Cheers

[Joneslab]

Anybody a fan of the old sitcom Cheers?

I've been watching it on my Amazon Prime account. At first I didn't much care for it--the humor is kind of outdated, and sometimes too cute. But I've found myself really enjoying it. I'm in Season 6 right now. There's something warm and inviting about the show, which may've been why it was popular. I was also reading an oral history of it and one of the writers pointed out that Cheers was the last TV show that was pulling from literature and radio, and there's this kind of talkative quality going on it that doesn't happen too much now on TV. I agree with that.

It isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as some of the sitcoms that followed it, but you can see all kinds of things that people virtually stole from Cheers if you watch newer shows. I also like the interesting interplay between Frasier--for my money the best sitcom made in the last 30 years, even better than Seinfeld--and Cheers.

[surveyor]

Cheers entered the fall lineup for NBC the year I graduated high school. it's right up there with the first 7-8 seasons of M*A*S*H and all of Seinfeld. It was and still is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. Like Seinfeld, the ratings for Cheers in its first season weren't great. The dynamic between the core players - Coach, Sam, Norm, Cliff, Carla and Diane worked perfectly. Woody's character was added a few years later and was the perfect buffoon. Coach was that character to an extent, but somewhat in a Yogi Berra sort of way.

Among my favorite episodes is when Frazier fits Cliff with a shock collar of sorts and zaps him when he begins to become obnoxious, in an effort to make him more likeable.

[Joneslab]

My favorite episode so far is actually an earlier one, though I enjoy the show more when Kirstie Alley is in the cast. It's the Thanksgiving show where they end up in a food fight ("Thanksgiving Orphans" I think is the title of the episode). What I love about it isn't the slapstick humor, it's the fact that they at first don't want to recognize that they have no family, but then as the episode goes on they realize they're all they have. In just 22 minutes the writers were able to get to something profound about the human condition.

Apparently the Charles brothers who created Cheers were part of Taxi, which is a sitcom I've actually never watched. Then they went on to Frasier, and you can see a lot of similarities between Frasier and Cheers down to the almost theater-like interplay between the characters.

[Joneslab]

The intro to Cheers--another relic from a bygone age; you don't see crafted intros like that anymore--is another stroke of genius.

The song, the old colorized photos, the lyrics...there's something sad about it to me, but also fitting. I've never seen a TV show that feels more "lived-in" than Cheers. Immediately when I start watching it I feel comfortable, and I'm a person who's never been to more than a handful of bars in my life.

[surveyor]

It amazes me that the Charles' and Burrows were able to maintain that level of writing throughout the show and also write Frazier. Good, consistent writing is a rare thing. M*A*S*H, Newhart, Seinfeld and Modern Family have been blessed with good writers.

Modern Family has been a favorite since its inception and will be on par with the others when it reaches its end. Another new sitcom that has displayed excellent writing is The Grinder, starring Fred Savage, Rob Lowe and William Devane.

[CATHYnKY]

Cheers fan here. I miss it like I do Frazier and other comedies.

[Joneslab]

Modern Family has been a favorite since its inception and will be on par with the others when it reaches its end. Another new sitcom that has displayed excellent writing is The Grinder, starring Fred Savage, Rob Lowe and William Devane.

I like Modern Family. (Eric Stonestreet, who plays the gay football coach, appears in the movie I just mentioned in the movie thread, The Loft In that film he plays an alcoholic womanizer and the casting is...terrible. It's a good illustration of why these TV actors a lot of times have a hard time getting work in anything else but the show that made them famous. Seems to help if you're a beloved character like Woody or Jennifer Anniston's character on Friends.)

But I really love Parks & Recreation. The comic buffoonery of that show kills me, but I think it's similar to Cheers in some way (and Amy Poehler is an unabashed fan of Cheers) simply because the characters are all lovable. It seems to be particularly important in sitcoms that the cast be the kinds of people you're going to root for. I felt like after watching Parks & Rec that I knew those people, and when the script calls for drama--as it so often does in Cheers and Frasier and Parks & Rec) the jump isn't great at all. Early Frasier has some of the best dramatic scenes of any comedy I know.

[George]

My favorite episode so far is actually an earlier one, though I enjoy the show more when Kirstie Alley is in the cast. It's the Thanksgiving show where they end up in a food fight ("Thanksgiving Orphans" I think is the title of the episode). What I love about it isn't the slapstick humor, it's the fact that they at first don't want to recognize that they have no family, but then as the episode goes on they realize they're all they have. In just 22 minutes the writers were able to get to something profound about the human condition.

Apparently the Charles brothers who created Cheers were part of Taxi, which is a sitcom I've actually never watched. Then they went on to Frasier, and you can see a lot of similarities between Frasier and Cheers down to the almost theater-like interplay between the characters.

You should find some time for Taxi. I went through a weird Nick-At-Nite phase when I was a kid; Taxi was one of my favorites, and remains so to this day. In what I recognize as a very hipster thing to say, I'm happy to have been an Andy Kaufman fan before it was cool.

[surveyor]

You should find some time for Taxi. I went through a weird Nick-At-Nite phase when I was a kid; Taxi was one of my favorites, and remains so to this day. In what I recognize as a very hipster thing to say, I'm happy to have been an Andy Kaufman fan before it was cool.

Direct link between Taxi and Modern Family - Christopher Lloyd. Taxi was one of those shows I'd make a point to see while growing up - along with WKRP in Cincinnati.

[Matt Dillon]

Count me in as a Cheers fan.

[KevinHall]

Watched only handful of episodes. I never got into it. I suppose it was the bar setting. I never frequented bars so I guess that turned me away from it.

I get a channel called GET TV. On Mondays it shows variety shows. Something you never see anymore. They have been showing The Judy Garland Show and Merv Griffin every week. They also pick one seemingly out of a hat and have it on. They have ones from Jim Nabors, Dionne Warwick,Andy Williams etc.... Its good old fashion entertainment. I think I like the performers from that era the best too, 60's and 70's. Most the shows have dated material but they are still a lot of fun to watch.

There are quite a few channels now that have old shows on them. I get a bunch of them, AntennaTV, METV, Buzzer TV and there a few others. When not watching sports I end up watching an old show from one of these channels.

[Matt Dillon]

I love the old shows, especially westerns. We could probably devote an entire thread to old shows (I don't want to hijack Will's Cheers thread).

[Joneslab]

Still going through an episode a night of Cheers. We're up to Season 9.

The show gets consistently better. I think each season we've watched has been funnier than the one before it. You'll see some throwaway episodes but not too many.

The lines they give Norm when he walks into the bar are amazing. My favorite: the patrons always ask him what he's up to, and in this particular episode he responds, "My ideal weight if I were 11 feet tall."

[Blue Heaven]

Great show you are watching there. Give Night Court a try as well. I was hooked on those 2 shows in my Teens. Then along came Seinfeld years later and NOTHING had/has/will ever top it, for me anyways.

[Joneslab]

Great show you are watching there. Give Night Court a try as well. I was hooked on those 2 shows in my Teens. Then along came Seinfeld years later and NOTHING had/has/will ever top it, for me anyways.

Watched a ton of Night Court when I was a teenager.

I wondered at first why I'd never watched much of Cheers, then I started watching Cheers. Not a kids' show at all. (Though my parents usually didn't care too much about what I watched.) For all the talk about TV getting more and more risqué these days, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like cheers in the sexual content department on network TV.