The series is semi-autobiographical, loosely based on Chris Rock's teenage years, though the show depicts his adolescence as taking place from 1982 to 1987 while Rock's real adolescence occurred from 1978 to 1984.

The title is a parody of the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

The show was originally developed to air on Fox before being passed over to UPN, where it aired its first season before moving to The CW for its remaining three seasons.

Chris Rock provides intermittent narration throughout the series, voicing his younger self's thoughts or recounting the situations being depicted, even though he does not appear on screen as the main character.

The fictional school Chris attends is named 'Corleone Junior High School,' an apparent reference to the Corleone crime family from The Godfather.

Whoopi Goldberg appeared in several episodes as an overbearing neighbor and grandmother of a character named Tasha.

In 2009, Chris Rock announced that the ending of the series matched his own life story and that he felt it was the right time to end it.

A Kazakh sitcom titled Ata-Ana, Bala-Şağa was based on this show, but relocated the family's move from Bedford-Stuyvesant to the city of Almaty.