out of your mind? We have to see these people!'
"It's true. And I said, 'Ma, your comfort is something I'm willing to sacrifice for the show.' "
That's not a unique situation. All the writers admit that arguments with their wives have turned into "Raymond" episodes.
"We always say that whenever we run out of stories, we go home and get in a fight with our wives," Rosenthal said. "And we've been known to keep the fights going a little longer sometimes because we need a second act."
"I know in my case, I'll be having an argument with my wife and she talks about seeing my eyes go off like this," Skrovan said. "And that's an immediate cue for her to go, 'This is not for the show. This is not for the show.'
"And then I remind her how much we get paid and she goes, 'OK, it's for the show.' "
But, with the show entering its final season, the writers are a little worried because they won't be able to release their marital frustrations in "Raymond" scripts.
"I think that the show has kind of been this healthy outlet," Rosenthal said. "And now we'll have to, like, fingerpaint."
"Now my wife is going to make me go to a shrink," Skrovan said.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com