Best CHEERS character

Lilith's mother pours scorn on Sam for arriving at Frasier & Lilith's renewal of vows without bringing a gift: "Don't give it a second thought, Mr Trump."

there’s so many trump references in cheers, particularly re: Rebecca

Paul was great! I mentioned him as one of my runners-up way above.

these results are terrible, of course. cliff is barely top-10, if that

ok

Funny you should say that, there Mook, because there have been many anti-Cliff curmudgeons who have also been passionate enough to (a.) draw up a Top 10 list of Cheers characters in their mind AND (2.) be unstable members of society, possibly serial killers. It all goes back to something Oliver Wendall Holmes once said...

hey, thanks pplainy

Inspired by this thread, I’ve started watching from S1E1. It really came out of the gate strong, huh? Ep.1 is a bit languid, with not many real laughs, but by ep. 2, you can already see everyone figuring out the rhythms that would define the show for its whole run. Shelley Long puts so much into Diane — her reactions to everyone else’s lines are perfect and massively expressive. The editing is snappy and has its own personality — I love the way the camera cuts in close & quick for Carla’s snide asides. The final scene just brought a huge grin to my face that didn’t fade for minutes. Where Sam is spinning his yarn about the colour of Diane’s eyes and time just slows down as he settles in and takes all the time he needs to inhabit the lie, and the rest of the world just kind of fades into the background for a while as Diane is drawn in... then bang, she stumbles into the realization, throws up her armour, and drinks her customer’s vodka shot as she turns away... then a perfect beat of Sam’s self-satisfaction, just the way he and the camera both move in that final second — it’s beyond perfect.

In the oral history linked above, Shelley Long comes off as a real-life Diane. I half expected her to throw in a little showoff French as she justified why she was such a royal PITA to everyone else on the show!

Man! Episode 5, the scene between Coach and his daughter. Call me sentimental, but —

All: “You’re sentimental!”

— but I must admit I wept freely.

Then this great transition out of that scene back into the bar, where the camera cuts ahead of Lisa and Coach to Norm trying to light a suit jacket on fire. Sam with a punchline. Beat. Then the climactic confrontation. NICELY DONE.

***

From Wikipedia:

Shelley Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1949.[4] She is the daughter of Ivadine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher.[5] She was active on her high school speech team, competing in the Indiana High School Forensic Association. In 1967, she won the National Forensic League's National Championship in Original Oratory.

In the Cheers biography documentary, co-star Ted Danson ... stated that Long was much more like her character than she would like to admit...

You don’t say!

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.

― Οὖτις

(and naked lolz at Diane’s uni course, “Practical Feminism,” which gave her the ability to reflexively land a sexual assaulter on his back.)

As a kid I didn't get the full joke of the character of Cliff, because I didn't realize he spouted pure jibberish while trying to sound smart. "Get that man 50 milligrams of cc's!". I thought he was actually smart but was mocked anyway because everyone hates a know-it-all. Kinda like how they did with Frazier.

In the early years he’s just a pub bore who half-knows one thing about a lot of topics. He becomes more of a spurious bloviator as the decade rolls on.

I just finished re-watching up thru season 4 and was surprised how much of his "knowledge" even in the first few seasons was nonsense, ie using $100 words incorrectly, conflating various concepts or historical figures/events, etc.

Also, this time through I found the Sam-Diane thing was grating, was given too much focus, and wasn't believable. Per Wikipedia, there was a lot of contemporaneous criticism along those lines too. I'd never heard of that criticism; only ever heard that the show wasn't doing well in the ratings and Sam-Diane romance saved it from cancellation.

At age 31, Kate Mulgrew had the voice of a 55 yr old east coast patrician. I liked how the writers didn't give her character some major flaw and therefore make Sam's choice between her and Diane an easy one.

Yeah, but he's spinning off the tiny bit of something he almost-remembers, and often getting away with it because the rest of the bar profoundly don't care. By the final seasons he ran out of half-facts a long time ago and p much everyone politely loathes him. It works both as a change in the writing approach and as a genuine character arc, which is really fun.

(I totally fell for it as a kid too! as well as Diane's assessment of herself as an intellectual. Rewatching in my late teens I'd already cottoned on to Cliff from his later, more pathetic version, but Diane's essential delusion was a slow "waaaait a minute" realisation.)

Was it ever explicitly stated or did I just invent it in my head that Diane stays at Cheers as long as she did because it allows her to think of herself as an intellectual. Cause compared to the rest of the ppl there, she is.

I think someone does say that one point, although I'm not sure who

Sam, most likely?

might’ve been sumner?

Ted Danson recently said he felt awkward behind the bar, that it'd be obvious that he didn't really know what he was doing back there, so to mask that he would constantly be polishing shot glasses and doing lil routines with his bar towel. But he's a retired pro athlete who owns a bar...why would he be expected to be a pro bartender?

coulda been Frasier too

feel like the polishing glasses stuff was maybe once 'explained' as a nervous side-effect of being an alcoholic running a bar

Lilith appears 2/3 of the way thru season 4, but in only 1 episode and doesn't reappear until 4th episode of season 5. Is there a backstory to that? I assume she was supposed to only appear in the one episode, but then someone or some ppl thought she was a great foil for Frasier so had her written back in?

that's addressed in the oral history:

Bill Steinkellner: [Cheri and I] wrote the first script that Lilith was in. . She was in a little bit of the first scene, and then she left. The next year came, they said, "Let's get a girlfriend for Frasier."

Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith Sternin): In 1985, I was doing a pre-Broadway run of Sweet Charity [that] started in LA and had four months off before opening on Broadway. So I stayed and tried to rustle up whatever work I could while I was waiting. The first job was on Simon Simon, and the second was Cheers. I don't know that I had seen it. But my parents, who are very smart, very sophisticated, they loved Cheers.

In New York, in musicals, I was playing parts that would never have been described the way Lilith was in the breakdown. [I thought], "What do you mean, 'not so good-looking?'" [laughs] She was kind of drab—hair straight back in a bun, uptight, no sense of humor. The musical stuff I'd go up for was always funny, sexy, tough-as-nails, heart-of-gold characters. So when I first auditioned for Lilith, I really struggled. Then her voice occurred to me in my head, and I started reading it out loud to myself, and it made me laugh. That was her.

feel like the polishing glasses stuff was maybe once 'explained' as a nervous side-effect of being an alcoholic running a bar

genius-level analysis from one of the true scholars of our times iirc

love his constant cutting up of limes when's he's playing the background of a scene too - no-one's ordering G&Ts or V/L/S or whatever, but he's an in-recovery alcoholic in a bar and is keeping his hands busy. same with the completely inappropriate swagger that he brings to swigging from those dinky little water bottles. his swig swag.

― ʘ (sic), Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:32 AM (seven years ago)

Ooh thanks Shakey. I see a link to the oral history posted upthread.

since this image from seven years upthread has linkrotted:

https://i.imgur.com/G4H7wI9.jpg

Does anyone know what the situation is re: rights in the UK? I haven’t seen it since...the early 90s? Maybe earlier? I know it’s on streaming services in the US...

It's was on Channel 4 in the mornings for ages - Diane era - but I think they've reverted to King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond now.

... just checked, it's still on but before King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond.

... so, get up early!

I will!

currently bingeing this in isolation (on series 3 atm). it’s aged incredibly nicely and is as good as it ever was.

yeah me too, crazy thing to me is how dialed in everything was from the first episode! usually sitcoms are a little awkward at first or take time to figure it out, but right from the start they nailed it

I've always been fascinated by how many sitcoms follow that pattern--how different they are when you go back to the first season or first few episodes. Another (and the most prominent, I'd say) exception to the rule: The Larry Sanders Show.

it definitely evolves (especially as Coach dies, Woody and Frasier join, Diane exits, etc), but the standard is fiendishly high from the off

The pilot might be the best first episode of a sitcom ever.

yeah it's remarkably sharp

"is there an Ernie Pantusso here?"
"That's you."
"(to phone) Speaking."

"War is gross."

robin colcord will still be terrible and bad and annoying when you reach him

We got the full 11-season box set as a Christmas present and it's been a godsend the last few weeks. We're also midway through season three and, in the early seasons at least then Diane is far and away the best character.

I'd never really seen the Diane-Coach era before (every Coach gag is just perfectly constructed) but the real revelation has been Danson and Long as a double act.l Their movement and presence and chemistry together is off the scale.

robin colcord will still be terrible and bad and annoying when you reach him

hard disagree. he's a great villain.

as cosmic slop notes way up-thread the first feature i ever wrote for NME (not a cover story tho) was abt the chemistry between danson and long

MATT DC THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD

I still get choked up thinking about the end of season 5, with Sammy dreaming of what life might have been like if he'd grown old with Diane

Ditto spoilers.

My favourite moment during the whole run was the episode where Rebecca accidentally burned down the bar. I forget exactly how it unfolded, but it looked like she was leaving the bar and Sam forever, and then Sam asked if she wanted her job back. Her response was so funny and emotional.

Also it works because Sam and Diane is a relationship/rivalry of equals but neither side recognises it as such. Mostly because Diane is considerably less smart than she thinks she is and Sam is sharper than both of them think he is.

Roger Rees is amazing as Robin Colcord.

lol right

Shit sorry I put loads of hard returns in there betwixt spoiler and warning but none materialised