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B
Do you know why you're here, Phil? Not on the planet, but do you know why I wanted to speak to you?
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A
I. I did something wrong?
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B
You did not do anything wrong. You've done much of life. Right. But the reason I wanted to talk to you, among other reasons, interesting people about interesting things, but also creative people about how they became creative. And so I need your help right off the start.
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A
Sure.
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B
I've been doing like a. I've been a bit of a dry cleaning bag at the beginning where I welcome people in. Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm Dan Lebatar. This is Phil Rosenthal. He created Everyone Loves Raymond. He does the Netflix show. Somebody feed Phil. He writes children's books. But I need some help with the open. Like how to introduce. How would you introduce you?
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A
Oh, here's an old Jewish man.
- [02:27]
B
Okay, but that's not gonna really sell what we're doing here.
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A
No, that's not a big demand for that.
- [02:33]
B
Well, there is a demand for. There's a demand for an old Jewish man who writes and works with his family at all points when I show you this book, because I mentioned all the other things you do, but this children's book, when I show you that on the top of it. Phil and Lily Rosenthal. What does that make you feel?
- [02:50]
A
Joy, pride, luck, to get to work with your kids. I work with Lily on this. I work with her at the diner that we opened. I work with my son Ben, who's a little older. He's my tour manager. And so.
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B
But you also. Yeah. You've worked with your father.
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A
With my parents, yeah.
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B
The food show. Your brother works on it.
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A
My brother, Yeah.
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B
I guess you'd say it's all family stuff.
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A
A big fan of nepotism.
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B
But you brought these people in after success, Correct? Like, that's how that worked. You arrived at the top of Hollywood success with every. Everything that everyone loves about. Everyone Loves Raymond. And then you were able to open a bunch of doors, right?
- [03:35]
A
I guess so, yeah. It took a while to get there. If we're talking about how one becomes creative, I really don't know, other than it starts with curiosity and a love of something. Like, for me, I was very curious about how TV worked. I was born in 1960, and so I was born into a world of TV. TV for the kids that don't know was like the phone of today, and everything came into the house through that portal. And if you lived in a little apartment in New York City, like me, the whole world was on that box.
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B
It was magic for me.
- [04:19]
A
It was. And also being a little kind of skinny kid that got picked on a bit when he went outside, being inside was safer. And all my friends were on that box. And so I would watch the Honeymooners reruns and Jackie Gleason show, which was filmed in Miami beach, where they have the greatest audiences in the world. Right. And I just. My dad was funny, and so humor was kind of the currency of the house. When we weren't yelling, we were laughing. And so I wanted to be like him. And then I also wanted to be like every funny person I saw on tv. And that extended to anyone who went for a laugh. And then later on the Johnny Carson show, you know, when they would all go on there, I was just enamored with it, and I wanted to be funny on stage like those people.
- [05:14]
B
So is the box transporting you because the outside world is harder because you're getting picked on? You were just having trouble with just whatever was outside the magic box.
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A
This was safer, easier, more fun for me. It's not that I didn't have my friends, but one of the things my friends and I loved to do was watch TV and laugh. And we would watch, you know, even the game shows. That were on after school, when we were now in elementary school and junior high school. Those were funny. They were trying to get laughs at.
- [05:46]
B
But you decided then, I'm gonna be in television. You decided as a kid, I'm gonna figure out a way to get there.
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A
Yes, I had interest in being an astronaut because the 60s, every kid wanted to be an astronaut. But then I realized, I think the best part of being an astronaut is that you get to go on the Ed Sullivan Show.
- [06:05]
B
Okay, so this was your North Star being on television. So what did your life look like in work before Everyone Loves Raymond?
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A
Before that, I was in the school plays. When you're a kid, you don't know, there's writing, directing, producing. So I watch the Honeymooners and I say they're funny. I want to be like them, so I want to act out in class. And then the healthy alternative to getting thrown out of your classroom is to channel that into the school plays after school. And I was a very big star in school, in high school, very big star. So big that everyone encouraged me to go to theater school for college. And I was then a big star at Hofstra University. And then I moved into New York City and no one had called New York to tell them what a big star I was in high school.
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B
So you were just a natural performer, though you were good at it fairly immediately.
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A
I was pretty good. A lot of other kids, they were interested in maybe acting and singing and funny wasn't part of their equation, but it was all of mine.
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B
It wasn't writing TV shows though, necessarily. Right. It was probably the. You were probably the star in your own vehicles the way you were imagining it.
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A
Right, exactly right. I didn't realize it, but all of life is writing. We're doing it now. We're writing what we say before we say it now. If we thought a little bit more, maybe it would come out better and we put it on paper. But all of life is an improvisation and all of life is writing. So you don't know that when you're a kid, you're not self aware like that. But when I went to college, they made me take all these other disciplines. My joke is, you know, they made me take all these courses I knew I would take. Never used like English. But writing, producing and directing, now it came into play and I started to get a very well rounded education in the field of theater. You know, when I graduated, I thought, oh God, I've now graduated with a degree that's good for nothing theater. But looking back on it Theater is actually the study of everything. Right. We study all these worlds from all over the world. And it really teaches you how to be a human being if you pay attention.
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B
Well, and also, I mean, when we're talking about the roots of your creativity, like, obviously, you're gonna find it there more than just about anywhere, I would imagine.
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A
I think so. Do you have a theater? No.
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B
No, I don't have it, but I'm not really. I love to write, but I am not a. I don't. I'm not a natural performer. Everything I've done after my newspaper career, kind of a happy accident. That's performance. But it started on, like, radio. So radio, you're not seen. Right. You're not having a.
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A
Still a performance.
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B
In a way, it is performance, but it's not. They're not seeing you. Right. Like, I'm not. I did many years of television and I was okay at it, but it's not something that I love. Performing in front of people isn't something that I've necessarily crave. I understand, but writing, yeah. But I would love for the talent, like what you did with Everyone Loves Raymond, if I could take what my. My hidden, you know, I'm not gonna say a hidden talent, but a talent that's not seen by everybody. It's crafted before I present it to people. If that's what represents me in public, that's what I'd be good with instead of the rest of me with all its insecurities and everything else.
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A
I understand. We all have insecurities, but I didn't know I had that talent until desperation caused me. After years of struggling in New York, some friends of mine and I wrote a show for ourselves to be in
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B
because you couldn't get a break.
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A
And there's 40,000 actors going for one little part. It's a ridiculous way of life. I don't recommend it, you know, but if you're driven, you can't help it. I didn't know what else I could do. I knew I could do that. But I also didn't have the stomach for going on cattle calls for an extra to be an extra in the back of a commercial. It didn't. I mean, here I was, I was coming from naively, the lead in the school play. Now I'm fighting to be a nothing, literally nothing.
- [10:36]
B
But thinking it was gonna be easy, right? Thinking it was gonna be. When you say I was the star in my own show, like, you really thought you were ready for stardom, right? You're thinking naively from the kid sitting in front of the television. Oh, I'm gonna get there, right?
- [10:49]
A
Well, I think that's how you have to have what my theater professor called a healthy naivete. You don't know what you don't know, so why wouldn't you at least approach. If you watch, you know, we all watching the Olympics, all these people thought at some point they could do that and then they did it. I saw somebody great just say this really smart young lady who's got such a brain in addition to being this fabulous skier, she said, I became. You can change the way you think and you can make yourself be what you want to be. I am now the person that the eight year old me would have loved, would have wanted to hang out with, would have wanted to have become. We do have that power. I think if you make something in your life a priority, you will not rest until it happens.
- [11:50]
B
But your priority wasn't to make a hit TV show, right? It was to maybe star in a hit TV show.
- [11:56]
A
Originally, yes, but then after many failed years in New York, having all these odd jobs, none of them was acting. You know, I'd work for free in a freezing warehouse and do a Shakespeare play with a small role. I remember my parents, very supportive. They come to the warehouse on 38th street and 11th Avenue with all bundled up in their coats because there was no heat in the theater to see me do three lines. But that love and support, that's what buoys you through these rough times, right? And then as I said, some friends of mine wrote a show for ourselves to be in and that became successful. And that same year, another friend of mine who had already made it as a writer, it was in his first year of writing in Hollywood, came back to New York. He was some somewhat disillusioned. He said, I want to write a screenplay because I don't like what I'm doing in TV over there. I have to do what they say I want to do what I want. So how about you and me write a screenplay? I said, I don't know anything about it. He said, you don't have to know. I know structure, but you're funny and I think we'll have fun. And we sure did. And wouldn't you know, we finished that screenplay. First thing I ever really wrote with a friend, sold it immediately to hbo. Sometimes the world presents you with what you're supposed to be.
- [13:14]
B
After how many years of struggle are we talking about?
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A
7 or 8.
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B
7 or 8. How miserable are those years? It's just you're Eating failure all the time.
- [13:21]
A
They're miserable on the one hand. But on the other hand, I was happy because I was living in New York with a roommate. And, I don't know, I would go to these weird odd jobs on the subway, struggle, having fun at just living. The pursuit of happiness.
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B
Being young.
- [13:50]
A
The pursuit of happiness. I don't have homework anymore. My parents aren't telling me what I can eat and what I can't eat. Well, I can be free to do what I want. I'm a big boy. I'm an adult in the world. That's fun. And we live in a country still, knock wood while we can. For the moment, we have the best line in the Declaration of Independence. We have the right to pursue happiness. What other country gives you that? That's like, you know, there's many countries where if your dad was a cobbler, you're a cobbler, and that's it. If your dad works in the mine, you work in the mine. So how lucky am I that I got to at least pursue whatever I wanted?
- [14:36]
B
Well, especially compared to what it is your parents had to endure so that you would have the freedom to do. To fail for a while.
- [14:43]
A
And I never took that for granted. And I thought, don't waste this opportunity.
- [14:48]
B
For those who do not know about Max and Helen, both who passed in their mid-90s, I would imagine from what I've read about you, that the roots of your humor can be found, oddly enough, on inscription of both of their tombstones. True.
- [15:04]
A
My dad loved very soft scrambled eggs more than anything, more than his family. Every morning, are my eggs fluffy? He would say, my mother, and she would say, max, I've been making you eggs for 60 years. You don't think I know how you like your eggs? Why are you bothering me when I'm listening to the opera? Don't you know that I know how to cook your eggs? Leave me alone, Max. I'm listening to opera. He says, I don't know how you can hear anything with all this yelling, but on his tombstone it says, did you make the eggs fluffy? And on the tombstone next to him, it says, I'm listening to the opera. So the reason we put those there is because that's their lesson that they imparted to my brother and me. If you can find a simple joy in your life that makes you happy every day, maybe you'll be happy every day.
- [15:54]
B
The diner that they have that bears their name here, wildly successful like the food theme, is a consistent one in your life.
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A
Ironic because they were not chefs. They appreciate. I think my dad would have been at this diner every day of his life. Loving. Exactly. They're called Max's Fluffy Eggs on the menu. And he would order that, I think every day, if not twice a day. If he came in. Yeah, he'd be very happy with.
- [16:19]
B
So you said your funny comes from there, though. It comes from him?
- [16:22]
A
I think so. Especially. She was funny too. Sometimes without realizing it, the parents on Everybody Loves Raymond, they come from somewhere. A lot of the things happen to me. The rest of the show happened to Ray or one of the other writers. 90% of the stories came from something that happened to us.
- [16:43]
B
Viewing Ray from afar and having only spoken to him a few times and going fairly deep in those conversations,
- [16:52]
A
his
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B
neuroses seem like a bit of a plague, given how much success he has had. And I could see how the doing of the show and the need to make it continually be successful, there'd be a lot of joy around it. But I could imagine that there was a great deal of pressure, too.
- [17:07]
A
First year. First year of anything is very difficult because you're trying to find it, what's gonna work. And of course there's a lot of pressure. It bears his name, and it bears a lot of pressure on me. I don't want to ruin this guy's life. And this is my shot to create, write and run a show. It's a very big honor to have a giant network give you a television show and pay you to do that show and employ 150 people, you know, and then be a building block on the network. It's a big responsibility. Now. All that goes away once you hear that people like it. But until you hear that, those first few months especially. I wrote a book about it. It's called you'd're Lucky youy're Funny. How Life Becomes a Sitcom. And it's. I. It was my way of paying this forward. As we were wrapping up, I thought, this is a. It's a rarefied air, but it's a unique position to be in. Only a handful of people get to do this in the world, so why not impart whatever I've learned to the people out there who might want to pursue it now. The business is very different now, but I think the building blocks of a show are the same. No matter what kind of show you're doing, the world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot Start your day with Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal. The instant oatmeal. Ready to help you tackle whatever your day brings, like wrangling your toddler into their car seat. That was fun. Coaching your sixth grader soccer team.
- [19:20]
B
Go, girls.
- [19:22]
A
And carrying all the groceries in one trip. Try Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal Granola and bars. Great taste and a good source of protein. Quaker Bring out the good you couldn't
- [19:36]
B
have imagined in your wildest dreams of becoming that. What did success look like when you started?
- [19:43]
A
Success looked like in high school, seeing my name on the cast list after auditioning that first time when I had two lines in the big spring show of high school. That was success to me. I was never happier than that moment. And I believe that we chased that moment the rest of our lives. That first moment of acceptance at this thing you would love to do wasn't a paycheck. Even I would say, the next thing is getting the paycheck. The first one. Oh, my God, they like me enough to be in the school play. Next. Oh, my God, they like me enough to pay me for my stupid ideas or my, you know, comedy, whatever it is. Can't believe it.
- [20:36]
B
It would never get better than that. Like, that can't be true, though. You had the biggest show. I understand what you're saying. The wonder discovery of the first time my dreams can come true. But you're not laughing at this. You're looking at me like, don't talk to me. I know what I was saying here. This felt better than. And I was chasing that feeling for the rest of time.
- [20:58]
A
I'm not saying better. I'm not saying that felt better. I'm saying it doesn't get better. That joy is the same whether you get the smallest part in your first school play or you win the Emmy. I can't say I felt better when, as a matter of fact, you win the Emmy. You're like, oh, shit, I have to go on stage now and make a speech in front of the world. Terrifying, but it's ameliorated by the fact that you won an Emmy.
- [21:31]
B
Yeah, there is that.
- [21:32]
A
There is that. But that. By the way, I don't wake up every day and go, I'm Emmy winner, so and so. I see that award in the house. It's on a high shelf because it's pointy and dangerous. It's only a souvenir of the time I had with my friends. Really?
- [21:53]
B
Well, I believe you. But this is important to you to work with your family and friends, right? Absolutely.
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A
Listen, I'm not trying to be a philosopher, but we're only here for a little while. Why not have fun at what you do? I would dare say you're doing this because you enjoy doing it. This is not. I'm sure you're not, you know, buying a giant house from this.
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B
No.
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A
But you like doing it. Isn't that worth a lot more to go through life happy at what we do? Are the eggs fluffy?
- [22:27]
B
But not everybody gets to play this way with their family, though. Among the people you have worked with in your family, what has been the greatest joy?
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A
Because you're going to say, who's the best one?
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B
Because your wife played Amy on.
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A
That's right. That was a joy, too. I wouldn't push them on people if they weren't great. They happen to be great. My brother Richard was already a qualified producer of things. So when I had this opportunity to do the food and travel show, I naturally called him for two reasons. He knew how to do this, and I love him and I wanted to be with him. If I could choose someone, why not? Monica was not someone I thought of for the role. I wasn't going to play nepotism with this TV show that was bigger than me. Someone else in the writers room suggested her for the first guest star role that she had in the first season as Robert's girlfriend. Right? Well, let's. Yeah, she is great. That's what attracted me to her in the first place. I saw her in your play and she was fantastic. And then we did a play together and we fell in love. But I wasn't gonna impose her. I wasn't gonna be that guy who puts his wife in the show. Let somebody else say it. And then let's see how she does in a small guest role while she scored. Now everyone else is saying, don't you know the president of the network? It was seasons later. I didn't know she was your wife. That's good. That's good. Because she made it on her own.
- [24:11]
B
Do you have a family member that you regard. This is a difficult question to ask you, but just more fun working with for whatever the reason is. Right. You can do comparison shopping. Right. You might be at an age where the doing of this. You have more of an appreciation for this because it's Something different than the woman you love that you were making a sitcom that has been all over the world?
- [24:34]
A
No, every person. I do the books with Lily. I do the diner with Lily. Great. I do the tour with Ben and hopefully other things with Ben to come as well. Great. They're all in the show, sometimes in Somebody feed Phil with me at times. Great. My brother is my partner in business now. Great. I love every aspect of everything I do with these people. I have manifested the dream in real life.
- [25:09]
B
So you don't. This doesn't come with difficulties for you? Because I worked with my father on television for eight years and it had great joys. And in fact, I became closer to him in adulthood than I was earlier for a variety of different reasons. But it also came with a great deal of frustration because I. I mean, this is. It's too much to explain. He's doing the show in his second language. He doesn't know about sports, and he is there to just help me do. He becomes the star of the show. But there were a number of things that we had to do to put him in the correct positions.
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A
Okay.
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B
So that. So that the daily doing of it. What. Had many frustrations in it. It sounds. You're describing a blissful romp through heaven with your family here that doesn't have any difficulties.
- [25:52]
A
I can't say there are any difficulties. I really can't. Other than the almost funny, comical fights that I get into with Richard because he wants me to put on a clown suit in Cirque du Soleil or jump in freezing cold water or ride in a race car around the F1 track. Make good television.
- [26:11]
B
Yeah, make good television.
- [26:12]
A
And I fight with him and I say, I don't want to do it. And he says, you're doing it. And I go, all right. And then you know what? I'm happy I did it, because first of all, it made for funny tv. Second, I didn't die. And so I proved to myself that I could do the thing I was very afraid of, which I think is valuable for regular people.
- [26:31]
B
If I only gave you the ability to do one of the shows and have it recreated. Somebody feed Phil or Everyone Loves Raymond. Which do you choose?
- [26:40]
A
Wow. It's very hard. They're very different experiences. It's like, pick someone from your family. I don't know. I love. By the way, I love them equally. And I love. Like, I get to do these live shows now where people who like somebody feed Phil, they come and see me speak. We show a little highlight reel of the Current season. Then I come out with a moderator. Could be you in Miami, if we do it right. And you would ask me whatever you want. I have my stories. But you could throw me a curveball, certainly to something I don't know and think about, and we have a conversation, and then the whole second half of the show is Q and A with the audience. And I get everybody from toddlers to dead people, everybody in between. The demo is really wide and vast, and I'm thrilled with it. I love that as much as any of these things. Why? Because it's all about connecting with the people. Every one of those jobs I've had has been about connecting with the people. Raymond connected on a big level. Somebody feed Phil connects on a big level.
- [27:45]
B
It's my mother's favorite show. My mother's a Cuban ex. She's 82 years old, and it was her favorite show on television. Yeah.
- [27:56]
A
Well, we celebrated our 30th year since we've been on, and God bless, it's been on because it was intended to be on that long.
- [28:07]
B
Was it really?
- [28:08]
A
Absolutely. I thought, here's a very lucky thing. You get to have a TV show. Why not have it be of lasting value? So what does that mean? Let's. Let's make it not timely, not topical, but timeless. So no topical jokes. And what are we writing about? The stuff of life, the very mundane. You know, nobody's jumping up and down because you're going to do a show about a guy who lives across the street from his parents. It's not about the premise, it's about the execution.
- [28:50]
B
Where do you come by the audacity and the ambition, though, to think that you're going to write something that's going to be so timeless that it can last for 30 years?
- [29:00]
A
It's something to shoot for. It doesn't mean you're going to hit it necessarily every time, but it's something to shoot for.
- [29:08]
B
But you're actively avoiding all pop culture references of the day in order to make sure that you are something that can Air in 2025 in Russia.
- [29:17]
A
It's not that we avoid completely. There are certain things, like Ray was a sports writer in the show, so once in a while there'd be the name of a current sportswriter. But it wasn't the meat of the show. It was a tiny, tiny bit of window dressing in the background. You know, he's going to interview Christy Yamaguchi. Okay. All you have to know watching it today is that was a figure skater of the time. It wasn't critical to the show, the show was about him being stuck between his parents and his wife and his brother and his kids.
- [29:54]
B
But you sit down to make this show, and you're getting what you believe to be the opportunity of a lifetime, and you're saying to yourself, this is then going to result in me cascading to all of my dreams, because I'm going to. I know I'm going to make a timeless television show.
- [30:10]
A
I don't know it will be successful, but I know that that's a good thing to shoot for. It's what I want to shoot for. If I have this opportunity, why not try to make it that now? Other people would say, wait, the way to cash in is to write about the stuff that's in the news right now and the stuff that's in social media that I don't think I was ever an expert in that. In current events. I was an expert in my family and the dynamics of that family, and I was able to channel that into this vehicle.
- [30:46]
B
Which were always funny to you. The dynamics of your.
- [30:48]
A
Absolutely. Even when it wasn't funny, it later became funny. For example, I would give my parents a gift and it would blow up in my face. I don't know why that is. I didn't know that. That anyone would even relate to it. I thought that people would look at that and think that's funny because that happened to that guy. I didn't realize you can't give your parents a gift without it blowing up in your face. And I get letters from still from around the world. That's my mother. That's my father.
- [31:20]
B
And you knew you were writing that at the time. Like, when did you know? When did you know you had something?
- [31:28]
A
When we started casting the show, and I'm hearing the dialogue come back from Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle and Patty Heaton and Brad Garrett and Ray Romano. That's when I knew, oh, I don't know if we'll be successful, but they're great and they're elevating what I wrote. Now comes the audience and they laugh. Good enough to get picked up to series. The third episode was an episode written by Steve Scrovan, one of our great writers. And it's about an IQ test that Robert the policeman gives to Ray and Deborah. Okay. And the results come in. And Ray has a higher IQ than Deborah. Well, this is very unexpected, especially to Deborah. The audience coming in to watch that taping. They haven't seen the show yet. It hasn't been on television yet because it's Week three of our production. And you. You have to edit the show and make it so that it won't be on for a few months before it's on tv, before people see it. So we're literally getting people who are from old age homes and prisoners from jail. Literally. That's our audience. That's all we can get as the audience. Deborah is not happy that Ray got a higher IQ than him. They're sitting on the couch, and Ray, she's eating a bowl of ice cream, and Ray makes a snide comment about how he's smarter, and she just nods and she takes her bowl of ice cream and just turns it over onto his lap. Okay. The laughter. This is not a giant sight gag, but it showed underneath the husband and wife relationship. The laugh went on for over 30 seconds, which is a very long time on stage. And right then and there, I turned to the other writers and I said, as a joke, we're all going to be millionaires. Because that laugh meant they're connecting with the characters and they're relating to husband and wife. And as long as we follow that path of relatability, they're with us because they have those feelings, too. And when the mother comes in and she interrupts and she tells everybody what's best for them and tries to help by making everyone miserable, that's so relatable. We get letters from Sri Lanka. That's my mother.
- [34:09]
B
Do you have a favorite compliment like that? Whatever. That's the one when people say they recognize their own family in the television.
- [34:17]
A
You were listening outside our house last night. We would hear that all the time. But I didn't have to listen outside your house because I was listening inside my house. If you work for me, your job was to go home, get in a fight with your wife, come back in, and tell me about it. And then we would write. Whoever had a good argument or a good predicament, they wrote that script. And then we'd all work on it together to make it as good as we could make.
- [34:42]
B
Endless content. Right.
- [34:44]
A
Nine years. And then we decided it was enough. We weren't canceled. We said, we think this is enough. We don't want to stay on past the point of being lousy. So that also was with a forethought of, if we preserve the legacy of the show, maybe we'll have a legacy.
- [35:07]
B
Was it still as fun for everybody involved on the last show as it was?
- [35:11]
A
Yes. Yeah. That was a very, very important thing to do, is to not wear out our welcome and not wear out ourselves.
- [35:21]
B
What a treasure, though. Good God. You're talking about the purest of entertainment gifts. The way that you're describing this, it was.
- [35:29]
A
It was. But you have to have those values first. If it's just a money grab, you've seen the shows that stay on past the point where they're great anymore, Right? So I learned from that because why? I'm a student of TV. I put in my 10,000 hours of, you know.
- [35:47]
B
Oh, but what you're describing is not the easiest thing. You've arrived at, you know, enduring success in Hollywood, and you could have done. You could have done it forever. You're not gonna run out of family fight stories to.
- [36:00]
A
No, but we are running out of stories for that family. You know, it's not like the Simpsons, where they don't age. And it's a miracle to me how that they're approaching, I think, 800 episodes. We did 200 something. And that seemed like an enormous amount to us of anything. 200 stories about one family. It's a lot. So we said, again, let's stop before we become terrible.
- [36:32]
B
What have you learned about syndication? It's a broad question, but I'm talking about all of it. Like, from the profit of it to the reach of it to the documentary that you made about the true story of turning it into a Russian sitcom.
- [36:55]
A
I think we got in and out of the TV business at its peak. We're one of those shows that came on, did well, and then did really well in syndication, which is why we're still on today. So what does syndication mean? All your local stations around the country and around the world have bought the show to run on their stations. Not only that, you can throw in cable stations and streaming services, even that pay for every single episode of the show to run in every market around the country. So that's a lot of money, and God bless it, that has afforded me, my family, this ultra privileged life to the point where we don't have to ever worry about money. The Russian thing was a different thing. They never had sitcoms in Russia. The nanny was the first sitcom that ever was made in Russia, a version of the Nanny. The Americans that made it, a couple of them went over to Russia to help them do it. And when the head of Sony asked me if I'd like to go and do it, I said, oh, I would do it if we could film the process, because that, to me, is funny. He thought I should go there, experience it, and then come back and write a fictional feature comedy about a showrunner. Who goes to Russia to try to help them do the thing? I said, if this situation really exists and what you're telling me, the funny stories you're telling me about doing the nanny over there really exists, let's film it for real. And he said, yes, do it. Do it. Go do it. So I did it. And it's called exporting, Raymond. It's my family favorite movie because of how much I suffered in trying to get my ideas over to them. Because even though they invited me to do it, they didn't listen to me for one second.
- [39:04]
B
Well, I imagine the senses of humor don't translate right. You would think that perhaps family would translate across any language, but I would think that Russia would be your degree of difficulty higher than almost all of them. Just because of all of the cultural differences between us.
- [39:21]
A
I would say of all the cultures in the world that I've now experienced, Russia is the most unique and the most different to us.
- [39:31]
B
And you've been all over the world.
- [39:32]
A
I have been all over the world. There's something about Russia. And when I speak to Russians, they laugh and admit it. It's not that they don't love their family. They don't fight with their family. It's what they want to show. That's the difference. We have no problem showing it. We have no problem showing real life as real life.
- [39:56]
B
They just classic cultural repression.
- [39:59]
A
Well, they want. For example, there was a costume lady there in one of my favorite things about the movie. We're having our first kind of production meeting. She thinks the show should be used to teach the Russian population about high fashion. I said, well, that's very nice, except that this is a regular family, not wealthy, and they wear, you know, kind of what we're wearing now. Except for you. You are very dressed up. She was very dressed up. Costume lady. She says, no one wants to watch that. And I said, okay, but if you're. If you're going to make it a Russian. Typical Russian family, which is what the show calls for, if you're doing this show, okay, then, you know, she says, I think the wife should be dressed beautifully. And I said, what if she's vacuuming the house? She should be dressed beautifully. I said, do you wear beautiful dress when you are cleaning up around the house? And she says, no, of course not. And I said, well, then why would we do it here? And she says, because she is on television. And I said, yes, but she doesn't know she's on television. So that was the culture clash, right?
- [41:18]
B
Yeah. The way things Look.
- [41:20]
A
Sure, that's it. So it was charming in its way and frustrating in its way and funny in its way. It's a really funny documentary, I have to say. Not because I made it, but because of the situation. Your little one grew three inches overnight. Adorable. Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow. And he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth Bird budget secured. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up the answer. Using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They help you get your biggest refund and then we help you do more with it with a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app.
- [42:37]
B
Somebody feed Phil. As a project where you like to combine all of the things of food and family and fun and humor. Like when you think of your dinner table growing up and the roots of that television show because you could have done anything, right? You could have chosen to do anything. You got the great grift of getting to see the world while eating. But yes, it is a scam. I mean, it's an unbelievable scam you got there. And a lot of people would choose it to be able to travel on, on an expense account, to go just see the entirety of the world and taste the entirety of the world. But what is your relationship with food at the dinner table? And what was happening with, you know, parents? We haven't even mentioned that they're Holocaust survivors.
- [43:26]
A
Right? So they come from a very different background and they are immigrants. And we didn't have a lot of money and we didn't have a lot of time to. Or my, rather my parents didn't have a lot of time to prepare gourmet meals for the kids. They both worked and it was all they could do to get whatever was affordable on the table. And you're gonna eat it. And so, you know, in our house, meat was a punishment because it was the cheapest grade of meat and my mother had a setting on the oven for shoes and that was it. And you weren't going to leave the table until you finished. So it wasn't fun times. Although there Were again, when we weren't yelling at each other, which we did a lot, we were laughing. But food, I didn't know what the only spice in the house was salt. And it wasn't until I left that house that I had food with what we call flavor. And when I went to Europe when I was in my early 20s, I got a courier flight to Europe for free. And that was, you know, changed my life because I realized, literally, there's a whole world out there. And just having a baguette with some cheese in the park, which is all I could afford, was mind blowing. I'm in Paris and then Florence on
- [44:47]
B
that first trip, tasted like freedom. Tasted like adulthood.
- [44:52]
A
It tasted really good also. In addition to those things, freedom, adulthood, how great the world is, how big the world is, how beautiful the world is, and delicious. So now it became a passion. It's almost like, you know, the music that you grew up with when it hit you when you were a teenager, that's still your favorite music, right? So for me, that was music, that food, because I didn't really have it. It was like a light bulb went off.
- [45:21]
B
Well, it sounds, though, like you're just chasing discoveries, right? Whether it's the magic box in your living room or you're now in Paris somewhere else, where you're chasing the feeling of discovery.
- [45:32]
A
You're right. My parents had the Time Life books of the different cities of the world. And I would look at them. I thought they were amazing. I mean, think how quaint that is today. A book with pictures of different cities in the world. When everything's available on your phone, you could go anywhere and see everything if you want. But there's still, even with the phone, with the tv, with the biggest screen IMAX in the world, showing you Venice, Italy. You haven't seen it until you're there.
- [46:00]
B
As you head into Paris and food, how are you getting to the place where you're deciding, no, I'm gonna do this for a while, because I'm gonna see the world this way, and I'm gonna show people another side of myself.
- [46:13]
A
After Raymond was over, I thought my job in life was to create more sitcoms. And I didn't realize that the business changed in the nine years since we were doing Raymond. And they only wanted cool shows, hip and edgy shows. My agents told me, be more hip and edgy. And I said, well, you got the right guy. I'm Mr. Hip and Edgy. And so I struck out for a couple of years. Even writing with younger people, they just didn't want that sensibility. They didn't even want the four camera sitcom anymore, which was filmed in front of a live audience, which I thought was great, having come from theater. It combined, you know, the best aspects of theater with film. Just perfect, you know, blend of the two. So I'm struggling again for years, as if I never did anything before. And then I thought of this dream I had of travel, and I thought, what if I could get people to travel by showing them the best places in the world to eat? Well, it wasn't as if because I had the success from Raymond, that I could do whatever I wanted. It afforded me the ability to try for it because I didn't need the paycheck. But it took 10 years.
- [47:34]
B
That long, huh?
- [47:36]
A
After the success of Raymond, before I was on pbs and that was the first place that would take me.
- [47:42]
B
So what was happening in those 10 years? There was a lot of things.
- [47:46]
A
I wrote a book, I wrote, I did the Exporting Raymond documentary. But always in the back of my mind, and not even the back of my mind, in between those things, I was pursuing this dream. Exporting Raymond was the first time I was on camera. I was the guy trying to get his show done in Russia, and people saw that. I even put a scene in, totally improvised by the way of my parents, on Skype, from another Russian family's home. And they stole the movie because they were so funny on the Skype. I had something to show that I could be in the show, traveling to a new land. I also did other small videos when I did travel. So I had something to show people. Still a very tough sell. But when I walked into pbs, I sold the show with one line. By the time I got there, which is the first place I actually wanted to go, because I thought that they would be receptive to a travel show more than the Travel Channel, more than the Food Channel, pbs. So first I had to. My agents made me exhaust every commercial possibility, not wanting to go to PBS because they say there's no money there. But when I walked in, I sold the show with one line. This is the line I'm exactly like Anthony Bourdain, if he was afraid of everything. And they said, we've been looking for a food and travel show with humor for years. So all of a sudden, I was in the right place at the right time after 10 years of trying, and
- [49:28]
B
it was just stumbling around because a food and travel show by itself is not the most inventive of concepts.
- [49:37]
A
Bourdain pioneered it.
- [49:38]
B
But this also looks More like what you imagined your life would be as a child, right? The star of your own show, the star in your own play.
- [49:47]
A
But that was, you know, in my childhood and high school and college, even I was in plays. This is an improvised show of. Now I am. My advantage that I might have over someone else making this type of show is that I have this now long career in television that I can draw from. So I'm using all the tools of writing a sitcom and structuring a sitcom in the service of this food and travel show. So what do I mean? There's a structure. I talk to the camera. And that came out of, how do I. These people don't know me. How do I get the audience to know me? Well, what if you talk to them? Not a genius idea, but simple and effective. You know, Remember at the beginning of Annie hall, it starts with Woody Allen talking right to the camera. I thought, that's a good way to do it. So I talked to the camera. Hey, we're going to Vietnam. And my. My only experience with Vietnam is Apocalypse now and. And the Deer Hunter and Platoon. I don't know what to expect, but people are telling me they're going to have the time of their. They had the time of their life in Vietnam. So I'm a little nervous. And then you get to Vietnam, and now you start seeing, oh, you don't have to be afraid. Look, people are charming, beautiful, smiling, great. The place is lush and gorgeous, and, oh, here comes a meal. Oh, my God. Now you have these things. And it's not just food. Scenes of eating. You keep cutting back to me, telling you why it's great. Now you have a cultural moment. We're doing something other than. Than just eating. And here comes a charitable moment. Here's a hero in the world who's helping other people. That's beautiful. And then at the end, they all end pretty much the same way. With first a call home, it was your parents, right? My parents at first. And now it's a joke for Max where I call someone I love to tell a joke for him. And. And they serve the same purpose. It's a postcard home. Hey, how's your trip? Tell them stuff. Look at this food. I show them. And then the finale of the act is most of the people that you saw along the way are now together in a meal. So it's a literal bringing together of the world, and it leaves you with a very nice, unsaid message that you can impart.
- [52:28]
B
Well, you said you wanted to leave a timeless message with Everybody Loves Raymond. And you did. And you also say that the greatest compliment is people telling you some form of you listening outside my house. What are you trying to do with this? Aspirationally? Like, is it the symbol of that, or is there anything else that you're wanting to show the world with this project?
- [52:51]
A
I'm only using food and my stupid sense of humor to get you the message that I think the world would be better if we all could experience a little bit of other people's experiences. And food happens to be the great connector. And then laughs are the cement. And so, you know, there are people who want to build a wall, right? And I always say, instead of a wall, how about a table? That's the very last moment of Everybody Loves Raymond Happens to be. They're sitting around the kitchen table, and the whole family is crowding in around it. And Deborah says to Ray, it's getting a little crowded in here. And Ray says, we need a bigger table. That's the message. And it's the same message in the travel show.
- [53:41]
B
It's hopelessly sweet for our times. Like, it's a.
- [53:47]
A
There has to be an alternative to the new. You can't just watch the news. You'll get depressed.
- [53:52]
B
Yeah, no. Well, I mean, we're living in pretty depressing times, and you're out here selling syrup.
- [53:57]
A
I am not gonna sit here and say it's not depressing or it's not infuriating. It's not scary. But it's not. Most of life. The news is showing you the extraordinary, right? The news doesn't show us all the planes that landed safely today. But do you know that 99.9% of them do? The ones that make the news don't. Same with the horrors that we're seeing in our own country and in different hotspots in the world. But most of the world is not hotspots. Most of the world is not a terrible guy doing terrible things. It really isn't. The guy that does terrible things happens to get the most attention.
- [54:47]
B
Do you regard this as your happiest time? Like, if I ask you, what is the happiest time in your life?
- [54:52]
A
They're all happy. They're all happy. And this is my favorite, because it's now.
- [54:58]
B
They're all happy. They can't all be happy. You've done. You've been skipping through life for 66 years.
- [55:04]
A
No, absolutely not. But the parts that we're talking about today, the high points, they're all happy. I can't say I was Happier then. I'm happiest now because it's now. People say everything you bite, you say is delicious. Yes. Sometimes they say this is the best. This is the best one. Yes. You know why? It's the one I'm having now.
- [55:25]
B
Not the thousand year old egg.
- [55:27]
A
Definitely not. That was a mistake. It's good to have that. So you have something to compare.
- [55:34]
B
No, it's not good to have that. You can't have the thousand year old egg.
- [55:37]
A
I'm glad I had it. Not because it was fun to have it, but because I had it. And now I know not to have it again. And look how much better everything else is.
- [55:45]
B
I know not to have it. And I didn't have to have it. I know not to have the thousand year old egg.
- [55:49]
A
I'm an idiot because I put that whole thing in my mouth. That was dumb. You're supposed to sliver. Take a tiny sliver and put it in the hot pot with a million other things. I was stupid and put the whole thing in my mouth. Don't do that.
- [56:03]
B
For those who don't know, for the uninitiated, what does the thousand year old egg taste like?
- [56:08]
A
It tastes like what it sounds like. It tastes like really, really rotten egg. And then that's the first flavor. The second flavor is ammonia. Horrible to me. People love it. People that listen. We're not all the same.
- [56:27]
B
Nobody eats it that way though. Or does it get eaten the way you're just describing it?
- [56:31]
A
I think there are some people who like it so much they might taste the entire. It looks like half a hard boiled egg, except the white of the egg is a brownish orange and the yolk is a bluish green. Because they make this egg by taking a fresh egg, coating it in lime, the lime that they bury people in and ash and then bury it underground for weeks to months. And it hard boils itself and then it comes out and it turns that color. And if you're dumb like me, you put that in your mouth and you turn every shade of that egg.
- [57:05]
B
How long did that taste stay with you?
- [57:08]
A
Until I drank a lot.
- [57:10]
B
What do you regard as the best thing you've ever eaten? And this might.
- [57:14]
A
That's tough.
- [57:15]
B
It is a difficult question, but it might not be even taste related. It might have been where you were in the world as well. That accented it.
- [57:23]
A
You know what? That's a great point because I think all the senses and feelings are actually connected. Like I always use this example. Let's say you're in Venice and you're on your honeymoon, and you're sitting by the canal and you're having a gorgeous meal, and the wine comes. You have the wine and you're like, toast. I love you. I love you. You toast it and you drink the wine. It's the best wine I've ever had in my. We gotta buy a case of that wine. And you buy a case of that wine and you have it shipped home or refused. You put it on the plane as baggage. You wrap it up carefully. Now, a year later, hey, it's our anniversary. How about a bottle of that wine? Yes, here we go. And you uncork it. And you carefully decant it. And you pour it in your glass. And you pour it in her glass. A toast to you. I love you. It's a happy anniversary. Oh, my God, I can't wait. And you drink. It's all right. Why? Because you're not in Venice. You're not sitting by the canal. You're not on your honeymoon. You're not in love the same way. You're not feeling the breeze the same way. The smell is different. Everything is different. Now you're in your apartment with this person who maybe got on your nerves today. But it's a souvenir. The flavors and the tastes, that affects everything. Off the top of my head, the best things I've ever had. Two of them were in Bangkok or in Thailand. One was the crab omelette from a woman who's in her 70s. And she makes these unbelievable crab omelette with like a pound or a pound and a half of freshly shucked crab. And she stirs it into a wok. She wears aviator glasses because there's so much heat coming off the thing. And she whips up this omelet that's like a football filled with crab. This would be $300 in a restaurant today. It's still the world's most expensive street food at $70. Okay? That's how big this thing is. Undeniably delicious. There's no one who would say this. The line is 4 hours, 5 hours long for this thing. She won a Michelin star, and the line doubled from there. And she's an older lady, and she called Michelin people and said, I'm giving the star back. It's too much. Yeah, she couldn't keep up. So that's one. The other is a bowl of cow soy that I had in Chiang Mai, Thailand. You know what cow soy is?
- [59:52]
B
What a great sentence you just put together. That was just an excellent sentence of a worldly man. Who has seen wildly exotic things.
- [60:01]
A
It's spectacular. So that's coconut curry broth with fresh hand pulled noodles at the bottom of the bowl. Like the best pasta you ever had.
- [60:10]
B
Is your mouth watering right now? I think your mouth is watering.
- [60:13]
A
Yeah, yeah. And then whatever meat or fish you want. So it could be beef, lamb, pork, chicken, you know, shrimp, whatever you want. Tofu even. And then chilies and pickled mustard greens and shallots and onions and. And then they squirt lime over the whole thing and then they put crispy noodles on top so it ticks all the boxes for flavors, textures, Textures and everything. It's one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my life. And in Chiang Mai, Thailand, it's a dollar, which is my second favorite price.
- [60:49]
B
These things can't be made. Like, they can't be made as well elsewhere. Correct. When you're talking about goggles and get this Michelin star out of my life. She's uniquely qualified to make this. Correct.
- [61:02]
A
She's uniquely qualified. Doesn't mean it can't be made elsewh. It just can be prohibitively expensive elsewhere. Khao soi. And this is one of the great things about traveling is coming home and finding that dish that you never had happens to be available locally. You just never knew to look for it or you saw it on the menu and went right by it because you didn't know what that was. So my job is to show you what that is and maybe you'll try it. And I can't tell you how many people have come up to me to say, I we eat cow soy now all the time.
- [61:37]
B
Is this something you're going to be doing for a long time?
- [61:40]
A
As long as I live, I'm going to do it one way or another. I have no idea if Netflix picks us up where their longest running show, eight seasons. They like things that have two or three seasons and they're on to the next new thing. That's how they get new subscribers. But I'm always like, what about the existing subscribers? If they like a thing, look at Raymond. Right. States, but the business is different now. But I'm telling you, you're gonna do
- [62:05]
B
it no matter what. This is how you choose to live. This is how you're gonna live the rest of your days.
- [62:10]
A
Listen, I don't need a TV show to travel. But if I'm going and people seem to like it and learn from it and go places because they saw the show, I meet them every day. They actually come to the diner and tell me we went to Kyoto because we saw your show. Nothing makes me happier. Their lives are better because they went. Not because of me, but because they got up and went. So if I could inspire one person, like just that lady I met this morning who told me about Kyoto, my job is done.
- [62:47]
B
I should tell the people about again. Your website, philrosenthalworld.com and the book. Just try it someplace new. I see that Lily's description in the back is longer than yours. That seems like bullshit. She.
- [63:01]
A
Listen, she's, I think, at her age, more accomplished than I was at my age then.
- [63:07]
B
Still bullshit. But regardless, he shares the marquee with her.
- [63:11]
A
I'm happy to do it.
- [63:13]
B
It's not just children's books, as you said. You've. You've tackled other books as well. And when you do that, when you go back into writing, do you like. Why are you choosing to do that?
- [63:27]
A
I got something to say. If I don't have something to say, I don't do it. I write the cookbooks. I have two cookbooks out, which are recipes from the show and from the great chefs that I know in my life. They're terrific cookbooks because these chefs are so fantastic. And then what I can contribute are my feelings about filming with them and the places that these recipes are from. So I enjoy doing that.
- [63:55]
B
But not just cookbooks, though. Like, obviously you do.
- [63:57]
A
I did write that book. You're lucky. You're funny. About my experience in television at that time. It might be time to write about my experiences since then.
- [64:08]
B
Thank you for sharing the ones you did with us today.
- [64:11]
A
Thank you.
- [64:12]
B
Appreciate the time and appreciate the work.
- [64:14]
A
Oh, thanks. I appreciate you. Thank you.