Best CHEERS character

The thing is the Norm-Coach-Cliff-Woody characters are p much walking jokes, albeit pretty good ones, deftly played. There's more of a burden on the leads. (Rhea Perlman actually gave 3D heft to her insults, I thought)

I stopped watching when Long left so I guess that signals my choice.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 2:25 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

i pretty much agree, which is why I'm leaning towards Diane. the sam/diane stuff could be a little forced at times, but when they got it right you couldnt tear your eyes off it.

Dave Richards . . . (Fred Dryer)

― mookieproof, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 2:41 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i thought about throwing him in there but iirc he was only in like 4 episodes and i didnt think there would be any hunter stans repping

I'm still trying to figure out what the "joke" was with Norm. Other than being a cool, nice, approachable dude who didn't want to go home to his wife.

'there's winners and losers in this world . . . here's hoping you're one of them'

Did Cliff ever really zing Norm? They really only work as a duo, each character alone has some pull but together they're the funniest part of the show.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5j4zoZTKz1qzjxs1o1_1280.jpg
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COACH: What's your most troublesome problem?
NORM: Ah, that's tough to say, Coach. Let's see. I'm overweight, unemployed, separated, depressed, starting to drink too much. Guess my biggest problem is I've never been happier.

the joke is "fat man/little jacket"

lol

my fav normism is when sam asks him what he'll have and norm goes "a reason to live - keep em comin." the audience didnt even laugh, i think they were just unsettled by it

TBH, I probably would've voted Frasier, but the spinoff killed that joke pretty fast for me.

but frasier on his own show was a different character!

how so?

i had no idea nick and loret-ta got their own spinoff

he was more the straight man, niles was the frasier of 'Frasier'

frasier & lilith were such a power combo that its hard to vote for one individually. lilith's 1st & 2nd appearances are so great

Yeah, voting Lilith solves that problem, doesn't it?

bebe neuwirth is just the greatest

Yeah, the Frasier/Lilith team is genius.

he was more the straight man, niles was the frasier of 'Frasier'

Sort of agree with this, in that Niles is the magnification of the already OTT Frasier character: more prissy, more class-conscious, more neurotic etc. I don't see Frasier as being different on his own show, though, just more fleshed-out. I think he's a very well-written, well-played character in both.

I think I've gotten the most flat-out laughs from Woody, but it's definitely a textbook example of ensemble comedy where every piece works. It took me a while to appreciate the Rebecca character, and I still don't think she ever reached the heights Diane did (that "Un Film de Diane Chambers" still cracks me up just thinking about it) but somewhere along the line Kirstie Alley fit in.

yeah MANCHILD IN BEANTOWN will never not be funny

Diane for her delivery of the line "You are a sand flea."

remember when Shelley Long came back and had apparently forgotten how to play Diane? ;_;

also...

People, people. No mentions of Sam "Mayday" Malone. Seriously? Danson just kills on this show.

― Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna (The Yellow Kid), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 2:43 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, danson is the man. ive always loved me some danson. sam's a great character, probably too easy to take for granted since he was always there. he did become a bit more buffoonish post-long

Shelley Long's birthday is tomorrow.

I was so skeptical of Danson doing drama after seeing him do comedy for so long but he kind of nailed it on Damages

not that i'm gonna go out of my way to see how he is on CSI but there was a point a while back where he was appearing on Damages, Bored To Death and Curb Your Enthusiasm around the same time and it was like damn this guy has really aged into a nice post-Cheers career

I was so skeptical of Danson doing drama after seeing him do comedy for so long but he kind of nailed it on Damages

http://content7.flixster.com/photo/10/94/95/10949557_gal.jpg

Ted Danson as Ted Danson was always one of my favorite Curb characters and it makes me sad that hes not on the show more

The wiki entry for "Cliff Clavin" was evidently written by someone only passingly familiar with English:

Cliff does not have an on-screen relationship with any woman. He attempts every woman but becomes rejected.

"only passingly"? cmon, that's high level esl ;)

Ratzenberger requested an addition of a know-it-all character, which resulted Cliff Clavin. Ratzenberger made each of guest appearances as Cliff Clavin in Wings and Frasier.

During high school I had a job working in an office mail room. Every day I'd collect all the mail for the office and walk it up to the post office. Invariably I'd run into this one kid from school who'd always say something like (in a strong Boston accent) "hey, it's Cliff Clavin!"

So I guess I'm voting for Cliff.

he did become a bit more buffoonish post-long

sam was smart at the very beginning, but they made him dumber

Am I the only one here who had never read the stories of Woody Harrelson's father the hit man?

I mean I had no idea, not sure how I missed this.

Certainly adds depth to the actor, for sure.

coach barely over diane over sam over frasier w/ woody a slightly more distant fifth

btw best sitcom all time

better than cosby?

cosby show

by 1,000,000 miles

love cosby but that's probably not even top ten for me

i don't know how, but i have never ever watched this show

xp me neither but i always thought of you as a cos diehard for some reason

off top of my head i got cheers up top, seinfeld and larry sanders right below that, and then sgt bilko, dick van dyke, mary tyler moore, bob newhart, andy griffith, barney miller, and something i'm obviously forgetting. my mind is telling me arrested development but my body my body's telling me petticoat junction.

haha i was kinda surprised that youd be a huge cosby fan for some reason! (xp)

ive been thinking about this all day and im gonna vote diane

bob newhart

this shit is all time - rest of yr list is terribad tho

sorry it's terribad bro

if your body is telling you petticoat junction you have more to worry about than my opinion of yr taste in sitcoms

take your seinfeld-hating to another thread, lamp.

i dont hate seinfeld!

both she and danson give the parts so much more intelligence and self awareness than is on the page, where they’re both pretty clueless about a lot of things, so you end up with these people who are so completely alive to each other, to the tiny emotional moments, but also have blind spots the size of cargo planes. it’s such a compelling combo and gives them this tragic, sympathetic heft that would be at home in a dostoyevsky novel

Danson totally rules in this show.

Everyone totally rules in this show. It really feels like I’m watching live theater rather than an edited television show.

filmed before a live studio audience!

I feel like Fraiser lent into this in a deleterious way, succumbing to 'whoops where's my trousers' farce too often.

As much as I love Cheers, the Frasier show left me totally cold. He was not a character I wanted to spend an entire show with.

I have almost certainly posted to this effect before, but Cheers is the sitcom Shakespeare would have written, I think.

What is remarkable on regular rewatches is how shonky the camera work is on early episodes - really could be an amateur crew filming a theatrical production.

Ha maybe that’s why it feels so much like a play; it looks like all the videos that were made of the plays I did in high school.

Frasier is very meta - a show about a pretentious snob using the kind of "classical farce" structure that would make it appeal to pretentious snobs. NB this isn't a criticism and it isn't the only thing it does and Roz rules.

As much as I love Cheers, the Frasier show left me totally cold. He was not a character I wanted to spend an entire show with.

I agree, but also, the Frasier of his own TV show was a less interesting, less nuanced, less empathisable and less funny character than the Frasier in Cheers, who often got the best lines, and occasionally the last laught (cf the snark-hunting episode).

How did Weird Al miss the trick of doing a little ditty bout Sam and Diane?

Ha maybe that’s why it feels so much like a play; it looks like all the videos that were made of the plays I did in high school.

I think a lot of older tv feels like this now, with the limited sets and no outdoor locations.

Frasier made the most of an excellent ensemble, but I thought the writing was generally solid as well. The dynamic of two brothers who are both effete snobs is the kind of thing that shouldn’t have worked, yet did.