We’ve talked about this before: Since my interests are so consistent, it’s not surprising that there is overlap.

Like, here I am again talking about Phil Rosenthal and Ray Romano…although it’s not like this is coincidence since I’ve read this book already and I have already mentioned how much I liked it.

What is a coincidence is that after I started re-reading the book and thought to myself, “I should watch some ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ again,” I heard there is a 30th anniversary reunion show coming.

That feels a little more cosmic than just me writing about similar subjects.

But that’s for another post - today I’m telling you about You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes A Sitcom, which Phil Rosenthal wrote shortly after the end of the “Everybody Loves Raymond” run.

I remembered it as this great book about leadership, and I was pleased to realize in my memory most of that was still true.

(When the person at work recommended ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ to me, it reminded me I had read this book and I recommended they read it, if they liked him, because this offers more about him. And then I thought, if I’m recommending this book, maybe I should re-read it to make sure it’s how I remember it…so I got it from the library.)

It’s a funny book, filled with silly little jokes, and it’s slightly memoir-ish about Rosenthal’s earlier life…but it really dives deep into his experience running the show at ‘Raymond.’

And when he talks about how he ran things, it makes me wish I could have worked with him.

He set a tone of kindness and it sounds like that set really bucked the trends of what life is like at most places in the entertainment business. (At least at that time…but probably still somewhat true today.)

There’s some good advice in there amidst the family jokes, and there’s a lot of really great behind-the-scenes information about different episodes of ‘Raymond’ and the stories that led to the episodes and how a show goes from script to rehearsal to television.

If you’re a big ‘Raymond’ fan you’d love how in the weeds it gets, but even if you’re just a fan of how things get made you’d enjoy it, I think.

I forget a lot of what I read.

This book, though, stuck with me. I think about it a lot. It has to have been at least ten years since I read it - likely more.

I’m really glad I had the thought to re-read it, and that the good things I remembered about it were actually true.