That's not just a joke title, everybody really does love Raymond. The sitcom based on the observational stand-up of star Ray Romano, who plays the schlubby sports journalist who somehow got a beautiful wife and three kids and lives across the road from his domineering parents, was a huge hit in the States, even if it never caught on over here (apparently the 8 AM slot on Channel 4 between re-runs of Frasier and The King Of Queens won't guarantee a smash), but Everybody Loves Raymond's success was such that the show managed to make the leap to foreign markets all across the map. Like, to the point that the show's co-creator Phil Rosenthal made a 2010 documentary called Exporting Raymond, about his journey to create a Russian version of the hit TV series under the name Voroniny. Rosenthal struggles a little, with a Moscow studio that's barely standing, a head of comedy that doesn't think Raymond is very funny, and people encouraging him to take out K&R insurance (which, it turns out, stands for kidnap and ransom). Voroniny wasn't all that successful, but it's also not the first foreign remake of Raymond, and it almost certainly won't be the last. There was also the Ukrainian translation, where Ray seems like a sex-starved jerk who's constantly thinking of cheating on his wife - cancelled after one season - a Dutch remake called Iedereen is gek op Jack (Everybody is crazy about Jack), an ill-fated Israeli version, and an Egyptian sitcom called El Bab Fil Bab (Close Doors) which adapts the central premise to a Middle Eastern audience. Which it does to, erm, varying results.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
