EVERYBODY LOVED RAYMOND (EXCEPT ME): A STORY OF TELEVISION HYPNOTICS.

In case you are too stupid to know this already, Friends was one of the worst shows ever to hit the airwaves of television. I feel sorry for the person who has a significant other who has numerous DVD box sets of Friends. The show, incase you’ve been living under the Earth for the past 10 years or so, followed a group of four friends who rarely worked but somehow managed to live in a few pretty sweet apartments in the Manhattan area. Manhattan is in New York City by the way, incase you didn’t know.

Every time the show is on, only in re-run form nowadays, I immediately change the channel, then punch myself in the face for allowing such horrific visions enter my brain for even one single second. But there is another show that I hate with equal disgust that I often times find myself hypnotized by its awfulness.

It’s called Everybody Loves Raymond. Every single episode I have ever seen is the exact same. And this show had a good run. Every single episode, the same was the one prior. People for some reason ate it up. Stupid Ray Romano and his annoying voice. He always sounded so confused. He’d say something like, “Ehh, he Debra, come on…” with his voice that sounds as if a frog lives in his throat. But the power of the TBS hypnotic spell causes me to stare at this show every time I peruse the road of channels my cable supplier has paved for me. Even though it makes me want to slit my wrists, like Nacho Libre did earlier this summer.

In the show, Patricia Heaton plays Raymond’s wife. They both have dark brown hair and dark eyes to match. Yet, the couple has a threesome of kids, each with blonde hair and blue eyes they are Children of the Damned or something. I always found this an odd dynamic. What the hell do I know though, people bought this for 9 years. Just like they ate up Friends 10 years.

I have no idea why I can’t turn away from this show every time it is on. I also have that same problem when Hard Target is on AMC but at least that has slow motion mullets on top of motorcycles. Raymond has nothing on that.

A friend recently asked me why I keep subjecting myself to such visual torture. “Just change the channel,” she would say. I know I should, but I just can’t. And it’s not like an every day experience thankfully. But it happens once a week though, and this once a week affair has really perplexing me lately.

I have another friend who watches re-runs of Full House on ABC Family. Not because they are great pieces of episodic television, but just because it has that same hypnotic effect.

What is with these sitcoms that do such powerful things to people like me? I mean, I have been told a million times that I am a person who likes pretty much nothing (which might be true) yet, I can’t tune out a show I do indeed hate. Perhaps I am watching so many episodes just to find that one gem of a show I can find some laughter in.

Another show I can’t stand is Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. I love/loved Seinfeld but watching Larry David continually put himself in complicated situations for no reason at all. The first time I watched that show was during the Florida Hurricane Season of 2004. I suffered through 4 hurricanes in a row and my apartment was un-livable for about 9 days. I was staying a friend’s house (because he still had power and a hot water) and another kid that was staying there said, “Dude… you have to watch this. It’s so funny.”

So we watched the first 4 episodes of the first season on DVD. It was the first time I can recall pulling my hair as I watched something. I wanted to jump into the TV and stab Larry David with a spoon right through his dumb head. A lot of people tell me I am crazy and that the show is hilarious. I just don’t see it. That show makes me want to kill people, that’s how much it angers me.

Thankfully, that show doesn’t hypnotize me. Raymond won’t make me a killer but Larry David (outside of Seinfeld of course) has that ability. That is one less thing I have to worry about I guess.