Best CHEERS character

so into diane right now

some random cable channel (Reelz i think?) runs 2 Cheers episodes every afternoon, which i've been watching and enjoying the hell out of now and again lately, although it never fails to irritate me that invariably one episode is Diane/Coach era and one is Rebecca/Woody era (i love both eras, just kinda wanna spend time on one or the other and not switch gears halfway through the hour).

― some dude, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 11:21 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Reelz heard my cries of protest and started airing the show more or less chronologically! been fun watching nothing but season 1 episodes lately (in slightly shuffled order), really helps me appreciate the charms of the Diane/Coach years more than i had before.

they really had shit on point from day 1, it's pretty remarkable

and, and, the point, coach, is that you finally did learn the pledge of allegiance

no, sam, i never learned it

yeah, but uh you respected mr spires for trying to help you

no, i hated his guts, sam

but looking back on it now you respect him for it...

no, no, he died and i was glad he died

irish to remake cheers

darragh for sam, local garda for coach imo

"Woody, would you add up these receipts for me please"
"sure..........there's 8 of 'em"

I prefer smart (or semi-smart) Sam to dumb Sam, but this is too good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxaQ9cKYQXo

I do periodically steal one of dumb Sam's jokes:

"Do you think I'm pedantic?"
Me: "That depends."
"On what?"
Me: "On what 'pedantic' means."

http://www.avclub.com/articles/10-episodes-that-show-how-cheers-stayed-great-for,96297/

Holy crap I never knew about this! Cheers scene inside St Elsewhere scene

http://youtu.be/JhCyXui0e_Q

erm, St Elsehwere scene in the Cheers bar even.

http://www.newsfromme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/cheersmuncie.jpg

yeah that's how it ties into tommy westphal universe and ergo frasier, the 86 celtics, etc

feel like i've gotten dragged into a cornhole

participated in some cornhole just the other day tbh

I've been living in a cornhole
I've been living in a cornhole

woody was a black santa claus...

Watched the ep the other night with Carol Kane as a woman who hooks up with Sam and immediately becomes obsessed with him, and she gives a great weird unhinged performance, really fascinating to watch.

The results for this poll are weird.

I just caught one of the Nick Tortelli episodes. Why is Dan Hedaya doing Pacino in Scarface?

because it funny

Watched the Cassavetes episode of Columbo just last night, always a mindblower that it was directed by Ernie "Coach" Pantusso

itv4 are showing a cheers double bill every weekday @ 7pm.

in chrono order i believe.

only found out last week, so no idea of they started with series 1/coach era, as we are up to the beginning of frasier/lillith relationship.

has been absolutely brilliant seeing it all again through my aged perspective as i get a lot more this time round than i did when i was a young'un.

Cheers is my favourite sitcom, no question. But there's a point early in the rebecca era where sam's constant badgering of her for sex gets pretty indefensibly crepey imo

I like how all the characters on this show are smart and stupid at the same time.

The results for this poll are weird.

How come? I totally agree with the top 5, except that I would put Lilith above Cliff, and Carla above Coach.

I don't know, I'd think for an ensemble show like this the votes would be more spread out. And I think Sam and Diane should be higher since they were the central focus of the show for so long (and Danson and Long are both amazing). Like 3 votes for Sam just seems like contrarianism. Cliff is funny but there's no way he's the best character on the show, especially by a five-vote margin.

I like how all the characters on this show are smart and stupid at the same time.

definitely. i think that's why it was so unusually good at 'class' comedy - diane and frasier look down on sam and the others because they are poor and not educated, but diane and frasier are every bit as dumb (and as smart) as anyone else in the bar. so the joke's (at least) as much on them as sam et al.

i've torrented the whole thing but have not yet begun to rewatch -- but iirc sam was pretty savvy at first and they made him dumber. (beyond diane making him dumber, of course)

everyone got dumber. Rebecca got pathetic, which was amusing at 1st but then just seemed lazy and cartoonish.

uk'rs :

series 6 starts tomorrow on itv4 at 6am.

thank f*ck for a recorder ..

the complete series on dvd was going cheap on amazon (uk) the other day - bought a copy for my brother for his birthday. i bought em as they came out and have NEVER regretted the purchase.

MeTV is running Cheers in the US now, in order. I had never seen the first ep. Did Norm ever get face-down-on-the-bar drunk again?

The first episode is surprisingly good considering the typically shaky quality of pilots. Love the "war is gross" bit, and the discussion of "sweatiest movie ever."

first episode is a textbook brilliant pilot - v subtle exposition, characters nailed in their opening moments, diane's impending cuckolding inevitable but still irresistible.

Just watched the episode "The Boys in the Bar," where Sam's old teammate comes out and Norm, et al fear that Cheers will turn into a gay bar. A few jokes riff on tired stereotypes (show tunes), but for the most part all of the humour is targeted towards the homophones, which strikes me as quite progressive for an American sitcom in 1983. I know that Soap had happened by this point, and Golden Girls--which included several subplots featuring sympathetic queer characters--was only a few years off, but was there really anything else like this happening on television at the time?

Archie Bunker's Place

There was a sympathetically presented transwoman on two eps of All in the Family (and a third where the character was killed in a hate crime, right?).

I also recall supporting characters and or themed episodes of Taxi, The Nancy Walker Show... hmm, there must be a couple more...

the AITF character (who was played by a popular San Francisco cabaret figure):

http://all-in-the-family-tv-show.wikia.com/wiki/Beverly_LaSalle

I had completely forgotten that plotline!

Woah. I definitely gotta be on the lookout for that AITF ep.

Also, there was a Nancy Walker Show?!

short-lived. After Rhoda stopped, she had two failed sitcoms in one season -- TNWS and Blansky's Beauties. On the first she had a gay male aide de camp.

There were recurring Barney Miller characters, too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_situation_comedies_with_LGBT_characters

(I was completely unaware of Vincent friggin' Schiavelli's pioneering role)

God, that last Beverly LaSalle ep ;_;

Haven't seen it in eons, but I recall Stapleton's performance being a crusher.

Sam and Diane's breakup at the end of season two is fucking brutal. Like, the allusion will undoubtedly seem ridiculous, but this has to be the closest that an American sitcom ever came toScenes from a Marriage.

totally agree.

and I find their split at the end of season 5 to be really genuinely heartbreaking. "Have a nice life," then the cut to them as pensioners dancing together, chokes me up every single time.

in fact, the whole, 'spend much of the episode in a fantasy sequence that finds sam making peace with domesticity', 'end the episode with the domesticity he's begun to crave being taken from him' conceit is pretty near tragedy in some ways, and that 'have a nice life' is proper tears-of-a-clown brave-facing.

man I forgot all about that

Rewatching the entire series on Netflix now, though I just finished season one last night. I was surprised how satisfying and effective the ending one, even having seen that clip in countless recap shows (obviously at 6 I wasn't watching the original run of that season, think it was season 6 & 7 before I started watching with my dad).

. "Have a nice life," then the cut to them as pensioners dancing together, chokes me up every single time.

agree to the power of whatever ...
you have no idea how hard this scene hit me a few weeks ago.
( i.e. fuck cancer. )
summary : i need buy the complete boxset as itv4 are f*cking up their reshowing of this.