Why Everbody Loves Raymond's Planned Robert And Amy Spin-Off Never Happened

Despite the show's considerable success over nine seasons, CBS rejected an "Everybody Loves Raymond" offshoot about spouses Robert (Brad Garrett) and Amy Barone (Monica Horan) after "Raymond" ended in 2005. Ahead of the "Everybody Loves Raymond" reunion special, Phil Rosenthal reminisced about the unrealized project to Deadline.

"We had a spin-off ready right after 'Raymond' went off the air, and the reason that I wanted to do this spin-off was to keep the writers together, but to do a different show," he said. "We thought we could use some of the characters and send them into a different world, in a different setting, but CBS didn't want it."

The "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator previously revealed that he pitched the idea to then-CBS executive Les Moonves under the condition that it receive a straight-to-series order, or else his writers would leave for guaranteed employment on other shows. But CBS bosses weren't willing to greenlight a "Raymond" spin-off without seeing a pilot first. 

Rosenthal also believes that ageism could have been a factor.

"They did give 13 episodes to a cast that was under 30 — they were all in their 20s," he told Variety, without identifying the show in question. "This cast, everyone was over 40. So that's what happened to that spin-off."

Though it didn't progress past the idea stage, Phil Rosenthal has shared enough details about the "Everybody Loves Raymond" spin-off to help fans imagine what could have been. The unnamed sequel series would have seen Robert and Amy living with her family in Pennsylvania, with the former taking a job as a gym teacher. Amy's geeky older brother Peter (Chris Elliott) would have worked as Robert's assistant, presumably resulting in their butting heads due to their vastly different personalities.

There's no telling if this series would have been as successful as "Everybody Loves Raymond" — after all, many great shows have produced terrible spin-offs, proving that it's often impossible to capture lightning in a bottle the second time around. But it's still a bummer that Rosenthal & Co. didn't get the chance to execute their vision and find out for sure.