THE TOASTER

Everybody Loves Raymond
Season 3 (1998)

There are certain favorite holiday episodes that every year I am tempted to keep in reserve and watch closer to Christmas as a sort of reward.  I've learned from years previous, however, of the danger of the "best for last" method as sometimes December flies by and I haven't gotten to many of my favorites.  In keeping with this last night we watched Everybody Loves Raymond's "The Toaster," which ranks in my Top 100 Christmas Episodes of All Time list.  I've watched it countless times and it never grows old.

Awkward bro hug

In "The Toaster" Ray is obsessing over the gift he's selected for his friends and family, an engraved toaster bearing a holiday message and the family's names.  Ray, Debra and the kids spend Christmas with Debra's parents (which I believe is the only peek at their chic, art gallery-esque house that the series ever offered) and the gift goes over well.  Robert is equally pleased, leading to an awkwardly touching moment and hug between the two brothers.  But the elder Barones, Frank and Marie, have a total non-reaction.  By December 26th Ray can't stand their silence any longer and confronts them, only to learn that they exchanged the gift for a coffee maker without ever noticing the engraving. 

What ensues is one of the show's best scenes between a befuddled and increasingly maddened Ray and his equally befuddled parents, who don't understand his emotional reaction.  They try to convince him of the benefits of their new coffee maker while he tries, equally unsuccessfully, to show them why their brutally honest reactions to gifts are hurtful.  Every family has bad gift-givers but also at least one (or two) bad gift-receivers, who can't or won't mask their nonplussed reactions to unwanted presents.  Marie's irrationally disgusted response to the fruit-of-the-month club, a previous gift from Ray, is laugh out loud funny, as is her obtuse response of "we're the ones who have to get these presents."  

"And why are we lying today?"

Finally clueing in, Frank and Marie go back to Bloomingdales and attempt to retrieve the returned toaster.  They have a hilarious encounter with a sales associate (they forget to remove the coffee grounds from the coffee maker and wish the Jewish sales associate the blessings of "our Lord and saviour").  Things just go from bad to worse but the kerfluffle, ultimately involving a security guard and sneaking into the stock room, proves to Ray that they really do care.

Holy Crap!

As I wrote earlier, I just can't get enough of this episode, which, like so much of Raymond, hits very close to home.  The show would further mine the politics of gift-giving in later Christmas episodes but none so ably as "The Toaster."  The character of Ray, who I normally find annoying, comes across as rather sweet and sympathetic in this episode.  But the show-stealers (and aren't they always?) are Frank and Marie, first via their stubborn resistance to the gift and later their hapless efforts to make amends.  You get the sense that they never quite get it but go the distance anyway, and their interactions with both each other and the store staff can't be beat.  I also appreciate that a lot of this episode takes place on the day after Christmas, offering up a rare look at the aftermath of the holiday-- and anyone who's ever attempted to return something the day after Christmas knows these particular horrors all too well.

Christmas Quotient: 5

See It, Skip It, Own It?
Is there any doubt?  Own it along with the rest of the series and you won’t be disappointed.