NYT: A sitcom writer on why newer sitcoms suck

Phil Rosenthal is interviewd by Bill Carter in the NYT: "In the year and a half since “Everybody Loves Raymond” left the air, a few television comedies have managed to make noise in the ratings: “Two and a Half Men” on CBS, and “The Office” and “My Name Is Earl” on NBC.

That’s about it. And none has matched the consistent popularity of “Raymond,” which attracted close to 20 million viewers a week.

Network executives have tried mightily to fathom what went wrong with the sitcom, an entertainment staple in America since Jack Benny was on the radio.

Maybe they should ask Phil Rosenthal, the writer and producer who led “Raymond” all nine years it resided on Monday nights for CBS (after starting on Fridays). Or, if they’re afraid he would charge a consulting fee, they could just buy his book, “You’re Lucky You’re Funny,” published this week by Viking.

This is what they would learn: “The key is specificity.” That is how Mr. Rosenthal summed up his sitcom’s success in a telephone interview, and it’s exactly what he writes in the book. What made “Raymond” work was not simply a great cast led by Ray Romano, or a strong staff of experienced comedy writers — though all of that helped, of course.

What really made the show stand out, Mr. Rosenthal said, was faithful reliance on truly specific — sometimes minutely so — details of married life. The details were so specific because they almost always came directly from the lives of Mr. Rosenthal, Ray Romano, or any of a phalanx of the married men, and occasionally the women, who kicked around ideas (as well as one another’s egos) inside the show’s writing room."