You're Lucky You're Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom

For anyone who really enjoyed the Everybody Loves Raymond series, this book is an absolute "must". Probably the most enjoyable audiobook I have ever purchased. Absolutely could not put it down. From this book I learned that a huge amount of the material in this series has serious ties to the real-life stories of Phil Rosenthal and Ray Romano. Absolutely GREAT listening!!

Maybe it's the nature of the author-narrator's obsession - episodic television - but there are regular quiet spaces of a few seconds each. I'm used to pauses meaning something, and here they don't. Perhaps they're only meant to make the audiobook longer. Or not.

Listeners who are used to a smooth, or smoothly dramatized, flow of words may find the pauses as distracting as I do.

Wrapped in a memoir is a wealth of information about how TV works (or worked during the Raymond years). I love the fact that instead of quoting from speeches he's given, the book contains the actual recordings of the speeches themselves. Well done, Mr. Rosenthal, well done.

Phil Rosenthal has mastered the art of story telling. I never watched a full episode of Raymond, until after I I heard Phil discuss the making of the episodes. I then watched the first season on Netflix and I got an amazing education of the art of writing comedy for television.

If you thing you might want to write for TV or for yourself for that matter, this is a must have in your library.

It is a very real book. There are no made up lines just to fit into the book. Everything that Phil talks about is meaningful to him and he presents his material in a light and funny manner, without ever getting jokey.

Not sure what my favorite scene of the book would be, although there are quite a few moments that I remember reading and thinking this is very interesting.

I laughed out loud more than once from reading this book. It is heartfelt and genuine,

Well worth the read.

I've already listened to this twice!

Phil Rosenthal has an incredible story and it's very inspiring for those of us who are working on creating a career as a writer or actor.

This is the first book of Phil's that I've listened to, but I've seen every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, his TV series, multiple times and consider it to be the best-written, best-acted, best-directed sitcom of all-time.

I was touched when Phil talked about his family and how ultimately family is the most important thing to him, and it's his experiences with his family that inspired his TV series.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to break into the entertainment industry, as well as anyone who wants to hear the inside scoop from one of TV's most successful showrunners.

Yes. This book, amid the funny storytelling is ripe with insider info into how Hollywood works. As a wannabe writer, this helped me see the inside a little bit better than I would have expected.

Bossy Pants by Tina Fey - Both give great insights and explain how their lives led them to a life of comedy and helped shape their artistic talents in the television format.

I laughed-out-loud several times. Great story telling.

Definitely worth the investment!

Yes - Phil Rosenthal has the DNA of a storyteller. It's a good thing to have if you are writing stories. I never watched Raymond, but this book is a look into that alien world of Show Business through the eyes of a talented and funny storyteller. Hearing an autobiography read by the author adds a lot to the experience.
I like this book.

I've listened to Dick Van Dyke, Adrien Barbeau, and Kristen Chenoweth read their books and enjoyed them immensely too.

Cover to cover - it's enjoyable.

The funniest people are behind the camera.

Phil is a performer as well as a talented artist.

Educational, humorous, engaging

I liked the audio of his various speeches (Emmy's, Hofstra...)

I have not.

The making of the last great traditional family sitcom.

I've never been a huge fan of Everybody Loves Raymond, I've always just thought it was a cute show and watched it sometimes in syndication. However, I love sitcoms in general (although I'm over the multi-camera format now, as is most of America I think). This book was just great if you're curious about how you get to make a sitcom. His early life was interesting enough but I really got into it when he started getting into the Raymond years. I might listen to it again at some point.

I was a huge fan of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and this is an absolute essential for anyone who enjoyed the TV show as much as I did. You really get a great perspective of all the backstage problems that the writers had with the studio executives, something I don't think a viewer really thinks about when you watch an episode. He also talks a lot about his own family and parents, who were the inspiration for Frank and Marie, so he really gets into specific incidents that ended up as episodes. There are also several points in the book where he references specific speeches he gave at award shows/banquets. But instead of just reciting them, he plays the actual recorded audio from that night (I thought that was a real treat).

Great book. Lots of behind the scenes info from the author about his work on "Everybody Loves Raymond."