Best CHEERS character

http://distilleryimage8.s3.amazonaws.com/29401414c22d11e1b10e123138105d6b_7.jpg

also
http://distilleryimage10.s3.amazonaws.com/ebb2fa58e71611e18a3522000a1cf770_7.jpg

i'm really impressed by how they were able to find old timey photographs of barhounds in the opening credits that were analogs to the characters. the ones for frazier and rebecca are especially good.

and i saw this place in portugal last week
http://distilleryimage9.s3.amazonaws.com/71562b9405a811e283fd123138141137_7.jpg

they did their research, i'll give them that
http://distilleryimage5.s3.amazonaws.com/a9a96dda05a811e2a336123138178793_7.jpg

awesome

every once in a while i think about the (last) wwi vet who streaked out of the back room yelling 'lafayette we are here!'

http://www.paulsiegelcommlaw.com/Communication%20Law%20in%20America/Additional%20Images/Chapter%205/cheers%20collage.jpg

stevie's 2nd pic, daaaamn

Hahaha, I've been looking FOR YEARS for photos of those things.

Animatronic Claven kinda looks like George W. Bush.

i'm really impressed by how they were able to find old timey photographs of barhounds in the opening credits that were analogs to the characters. the ones for frazier and rebecca are especially good.

Are those real photos though? I've always thought they were made up, because they show scenes from the late 19th/early 20th century of fancily dressed white guys drinking alongside black guys and women, which I assume wasn't how bars for upper/middle class white men were back then.

Or maybe the photos are real and the drawn pictures in the beginning of the credits aren't?

pretty sure all the stuff is real and old tbh but i don't know for sure

they were all real

Is there any info available where/when the pics are from?

They had something up on the official website about it when the series first ran, but they took the site down after the last episode aired in 1993.

Cheers had an official website back then?! Must've been one of the first TV series to have one.

Anyway, I'm not saying the drawn pics are fake, but some of them look a bit dubious to me, especially the one seen here at 0:17, where you can see a black guy drinking with middle-class white guys, in a setting that appears to be a late 19th century bar. Weren't bars like this segregated in the US back then?

Not all of them and not everywhere. I grew up in a very old harbor town; bars weren't really segregated until the 20th Century. Working class sailor bars were mixed; fancy establishments were de facto segregated, but that was more a question of class.

The bad thing about this thread is I want to take a couple of days off of work to watch Cheers.

I can't see anything bad about that at all.

They had something up on the official website about it when the series first ran, but they took the site down after the last episode aired in 1993.

― Trad., Arrrgh (stevie), Thursday, September 27, 2012 4:29 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n590/chunkles22/taysays.gif

why thank you

do we have "Night Court" to blame for "Dave's World"?

no more than American Top 40 with Shadoe Stevens

From Cheers writer Ken Levine's blog

Weird question I've always wondered- where exactly did those paintings from the opening credits of CHEERS come from?

The opening credits were created by Castle-Bryant. They found old pictures of folks in bars and built that montage. I understand though one or two photos are actually people in a barbershop.

http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2008/10/barbershop-where-everyone-knows-your.html

omigod I forgot "Shadoe" was in "Dave's World."

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201210/cheers-oral-history-extended?printable=true&mobify=0

oh wow what totally excellent timing -- and it's raftery!

Long: Before the audition, I grabbed the dress I'd been planning to wear, only to realize that the waistband had been stretched to double it's normal size. But I didn't have an alternative and I was running late, so I just put a belt on and hoped it would be okay. When I met Ted, I realized too late that it was so blousy that I was giving him quite the view. I think it got us off to a really great start.

Danson: I was too terrified to notice she had breasts. I do remember that I was eating a sandwich.

damn that's a good history – and I think I've seen four episodes in my life.

Alley: One time, I brought Prince to the set. He's a friend of mine, and he asked to come. There were VIP rooms behind the audience, where a lot of the execs would sit, so I had Prince sitting up there. Everyone wanted to meet him, but he's a little shy. I think Woody went in and shook hands with him, and came down and said, "He isn't even talking to me!" But Jackie Swanson—she had a relationship with Prince, too.

Swanson: I've known Prince for many years—I worked on the "Raspberry Beret" video—and Kirstie and I used to fight about him. He once sent a card [saying] he had penned a song about me, called "Palomino Pleasure Ride." I remember bringing this card to work one time and showing Kirstie and saying: "See? Now who's the better friend?" It was so ridiculous. But Prince thought the writing on Cheers was smart. And he loved Kelly's headbands.

wow, william devane was a finalist for sam! this is awesome

Love this:

I did a horrible job. As I was leaving, the casting director says, "Thank you, John," and my eight-by-ten was already in a wastebasket. But the writer part of me turned around and said, "Do you have a bar know-it-all?" Because in the bars in my neighborhood where my father hung out, there was always a bar know-it-all. Glen said, "What are you talking about?" I just launched into an improvisation of what [became Cliff].

yeah that's awesome. also that Woody Boyd was named before they cast Woody Harrelson, incredible.

i couldn't tell if that was real or just woody making a joke

ratz seems kinda snooty

'bars have a bar know-it-all' just the kind of thing a know-it-all would say to get himself installed as bar know-it-all

Staley: I have a son who's almost 19, and I don't think he's ever seen an episode. He asked me recently if it was in black and white. It was like, "Jesus Christ."

The other audience we would lose from the soundtrack is any talking back to the actors during the scene. One night on CHEERS we had a particularly rowdy and vociferous bunch. Diane headed for Sam’s office and they yelled, “DON’T GO THROUGH THAT DOOR, GIRL!!” And my favorite: Diane standing up to Sam and someone screaming, “YOU TELL HIM, BITCH!!!!” Needless to say, that threw off Shelley Long’s timing just a wee bit.

Working class sailor bars were mixed; fancy establishments were de facto segregated

That was what I thought, but the people in that painting don't look working class to me.

ITV4 are showing Cheers from the beginning, starting tonight. Awesome news, I've never seen the first season, at least I don't think I have.

jealous that they're running it in order, the Reelz channel random order reruns are kinda frustrating

intriguing results

Who the hell are all the people at the bottom?

It took serious hindsight to realize that Kirstie Alley was the lesser of the two female leads

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/649/4328cheers18.jpg
http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/8b19903u.preview.jpg

You can see a huge version of the original photo here

Who the hell are all the people at the bottom?

Robin Colcord ... (Roger Rees) 1
- owner of the bar during early Kirstie Alley years, sent Rebecca weak at the knees and brain

Paul Krapence ... (Paul Willson) 1
- barfly who gradually worked his way up to supporting character in last few years

Al ... (Al Rosen) 1
- old man barfly with a squashed hat who dropped zingers in a weathered voice a few times a year.

Harry 'The Hat' Gittes ... (Harry Anderson) 1
- charming flim-flam man who turned up occasionally and ran scams on Cheers folk

Nick Tortelli ... (Dan Hedaya) 1
- sexually magnetic husband / ex-husband of Carla

Kelly Gaines ... (Jackie Swanson) 0
- fiancee of Woody Boyd in later years, subject of touching love ode "Kelly"

Loretta Tortelli ... (Jean Kasem) 0
- human Barbie airhead, post-Carla wife of Nick Tortelli

Eddie LeBec ... (Jay Thomas) 0
- hockey-playing long-running post-Nick love interest of Carla (killed by a zamboni while working as a penguin in an ice show, after the actor complained how onerous it was to have to kiss Rhea Perlman, on breakfast radio)

Esther Clavin ... (Frances Sternhagen) 0
- Cliff's sainted mother, quality bringer of lols

the way nick tortelli pronounces 'loretta' is a thing of majesty.

One of the CBS channels on Sky had the first series on not that long ago, I watched a few of them and they hold up really really well.