Best CHEERS character

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.

i really love the one where Sam borrows Diane's first edition of the Hemingway novel. Is that s05?

not a rejection note, a "soon and inevitably to be published" note

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

Tbf to capitalism, Cheers theme song intro and end credits over still image took up a good share of that time difference.

you have cause and effect the wrong way around there

Huh it's only the 6th episode into Rebecca Howe era where her mask falls, eg Norm sees her crying. In my memory that was kept up for a couple seasons.

weeks lasted longer when we were kids

i blame capitalism

Thatcher surely?

roger rees also amazingly bad and annoying in law and order

he is not just an employee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first quarter or so of Season 6 is a real dip, you can feel them struggling to nail the new dynamic and Diane is a gigantic absence. Can't help but feel that if the internet was watching it in real time it would be declared over.

Once they realise that Rebecca is funny because she's dorky not because she's an impenetrable hard businesswoman it starts to work, but Frasier and Lilith are absolutely killing it this season.

Also you can always tell who the writers are most interested in by who they allow the camera to follow out of the bar. They're going big on Cliff this season as well as Frasier.

The episode where Cliff's house is about to be demolished is pretty strong. Also loved the one where Lilith buys Sam in the batchelor auction (the scary woman who purchases Woody resurfaces a few seasons later as a scary IRS official who blackmails Norm into an affair). But yeah, I feel Season Six is a fallow season - in fact, I don't really think the show hits true form again until the Sam/Rebecca/Robin Colcort triangle kicks in (sorry not sorry Mark S).

I disagree actually, I think it hits its stride straight after the episode with Cliff's house - from the charity auction onwards its really strong. Admittedly I'm only as far as the Christmas one but the sense of the tone being off has gone and the one-liners are still as sharp as ever.

Vera appeared, except with her face covered in pie or something like that.

I woke up early the other day and turned on the TV and this episode was just finishing. They were having Thanksgiving's at Carla's(?) house and there's a massive food fight but then they're all friends again and Norm wants to introduce them to Vera but a giddy Diane says, "Who's for dessert?" and picks up a chocolate cake or something and throws it, hitting Vera full in the face just as she's walking through the door.

coldcord is unwatchable which is a pity bcz the writing was good at this point and the idea of the triangle unimpeachable

sadly they hired the useless and terrible roger rees who punches unfunny holes in the otherwise good stuff

I've reached S11 (that's the final season, iirc?). Carla deciding to leave Cheers for more money at the neon-laden chain bar was genuisly reversed by meeting her new trainee.

I love that episode so much. Mr Pubs!

cliff’s veggie garden gag making a glorious comeback in s07e19 via the beet-a-baga fajita-in-a-pita, “that little taste of cairo,” is supreme.

I love the vegetables running gag so much.

series 11 is incredibly strong, with the ensemble really keeping the show fresh

Zero vote for Eddie LeBec OTM by the way, just not very funny at all.

yeah, huge misfire there

eddie's got heart, i always like it when he shows up.

Watching much slower than the rest of you, apparently, but the big revelation for me yesterday was that there used to be a different guy named "Paul" who sat in future Paul's spot

you're biased

yes season 1 has a different Paul from the guy who eventually became Paul:
The character was first called Paul in season four. In his first appearance, in season 1, Coach calls Paul's character "Glenn" (confusingly, the credits identify the character as "Gregg"), and in another early appearance, he is credited as "Tom", although this name is not spoken aloud in the episode. Towards the end of the series' run, a reference by Paul that he's been drinking at Cheers for 10 years makes it plausible that Coach had mistaken his name in his first appearance 10 years prior, and that "Glenn" and Paul are meant to be one and the same person.

amazing Halloween costume

https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/112/111698/full-700x764/5eaacd11/2013-10-Brett-Bumgarner-cheers-costume-21.jpeg

I remember Paul being a much more prominent character in later seasons, as it stands he's barely even a character and much less prominent than other rotating regulars like Al or the hopeless lawyer guy.

civil servants
stamps from around the world
mothers and sons
beer
bar trivia
celibacy

lmao

"Seriously... Drink-driving. What's up with that?"

the spontaneous "we will rock you" moment that opens s08e18 is SO good

isn’t it great? it’s also the only time i can recall close-ups of anything at all in this show. they never go in tighter than a head-to-waist shot (unless it’s a one-shot of norm at the bar, in which case there are always people milling about behind him).

How are you all blazing through so fast? OK, maybe stupid question, but I'm still on S2 despite sheltering in place. I find I can only binge 3-4 episodes at a time

we’re smashing out 20–30 episodes a week (watching s09e09 right now)