Best CHEERS character

I used to watch Frasier when it was on, but the thought of re-watching it does not appeal at all, whereas I would def like to binge-watch Cheers at some point. The first 3 series of Seinfeld are on All 4 at the moment so I'll probably watch those first

they must have had superb audition screening for one-ep roles, bcz so man of them are genuinely funny

Harry from Night Court is in S1, as a two-bit bar grifter! (2 years before Night Court began) - already with the fedora and his whole schtick

harry pops up a few times in the entire run: his thing feels as if it might already have been a stage bit? like everyone is winking to everyone else when he turns up (but perhaps that's in the later appearances)

https://i.imgur.com/w4dztIy.jpg

don't make me repost my frazier = hannibal graphic

i think i said this upthread but cliffie and his mom are both in OUTLAND (1981) tho the family relationship is not re-restablished

Frasier rudely ignored his dad when he came to Cheers to write a jingle, really committed to pretending he was dead

The earlier episodes in particular feel very stage-y - like you can tell everyone involved is a terrific theatre actor, they way they physically use the set is very different to later sitcoms. Danson and Long I've already singled out but Rhea Pearlman is absolutely phenomenal at it.

perlman and devito MVPs for life

lol ok actually they separated (twice) but are still friends and refuse to divorce

Like, Cheers is one of the sharpest US comedies about class, for me.

This is clearly one of the writers' main aims from the word go. One of the reasons Boston works so well as a setting is that you can have an equal proportion of sports fans and eggheads and it feels more or less natural them all being in the same bar.

all otm

the physicality is just incredible

Started a rewatch from the beginning due to insomnia. Perfect show for comfort viewing, the theme is like an old blanket. I forget how great Coach is. Last night I saw the episode where his daughter is engaged to a jerk because she doesn’t think she can do better. The exchange between father and daughter about her looking like her mother made me blink back tears. So good.

Last night I saw the episode where his daughter is engaged to a jerk because she doesn’t think she can do better. The exchange between father and daughter about her looking like her mother made me blink back tears. So good.

― Cow_Art,Friday, April 17, 2020 8:20 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I had this exact experience (only it was Monday, not last night). That's a beautiful scene.

Yes, message board, you now have me re-watching Cheers from the beginning, too. I'm already surprised by how well I remember some of these episodes (like the one about Carla and the obnoxious Yankee fan) and not others (strangely, even though I know I've seen all of these multiple times, I don't recall ever seeing the one with the would-be monk tying one on and making a pass at Diane, which is a GREAT episode, btw)

That episode is amazing. Also, always loved Agnes Dipesto.

been rewatching as well and that scene with Coach and his daughter is really touching

I’m on the Cheers train as well.

I really thought I’d see all of these but so many eps in the first three seasons are new to me. I guess I started watching in real time w my parents right after Frasier arrived and before Coach passed, and maybe caught some of the earlier episodes in reruns through the years. As noted numerous times in this thread, Danson and Long are just phenomenal. This round I’m really enjoying Carla more than I remember. Watching her occasionally physically bully these large dudes just kills me. That scene with her kicking the shit out of Sam in his office is perfection.

think I started watching it during the original run at same time you did. there are a lot of early episodes that I think I just never saw until netflix.

Just got to the first appearance of Ma Clavin - where he tries to marry her off to a rich old guy in the bar.

Also the guy playing him later turned up as Leonard in Community, meaning he'd been playing old giffers for at least 30 years. He died last year :(

Weird thing that occurs to me while I am watching this is that most of the principle actors were younger than I am now.: in the first season, Long was 33; Danson was 35; Perlman, Ratzenberger, and Wendt were a mere 34. Everyone on this program always seemed so much older, somehow (but I will concede it is likely because I was six years old when this show first aired).

Also, (thank you, Wikipedia), am I the only one that never realized that Coach was in fucking Raging Bull?!

... and directed a couple episodes of Columbo - the one with John Cassavetes as a conductor and... the one with Johnny Cash!

there's a nice bit in one of the articles listed above where, when woody showed up, all the dudes pushing 40 were like 'let's kick his ass!' and instead got repeatedly owned

lol yes

I think they also tried keeping up with his drinking/casual drug use and got destroyed

maybe not Kelsey, he was always kind of an ongoing experiment in self-destruction

With the exception of Danson they all look older than mid-30s.

They probably were. Actors always lie about their ages.

i feel woody harrelson owns everyone just by his character being called woody tbh

in his early eps you can tell he's doing material scripted for coach but he just makes it his own (imo by vaulting the bar)

also: "woody arrived at cheers expecting to meet his 'pen pal' coach, with whom he exchanged pens instead of letters"

Been watching some s06 lately, the Sam and Rebecca stuff is more repellently "sexual harrassment in the workplace" than I remember but she's great from the off

I like how the series kind of undid the mystique of Sam's machismo in later seasons, with the sexual addiction sessions and the revelation that he's wearing a wig

also an episode where he realises he hasn't chased empty casual sex for a year or so and has a crisis of identity

in his early eps you can tell he's doing material scripted for coach but he just makes it his own (imo by vaulting the bar)

Colasanto left the show nearly a year before Woody debuted - Coach spent a while still "appearing" via letters that Diane would read out, and after Colasanto's death they recycled a dropped scene for the cold open - and Woody's dumbness is always written as naivety rather than brain trauma, but the writers get a better handle on that once they see how joyously guileless Harrelson can play.

watched a couple of mid-to-later 3rd season(I think?) eps and Colasanto seemed off his game and looking weak :-/

Yes, he was so unwell in that season that at times they had to trim his lines down as short as possible, and arrange his blocking so that he could have cue cards out of camera-sight.

I've been very slowing watching the entire series over the past, maybe, 3 years? I'll just pick a day and watch 7 or 8 episodes and then hit it again two weeks later. Anyway, I'm well into the Woody/Kelly stage now and there's absolute NOTHING charming about their relationship or her character. Too bad, I remember it fondly from when I was a kid.

Yeah after being really delighted by these first three seasons I’m kind of worried that the later ones aren’t going to be as good as I remember from when I was a pre-adolescent & young teen watching in real time

Don't worry, it stays pretty funny thanks to the introduction of Lilith and with Norm and Cliff assuming more spotlight. The humor gets more broad than it ever was in the Diane years, though.

watched a couple of mid-to-later 3rd season(I think?) eps and Colasanto seemed off his game and looking weak :-/

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will), Saturday, April 18, 2020 10:02 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, he was so unwell in that season that at times they had to trim his lines down as short as possible, and arrange his blocking so that he could have cue cards out of camera-sight.

― donald failson (sic), Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:35 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's a great thing in the oral history about how colasanto was writing his lines down on parts of the set, and after his death the rest of the cast became attached to these graffitoed lines, and when the studio hands cleaned them off there was a mutiny

Started a rewatch from the beginning due to insomnia. Perfect show for comfort viewing, the theme is like an old blanket. I forget how great Coach is. Last night I saw the episode where his daughter is engaged to a jerk because she doesn’t think she can do better. The exchange between father and daughter about her looking like her mother made me blink back tears. So good.

Yeah, that scene is the bomb, and then it cuts to a really great joke (I forget what the joke is, and then Coach & daughter come rushing out of the precious scene to deliver the coup de grace, just a 1-2-3 punch of greasy writing, acting, directing and editing.

PREVIOUS scene and GREAT writing etc, god damn my thumbs

I know it's been mentioned upthread already, but the oral history at GQ is terrific.

https://www.gq.com/story/cheers-oral-history-extended

it cuts to a really great joke (I forget what the joke is

Colasanto left the show nearly a year before Woody debuted - Coach spent a while still "appearing" via letters that Diane would read out, and after Colasanto's death they recycled a dropped scene for the cold open

I get the sense that S3 was filmed in a weird order - Coach is in 80% of it but comes and goes. They had Shelley Long's pregnancy to deal with as well, which was another major factor.

it’s norm holding a lighter under the sleeve of one of coach’s daughter’s fiancé’s suits trying and failing to set it on fire, and it made lol irl
― He is married to Brogmus, Linda. (bizarro gazzara)

Been watching some s06 lately, the Sam and Rebecca stuff is more repellently "sexual harrassment in the workplace" than I remember but she's great from the off

― Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), 2020年4月18日 星期六 下午 11:55 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, we’re on s06 now, and rebecca (kudos to alley’s performance) only just saves it by putting up exactly the right level of blocking to cut off sam’s harassment without killing the comedy. there is no way a dynamic like this would fly now.

just struck me that cheers episodes are half-hours that are 24 minutes long and new half-hours made today are at least a couple of minutes shorter

thanks, capitalism

yeah on the Simpsons DVDs the writers talk about how it's actually a lot harder to write episodes now with fewer minutes to work with

On jeopardy the other night there was a question that was something like “the depth of this part of the Pacific Ocean is greater than any other place on earth” and one of the contestants non-jokingly answered “what is the deepest part?” Amazingly close to cliffs famous “who are three people who have never been in my kitchen” answer from the jeopardy episode, almost fell off the couch laughing

Season 5 is a real imperial phase.

yeah. the rebecca episodes are great, but i think season 5 is the peak. or maybe it just becomes a different show, as the romcom element fades away forever.

The episode where Sam and Diane go to Frasier and Lilith's for dinner is an absolute masterpiece, and the scene where Sam and Diane submit poems to the same magazine is probably the high point of their onscreen relationship.