Everybody Loves Raymond
Register
Advertisement

Robert Barone is a police officer with the NYPD and brother of Ray in Everybody Loves Raymond. He is played by comedian/actor Brad Garrett.

Robert lives with his parents, Frank and Marie, (and later his wife Amy) directly across the street from his brother, Ray. Robert is very jealous of Ray because Ray is favored by their mother, Marie. For his entire life, he claims to have lived in Ray's shadow, events which possibly lead to his adoption of a somewhat cruel sense of humor, to try and exact a form of belated, if immature, revenge. He is also known to be very passive-aggressive.

Robert displays several quirks, and generally strange habits throughout the series, which include touching food to his chin before eating it ("crazy chin"), facing his toothbrush east, separating the "goods" from the "plenty" (the candy Good & Plenty), keeping his left socks in his left drawer and his right socks in his right drawer, eating his foods in alphabetical order, separating nuts into a peanut group, an almond group, and a cashew group, screaming at pickles, braying voluminously at funerals, sleeping with a tennis racket under his bed as a "ghost swatter", peeing sitting down over the kitchen sink on weekends, putting a roll of scotch tape on his head while watching baseball, clapping three times when he wakes up, walking sideways through doors, only dating women after he has found thirty earwigs, drinken grey goose wine from a womans high heel, and sneezed 1000 times, closing his eyes while he showers, and separating his M&Ms, among other things. Robert is the first character in the entire series to say the line, "Everybody loves Raymond." He said it in the very first episode, Pilot.

Also, his unusual height was a running joke through the series, (he stands at 6' 8½"), He also had a fear of his childhood shoe tree when he was a kid, and thought it was a monkey with an axe hiding in his closet. Like Raymond, he lives in abject fear of his mother and is often unable to take any kind of stand against her. He is, however, occasionally shown to be slightly more assertive where Marie is concerned, once even going into a rage when Marie intentionally interferes in his interview with the FBI in the episode "Lucky Suit."

Childhood and Background

Robert's parents conceived him before they were married, making him illegitimate, but then his parents got married, making him legitimate.

While he was teaching driving class to his family, he reminded Marie "To make sure your first born child is in the car before you pull out of a gas station in New Mexico". His parents left him in a gas station in New Mexico when he was a child. All through Robert's childhood, and into adulthood, he had been competing with his little brother Ray. During their parents separation, he would set Ray up to be hurt in 'accidents' in the hope that their mutual concern for Raymond would bring them back together. He even succeeded in harming Ray, such as breaking his arm.

Growing up, Robert had a bed-wetting problem, but it turns out that Ray would pour water in his bed while he slept to make everyone think Robert wet the bed.

Robert was married prior to the commencement of the first season, to a stripper called Joanne, whom he divorced for "leaving him for a guy he arrested." (In a later flashback episode, however, the cause of the divorce was changed to Joanne being kicked out by Marie after she says she wants a divorce after Robert finally speaks up against her abrasive behavior). Robert subsequently moved back in with his parents, and became, either inadvertently or otherwise, a workaholic, to the point of being acknowledged by the NYPD as never being absent from work his entire career. Robert's reputable skills in the field of law enforcement won him an interview with the FBI, but was denied the position. Marie had deliberately interfered to try and keep him from getting the job. He was injured by a bull, which gored him in the "upper thigh", and had to resign from the police force because of nerves. He took a brief job as a telemarketer, and eventually served a brief tenure as an alarm salesman before returning to the police, helped by Ray.

Robert dated Debra's friend Amy for several years, and their relationship survived numerous break-ups, (one of which Ray was blamed for), and they married in 2003. In the episode: "Not so Fast", they were briefly the owners of Frank and Marie's home, when the owners moved to a New Jersey retirement home briefly. Robert bought the house from Frank for $26,000, but they had to live with them when Frank and Marie were kicked out of the retirement community.

Also, Robert had a bulldog he named Shamsky, which he named after his favorite baseball player Art Shamsky.

In the episode "Boys' Therapy", Robert finds out that he came from a long line of physically abusive disciplinarians, with Frank being the exception. He was never physically abusive toward Ray and Robert.

Character Development

A lot happened to Robert over the course of the series. In the season 1 episode entitled The Dog, Robert got a dog just like the bulldog he had as a kid. He named this new dog Shamsky Number 2, after his first dog. The dog was only seen in a few episodes, then it seemed to disappear from the show.

After growing tired of dealing with his parents for so long, he decided to move out. He lived in an apartment that was over a mile away from them. Soon after, while breaking up an illegal rodeo, Robert was gored in the "upper thigh" (butt) by a bull which Ray was immensely insensitive about. During the recovery, he had to move back in with his parents. Around half way through the shows, Robert is promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant in the New York City Police Department.

Having dated many women over the course of the 9 seasons, Robert always had an on-again-off-again relationship with Debra's friend Amy. Finally, in season 7, they got married.

In season 9, when Frank and Marie move to a retirement home, Robert and Amy buy their house from them. They live in it for one episode when his parents get kicked out of the home and decide to move back in. So...Frank, Marie, Robert, and Amy all live in the same house.

Relationship to other characters

Memorable Quotes

  • ROBERT: I'm a cop, and I live with my parents. I'm on a steady diet of human suffering.\
  • ROBERT: How bout reading my book You're in The Way the Robert Barone story


  • ROBERT: WOW, LOOK AT RAYMOND GO


  • ROBERT: Is this about me?


  • ROBERT: You're a lucky man, Raymond. Lucky man!


  • ROBERT: So, Debra can finally cook. The missing color in the Raymond rainbow.


  • ROBERT: Every time something good happens to me, I want to say, "How about that, Ray?" But if something bad happens to me, I...say a prayer that Raymond doesn't do so good that day.
  • DEBRA: You say a prayer?
  • ROBERT (Looking at the ceiling): "Come on, God. Get 'im!"


  • ROBERT:"Raymond gets everything!"


  • ROBERT:"Everybody loves Raymond


  • ROBERT: Why don't I weld your mouth to your ass and make a doughnut out of ya


  • Robert: Ah, Ma agrees with Raymond, that's 47 years in a row


  • ROBERT:(to MARIE) You remember the 2nd grade play you tried to put different pants on me?
  • MARIE: Yours were ruined; any mother would do the same
  • ROBERT: NOT WHILE I WAS ONSTAGE!!!


  • AMY: Actually all we wanted to do is return your roasting pan.
  • ROBERT: Should have just mailed the pan.
Advertisement