Best CHEERS character

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.

yeah it amazes me how much ITV cut as well. And then replace episodes with fucking darts.

I remember watching the end episodes

My Cheers hating house mate walked in, sat down and reluctantly kept watching. And at the final moment when Sam looks at the painting, I'll never forget the surprise reaction on my mates face and he just went "crikey"

Why does ILX hate Kels?

dark secrets

Republican

is ILX a blue state?

Kels is great as Frasier in Cheers, but the character changes from a pompous ass in a killer social satire to a pompous windbag in a French farce when he gets his own sitcom.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmmexMQIgAE3CiE.jpg

as seen on this gift that keeps on giving: Kelsey Grammer looks like a motherfucker with some dark secrets

brrrrrrrr

ah, for these women the doctor was in

started at the beginning (I don't think I've ever seen all of season 1 before?) and this holds up better than the vast majority of sitcoms I have no interest in watching. It's still formulaic and often stiff but I actually laughed, there's at least several well constructed jokes/lines/gags per episode even if idgaf about whatever "plot" is currently going on

quite progressive for an American sitcom in 1983

also per this I was not surprised that there's a reference/joke to a gay interracial relationship in season 3, but I was kinda surprised that it was resolved by the distraught father realizing he needed to accept his son as he was.

I also started from the beginning recently (thanks, Netflix!). It's so casual and relaxed compared to most other sitcoms from that era. Danson is such a natural and so effortlessly likeable. I think I mostly missed the Coach era the first time around so he's been kind of a pleasant surprise. I can imagine that patronizing Cheers is a chill experience similar to watching Cheers.

it is weirdly inviting and casual, it feels like you are just hanging out there. the setting is so unusual, with this constant milling of background characters (who occasionally come to the fore).

also made me think that this kind of bar basically doesn't exist anymore, nowadays it would be filled with blaring TV screens all over the place

it is weirdly inviting and casual, it feels like you are just hanging out there.

It's almost as if... everybody would know your name.

the setting really liberates it from some of the most constricting sitcom conventions - you're not stuck with a relatively small and fixed set of characters interacting in a small setting (anyone could walk into the bar at any time, after all). People come and go and fade in and out of the show's focus, maybe interjecting themselves into whatever the central conversation is or staying out of it entirely, etc. It's very different from watching a family of four interact in a living room with maybe one walk-on guest character.

And in the fourth episode (I think?) there was actually a very unusual and long tracking shot that backs out of the back room where Diane and Sam are arguing, down the hallway past the bathroom where a couple patrons come out, back into the main room past Norm's seat and down the bar to an entirely different conversation. It was sort of jarring how nakedly cinematic it was, not like a standard sitcom shot at all.

I hear ya.

I mean, there had been other ensemble shows like Andy Griffith or Mary Tyler Moore, but what if you had been able to see Goober Pyle or Gordy Howard in the background of every episode?

http://i.imgur.com/kelAgDu.jpg

It was sort of jarring how nakedly cinematic it was, not like a standard sitcom shot at all.

Now that you mention it, I do remember them occasionally doing stuff like that (wasn't the final shot along similar lines?).

this was in the first season!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChY3IN1UcAA_wR6.jpg

happy may day

The funniest bit on the whole show is the one where Lilith goes on the talk show all glammed out with Frasier and the gang with Diane is watching the show in-between a game at the bar.

Of the earlier episodes, I think the one where they are holding the wake for the ballplayer that Coach knew had died and at the wake they all realize the guy was a bum sleeping with all their wives and bumming money. Coach gets the good punchline to paraphrase something like "Burn him in effigy, forget that let's burn him here in Boston."

Albania
Albania
You border on the Adriatic

god that episode w/ coach and the wake is something else

Albania
You border on the Adriatic

in my head i parse all four-syllable names either like this or like 'armenia (city in the sky)'

the Albania song is running through my head at all times

also, and I've probs said this umpteen times on this thread, but Cheers is my favourite show ever. Maybe Larry Sanders is sharper. Maybe Arrested Development is funnier. But this show pushes every button I could ever want, and its characters are the greatest TV has ever delivered.

My only qualm with the cast (in the midst of season one) is that the female characters are more broadly sitcom-y than I'd prefer. Carla's a little too "why I oughta..." and Diane's a little too "well, actually...". I guess most of the characters are still fairly underformed. Except Sam. Sam felt like a fully-rounded character right from the start.

oh man just got to the "what if Cheers becomes a gay bar?" episode

I have belatedly come to the conclusion that Sam is the best.

xpost

Great episode. Feels progressive for the time, too, as the comedic target is entirely Norm, Cliff, etc. and not the gay characters.

yes the switcheroo reveal at the end is the whole joke (which I saw coming a mile away but whatever)

it is a little creepy to think about how charmingly benign Sam's blatant sexual harassment is portrayed