A Quick Look at the ELR Crossover’s

So I thought it was only appropriate to take a second and talk about the Everybody Loves Raymond crossover’s. CBS actually loved doing this back then, and so Ray appeared on a few shows. Let’s discuss them real quick:


Cosby, “Lucas Raymondicus”


Yeah no pic for this one. Hilton contacts Ray Barone after Ray writes that his father one a championship that Hilton actually won. Ray says Frank has been telling him that his whole life. At first Hilton is willing to along with the lie until Frank hogs to much glory. Peter Boyle obviously also appears, and this episode is a great example of what happens when you take a character and put him on a different show with different writers. All of Frank’s likeability is gone, and he’s just an insufferable ass! I have no copy so am going by memory from the one time I watched this episode, and hated it.



The Nanny, “The Reunion Show”

This was really just a quick cameo, probably to plug ELR, as Fran runs into Ray Barone at her high school reunion. Ray gets out some stand up lines regarding living near his parents and Fran notes how “everybody loved raymond!”. The funny thing is that Drescher and Romano really did go to the same high school together. My favorite part is the end of the bit, Fran notes that his wife (offscreen) looks annoyed that he is talking to them. Yeah sounds like Debra.






King of Queens, “Road Rayge”

Since Kevin James got his show after appearing on ELR it only seemed fair to have Ray on it. In this episode Doug meets Ray at the RMV, and Ray helps Doug to lose his license. Later, Ray encourages Doug to drive without his license..in front of Robert, you know, the cop! Then Ray finally makes amends after Carrie insist Doug not have anything else to do with him. And at the end when everything is fixed Frank rear ends Doug. This really feels like an ELR episode flipped inside out, rather than seeing the Barone’s discuss the situation we are seeing the trouble Ray is causing. You wonder what is happening at the Barone’s! For instance you know Ray and Robert had an argument when they got home after Robert pulled Doug over.






King of Quees, “Rayny Day”

In this episode Doug blows off a friend to go play golf with Ray. Ray is ditching his mother, who ends up spending the day helping Carrie clean the kitchen waiting for Ray to return. I always loved how Carrie uses Marie’s obsessiveness. The best part is probably the tag, where Arthur hits on Marie. Not only is it cute to see these two characters interact, but knowing who Marie is married to makes it even funnier.




King of Queens, “Dire Strayts”

Finally we get Debra in on the fun in this episode. Ray and Debra are coming over for dinner but Doug makes Carrie angry at him. Things get worst when Derba finds out Ray has called her a tightass. Ray then causes more trouble when he wants to watch the football game, and Doug gets stuck in the crawlspace of the attic trying to fix it. It’s not a bad episode but it’s definitely a King of Queens episode. Though Ray and Debra are very in character (course this point now Romano and Heaton should know their characters well). It is fun to see Carrie and Debra interact since they are cut from he same cloth. The different is in their husbands (Doug isn’t quite the wimp Ray is). Of course as is typical for crossover’s, none of these events from any of these episodes is brought up on Raymond.




King of Queesn, “Rayging Bulls”
One last crossover comes after ELR had actually ended. It was also when King of Queens was sucking, and this episode is no exception. It’s just Ray and Doug acting like idiots in a nightclub.





Becker
Finally, there was an episode of Becker where Ray, Doug, and Hilton (from Cosby) all end up in Dr. Becker’s office. This was just in the teaser for the episode, CBS spread the teaser out so pieces would appear at the end of the other shows respectively (rather than the usual tag, even if it had nothing to do with the episode that we just saw!). It isn’t much of a crossover, but Ray is in character being the worrier he would be at a doctor’s office. The best part is that for some reason the ads for the episodes of ELR and KOQ that they slapped the Becker part onto still mention the crossover. Even though for obvious reasons the episode doesn’t have them. So I can’t help but wonder how many people have seen that in their listing and been mystified when they watched the episode and got nothing. Amazingly I can’t find any trace of this online, pic or video. Thanks goodness I have it taped so I know that it did actually happen!




These weren’t that bad, but it’s not the same when you take the characters out of their usual environment. Which is where we’ll find them when the episode guide resumes on Monday.