How a theater student with only $200 in his bank account created one of the most popular TV shows ever—and then spent another decade working to realize his dream job
Dave Smith
9 min read
Success is rarely handed to you. Phil Rosenthal knows that better than most people.
Rosenthal, 64, is the creator and writer behind Everybody Loves Raymond, the wildly popular CBS sitcom that ran from 1996 to 2005. His show racked up a whopping 69 Emmy award nominations, winning 15 of them, over the course of those nine seasons. Many people would be thrilled with that level of achievement and be happy to retire early, spending the rest of their days on an island somewhere. Not Phil Rosenthal.
Though he’d studied to be an actor, Rosenthal hit it big when he sold the first script he ever wrote to HBO for $70,000. He would soon move from New York City to Hollywood, getting work on several sitcoms before launching Raymond with the titular star, Ray Romano. But after the show wrapped, he wanted more—and this time, he wanted to be in front of the camera.
Despite his accolades, Rosenthal couldn’t get anyone to buy into his dream: a food and travel show, with him as the host and star. He went to every major network trying to sell his idea, with no bites. It took him a full 10 years after Raymond ended to get his next big idea off the ground—and Somebody Feed Phil is now the longest-running unscripted show on Netflix. This is a notable achievement, given that the streaming giant is known for canceling shows early.
“This is the lesson. You literally have to write your own ticket,” Rosenthal tells Fortune. “There’s nobody standing out there waiting for you. You have to make it happen.”
'I was eating tuna fish for dinner every night'
Since he was a kid, Phil Rosenthal wanted to be funny on stage. His love of comedy came from his parents: His father, Max, was a tailor living in New York City’s Garment District—but he loved to tell jokes. One night he attended an amateur stand-up comedy night in New Jersey. That’s where Max would meet his future wife, Helen, who was on a date with another man at the time.
“I always say if he’s not funny that night, I’m not here,” Rosenthal says, grinning.
Rosenthal studied theater at Hofstra University, in Long Island, N.Y. He had dreams of becoming a comedic actor. “Ten years in New York will beat that out of you,” he says. “But I never gave up on the dream.”
When he moved to Manhattan after graduating, Rosenthal lived humbly. He had only $200 in his bank account, and he wasn’t making much money as an actor. But he and his college buddies figured if no opportunities would come their way, they would make their own. He cowrote a play with some friends—with the intention of starring in it—and he and another friend wrote a screenplay together.
Then lightning struck. Twice.
"The play took off and the screenplay sold to HBO," Rosenthal says. "First time trying writing. I was eating tuna fish for dinner every night as an actor, but now as a writer, I could eat whatever I want."
Eventually, Rosenthal moved to Hollywood, started working on sitcoms (including Coach, starring Craig T. Nelson), and met comedian Ray Romano “on kind of a business blind date,” he says. “He had been struggling as a stand-up for 12 years trying to get on David Letterman. And then he gets on, and from that one six-minute appearance, Letterman says there should be a sitcom for that guy.”
The cast and crew of "Everybody Loves Raymond" sit around a table
Rosenthal doubts he was Romano’s first choice to write his star vehicle. “I think he wanted somebody from Friends, because that was the hot new show,” he says. But Rosenthal got the job—and Everybody Loves Raymond would become one of the highest-rated, most-watched television shows for the better part of a decade—and play a huge role in CBS becoming the most-watched network, displacing NBC with its string of comedy megahits like Friends and Seinfeld.
Pivoting in front of the camera
Nine years after Everybody Loves Raymond hit the air, the show was coming to a close—and Rosenthal was on the hunt for his next project. The Russians came calling: They wanted him to adapt his popular American sitcom for Russian audiences, using Russian actors and culture, but preserving the same morals and humor from Everybody Loves Raymond. He agreed to do it, as long as he could document the whole thing.
“I quickly realized that I was going to have to be on camera for documenting the process,” he says. “So I was going to direct this movie, but I was also going to be the subject, or one of the subjects of the movie. That was my first time in front of a movie camera.”
The finished product, Exporting Raymond, aired on HBO in 2010, but Rosenthal was still holding on to an idea for something bigger, and closer to his heart.
“I had this dream of doing a food and travel show ever since I asked Ray Romano after season one what he wanted to do on his hiatus—and he said he wanted to go to the Jersey Shore,” Rosenthal says. “I said, ‘What about Europe?’ He wasn't interested.” After some cajoling, Rosenthal convinced Romano to fly to Europe. And when he saw how traveling to a new place clicked for his friend and TV star, he thought, “What if I can do this for other people?”
Somebody invest in Phil
With Raymond in the rearview, Rosenthal was ready to make his dream show a reality. But convincing others to see his vision, despite all of his past success, would be considerably difficult.
“I can’t say I got a lot of support from the business,” Rosenthal says. “People didn't care because they figured I made it already. I had a hit TV show, so who cares what happens to you? Agents, Hollywood, most people…they don’t want you to switch lanes.”
Phil Rosenthal stands with his wife and two children
Rosenthal says he went everywhere to try to get his dream show made. He remembers meeting with the head of one TV network, who stopped him mid-pitch. “He goes, ‘Can I ask you something? Why are you doing this? Why are you pitching to me? Why aren’t you sitting on a mountain somewhere?’” Rosenthal recalls the executive asking him. “What, just because I had some success over here, I should lie down for the rest of my life? That’s stupid!”
All of the nos didn’t deter Rosenthal, though. He kept pitching around, and eventually, PBS agreed to the food and travel show he’d been yearning for. All told, getting the first iteration of Somebody Feed Phil off the ground—a six-episode order for a show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having—took a full decade after the finale of Raymond.
“If you make something a priority in your life, it’s going to happen,” Rosenthal says. “It may take 10 years, but how many times do you watch the Oscars and you see they hold up the award and say, ‘Ten years ago, I had a dream.’ That is the lesson. Now, does it happen quicker for some people? Yeah! And if you asked me was it worth it all that time, I would say yeah!”
The luckiest man in the world
As of May 2024, Netflix has aired 41 episodes of Somebody Feed Phil. From Hawaii to Helsinki, from Mumbai to Marrakesh, Rosenthal has sampled street food, tasting menus, and bizarre foodstuffs from around the globe—and from some of the world’s top chefs. He usually explores new cities with local experts, actors, comedians, or his wife and kids. But in every episode, he also makes a point to immerse himself in the unique culture of each area.
“It's the best thing about travel: You take things, you learn stuff,” Rosenthal says. “It's just osmosis, you don't even mean to learn. It just gets in—and the best thing is, it gives you a different perspective that you take with you home.”
Somebody Feed Phil is a manifestation of Rosenthal’s dreams: his desire to travel the world, eat delicious food, and most of the time, experience it all with his family. His wife Monica (who played the girlfriend and eventual wife of Brad Garrett’s character on Everybody Loves Raymond), and their two children, Ben and Lily, have joined Rosenthal in places including Kyoto and Taipei. Phil’s brother, Richard, serves as executive producer and showrunner. And for the first several seasons, each episode would conclude with a Zoom call to his parents, with whom he would discuss the highlights from every trip. (Helen died in 2019, and Max died in 2021; Rosenthal continues the tradition by calling his celebrity friends at the end of every episode, who tell a joke in honor of his father.)
“I'm the luckiest person you're ever going to talk to. That's how I feel,” Rosenthal says. “And I'm grateful every day: grateful for what I have, grateful that I get to do what I do, grateful for the people I meet, grateful for the people in my life. My family, friends. I'm lucky, because I've had a little success in the field that I love.”
Phil Rosenthal stands with former NBA star Dwight Howard
Luck is a factor in any successful journey, to be sure. But in Rosenthal’s case, the main secrets to his success were having an open mind—saying yes and being willing to take on any job—and persevering, even after being told no many times over the course of many years.
“You just gotta get in the door and be interested in it and learn about all the aspects because you don't know where your break is gonna come from,” Rosenthal says. “Stay true to yourself. Have good values that center. Persevere, and try to be lucky. But you have to try.”