Creator Philip Rosenthal has spilled details of the Everybody Loves Raymond spinoff series that almost was, per Variety:
The spinoff would have revolved around Robert (Brad Garrett) going to live with Amy’s (Monica Horan) family in Pennsylvania, working as a gym teacher with Peter (Chris Elliott) as his teacher’s assistant.
“From the moment we introduced Amy’s family … that first table read when we met them, I think in Season 7, I went from the table read to the phone to talk to Les Moonves at CBS,” Rosenthal shared. “And then after the show was over, some of the writers and I thought this is an obvious idea — very simply, the brother now moves to Pennsylvania and he gets a job as the gym teacher, now living with her family, under the condition that has Chris Elliot as his assistant.”
As for why the spinoff never blossomed into a series, Rosenthal said that CBS chose not to do more than a pilot, with another sitcom getting a 13-episode series order:
“I said, ‘Les, we need a guarantee because all these writers are getting these deals. They can’t just chuck this money to do a pilot.’ They said, ‘We won’t give you more than that.’”
“They did give 13 episodes to [another sitcom with a cast] that was under 30 — they were all in their 20s. This cast, everyone was over 40. So that’s what happened to that spinoff.”
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