When it comes to avoiding cancel culture in Hollywood, “Everybody Loves Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal knows a thing or two.
“I guess you have to be a little more careful, but I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal, who currently stars in Netflix’s food and travel series, “Somebody Feed Phil,” told Fox News Digital at the Televerse 25 event in Los Angeles. “I think it’s good to be sensitive. It doesn’t mean you can’t be funny, it just means you don’t do jokes at other people’s expense, maybe, no matter who they are, unless you’re punching above your class, right? You want to punch up not down.”
The idea of “being canceled” has been a hot topic in Hollywood recently.
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Last week, Denzel Washington ripped into the concept during an interview with Complex.
When asked if he considers the idea of being “canceled,” Washington was quick to question the term, asking, “What does that mean — to be canceled?”
While the reporter explained that the term essentially meant losing public support, Washington responded, “Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?”
Stand-up comedian Nate Jackson recently told Fox News Digital that the cancel culture phenomenon seems to be coming to an end.
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the comic and actor said that with so many entertainment options available, audiences are simply finding people they like to watch rather than banding together to end the careers of performers whose jokes they don’t enjoy.
“No, I think that’s kind of a wrap,” Jackson said when asked if he believes cancel culture is still a threat. “Yeah, I think people realize that there is someone for everyone, and if someone’s not for you, then just don’t watch them.”
For Rosenthal, however, that comedic sensitivity led him to massive success.
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Though it’s been nearly 30 years since “Everybody Loves Raymond” first premiered, the beloved sitcom – which starred Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton – has remained “timeless.”
“Well, [“Everybody Loves Raymond”] was designed to be timeless. And we did that by not having topical jokes, jokes of the day, you know?” Rosenthal said of the show, which premiered in September 1996. “It would’ve been easy to do Bill Clinton jokes, let’s say, when we were first up. But that dates the show. So we did things that we thought might be universal. Relationships, marriage, sibling rivalry, having kids, having parents. And so it has lasted and this year coming up it will have been 30 years since we were on the air.”
Rosenthal recalled that pivotal moment when he knew the show would be a hit.
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“It was like the third episode. Something happened and we got like a 30-second laugh at something from an audience that hadn’t seen the show yet,” he said. “It hadn’t been on TV yet. In the beginning, you’re just filming a bunch of shows and you’re trying to get any audience you can and they would come, and they didn’t know what they were watching. But this laugh was so big that it went beyond just a bit. It became, oh, they’re cued into the characters. And that’s when I knew we had something.”
“Everybody Loves Raymond” aired on CBS from 1996 to 2005 and starred Romano as Ray Barone, a sportswriter living on Long Island across the street from his family. Patricia Heaton played his wife, Debra, along with Brad Garrett as his brother Robert, and Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts as his loving but overbearing parents.
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The show earned 15 Primetime Emmys over the course of its run, including two outstanding comedy series wins and one outstanding lead actor in a comedy win for Romano.
While there aren’t any plans for a reboot, Rosenthal said a reunion is in the works.
“I’m working on it. A reunion show. Not a reboot of the series but a reunion,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There won’t be,” Garrett told People magazine earlier this year about a reboot. “And I’m just saying that because that’s something that Ray and Phil [Rosenthal] have always said.”
“There is no show without the parents,” Garrett added “They were the catalyst, and to do anything that would resemble that wouldn’t be right to the audiences or to the loyal fan base. And it was about those two families, and you can’t get around that.”
Peter Boyle died on December 12, 2006, at age 71. Doris Roberts died on April 17, 2016, at age 90.
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Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays contributed to this post.
