By:Jeff Lipton
Viewers of Everybody Loves Raymond, the popular CBS-TV sitcom, had to do a double-take Monday night when a copy of the Village Herald was prominently displayed.
The show, which aired at 9 p.m., featured the July 5-July 11 Herald as one of the main props. During one five-minute segment of the half-hour show, actor Peter Boyle, who plays Raymond's dad Frank Barone, sits at the breakfast table and picks up a copy of the Herald with the cover headline, Scorched building called safe.
The father thumbs through the paper as he makes fun of his son Raymond's desire to spice up his marital sex life.
The cover news story more than just a little unrelated was about the Village of Lynbrook Buildings Department deciding against tearing down a large commercial building at the Five Corners intersection after it was destroyed by a fierce fire. (The site has since been cleared of the burned building.)
I don't know why they chose that paper, said Pam Gorode, a CBS executive, who is involved with the show. The show, filmed in New York, is set in Lynbrook, which explains why they'd have the local paper. But Raymond's character is a sports columnist for Newsday.
Yet, Gorode said, the Barones are supposed to be humble town folk who would most likely be interested in what is happening locally, thus the use of the hometown weekly.
Throughout the segment, Frank Barone is seen picking up the paper, opening it up and putting it down on the table again sadly, the writers chose not to script any references to the crack reporting on the pages he was reading.
Several readers have called the Herald offices since seeing the show to report that they saw their hometown newspaper prominently featured on the sitcom.
The Herald staff was tipped off to the show with the promotional spots CBS ran throughout the week leading up to the Oct. 1 airing. Unofficially, a Herald staffer knows a set director on the show, who was able to connect the actors with a copy of the newspaper. The Herald suggests local residents make use of the same stunning table prop.
Paul Condra contributed to this story.
