Who Ever Said Comedy Had To Be Fun?

In spite of the episode's imperfections, Burnett is proud of his first attempt at directing. Calls it "a career highlight." He likes to imagine his children coming across it one day in reruns.

The irony of it all -- the fact that he nearly killed himself to make a show in which Ed realizes what really matters -- isn't lost on Burnett. "The truth is, I look at the way that my wife leads her life, and she's like Ed's great-grandfather. She's really good at life. So is Jon's fiancé e, Nell. And right now, Jon and I are very bad at life. But this is our little Valentine to them, our way of saying in the middle of this madness that we remember what's important, and we'll find the opportunity one day to show them."

Even as he says this, the calls and meetings and deadlines are piling up. It's the Friday morning before Presidents' Day weekend. There's a music edit to review, new scenes to write, and a season finale to figure out. Sounds like the makings of another weekend at the office.

Maybe next weekend, though. A while back, Burnett promised his family that they would go to Vermont for the holiday weekend. February was far enough away then to make the trip seem like a good idea. Now, of course, the trip couldn't come at a more inconvenient time. It won't work. Can't work. But it will. When his wife and kids pull up outside the office a few hours later, Burnett is walking -- no, stomping -- out the door and getting in that car.

Maybe Ed isn't the only one who learned something this week.

Sidebar: Before Everybody Loved Raymond

Ray Romano still remembers the call. It was a Saturday in 1994, one week after his appearance on The Late Show. It was a disappointingly quiet week. No buzz about his appearance, which for once he thought had gone pretty well. That is, no buzz until Romano's wife called him in from the backyard. Rob Burnett was on the phone. "The first oddball thing was that this was Saturday, okay?" says Romano. "The second oddball thing was that he was calling me at home. That never happens. Everybody goes through your manager."

Burnett told Romano that Worldwide Pants was interested in signing him to a development deal to make a sitcom. "Rob said, 'If anybody else calls you, please consider us,' " Romano says. "I wanted to tell him, 'Nobody is calling!' "

Phil Rosenthal still remembers the interview. He was being considered to be cocreator of Romano's show, and he flew to New York for a Worldwide Pants meeting. Letterman insisted that Rosenthal sit behind his desk, while he and Burnett and then - executive producer Robert Morton sat across the room. "Dave had just done the show, so he was in sweats and a baseball cap with a cigar," says Rosenthal, now an executive producer on Raymond. "They treated me as if I had the job already. Dave said, 'Just don't embarrass us.' "

Rob Burnett still remembers the doubts. He and Letterman weren't interested in doing a run-of-the-mill sitcom, and Rosenthal had a long sitcom ré sumé . "It made me nervous, to be frank," Burnett says. "Once I got to know Phil and started reading the stuff he was doing, though, I realized that this guy wasn't going to hurt Ray. He was going to help."

Today, Everybody Loves Raymond looks like the perfect marriage of talented writers and a talented cast. In the first year, though, there were creative differences, bad ratings, and a lousy time slot (Friday nights at 8:30). "There are always arguments about the right direction for a show in the beginning," says Rosenthal. "But I was allowed to take the notes I wanted to take and ignore others and make the show what I thought it should be: a well-made classic type of sitcom."

Of course, CBS stuck with Raymond, the ratings improved, then exploded (thanks to a new slot: Monday nights at 9), and the Emmys started pouring in. Burnett can't recall the last time he gave notes, which is how it's supposed to work. "My feeling now is that it's their show," he says. "Even if Phil and Ray decide to do a show entirely in black and white and in slow motion, they have earned that right."

In addition to generating a lucrative syndication deal, Raymond has paid off for Worldwide Pants in another important way. "It's not only a successful show critically, but also commercially. That's the holy grail," says Burnett. "Before Raymond came along, we were in danger of becoming this boutique company that did cool projects that didn't actually succeed. But we had no interest in being in the 'noble failure' business. The success of Raymond absolutely helped put us on the map."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in Baltimore.