Everyone has a personality or two in their family, but Ray Romano and Phil Rosenthal were smart enough to capitalize on it.

Together, Rosenthal and Romano developed Everybody Loves Raymond, a sitcom about a typical American family with their fair share of quirks. During an interview with The Columbian, Romano confessed that many major characters like Marie and Frank Barone were based, in part, on his own parents.

“Peter Boyle is my father,” said Romano. “Everything Peter has done on the show, my father probably has done in real life, except that my father did it without his pants on. And he’s proud of it. When he goes to the Elks Club, he’s the king of the Elks. They’re always asking him if he really did this or that, and he always takes credit for it, even if he really didn’t do it.”

Watch Everybody Loves Raymond on MeTV!

ONE FULL HOUR

Weeknights at 9 PM & Sundays at 10 PM

*available in most MeTV markets

However, not every family member took their portrayal as kindly as Romano’s father. Romano revealed that frequently, the writers would get phone calls from family members whose misadventures had been incorporated into the plot of the series. “We get a lot of, ‘Why did you have to tell that story?’” said Romano. “But the truth is that the characters do things that a lot of people do. We always try to write real. That’s the key to the success of any sitcom.”

Despite a few misgivings, Doris Roberts, better known as Marie Barone, agreed that honesty was integral to the success of Everybody Loves Raymond.

“Too many people come up to me and say their mother is just like Marie, or that their mother-in-law is just like Marie, for the characters not to ring true,” said Roberts