Hits And Mrs.

"The Cosby Show" was the brainchild of Bill Cosby, who would hold lavish "I Love My Wife" parties for his real-life spouse, Camille. Cosby's TV wife, Phylicia Rashad, said he was replicating his own marital experience.

"Love comes in all shapes and sizes, degrees and manifestations," she said. "What we did was a lot of fun. It was a lot more fun than arguing."

On the other hand, Phil Rosenthal, who created "Everybody Loves Raymond," grew up in a house whose mood resembled that of "The Honeymooners." So "I was just writing about the family that I knew," he said.

"We were trying to keep it real," Rosenthal said. "We'd come in in the morning and say, 'What happened in your house this week?' And all the stories came from that.

"I think people took comfort in 'Raymond' in that it was 'The Brady Bunch' of its time because they were together," he said. "That was the fantasy -- with all the problems they had, they stuck together. You knew divorce was never a question in the 'Raymond' household."

Carmen Finestra, who wrote for "The Cosby Show" and co-created "Home Improvement," said he always wanted audiences to say: "How did you get into our house?"

"We used to have a slogan on 'Home Improvement' that the show's premise was that men and women should not get married," Finestra said.

"They're so different in how they view life that it's impossible for them to communicate with each other. But because they love each other, they find a way to overcome that and try to reach a middle ground."