Fans of Cheers can rejoice with the arrival of the series on Blu-ray. You’ll get to see more detail on the screen. You might even be able to make out names and phone numbers in Sam Malone’s Little Black Book. Cheers: The Complete Series will bring out visual nuances that will make you feel even more like Cheers was your neighborhood watering hole.
We imagine Cheers as always being a massive hit of the ’80s. The series about a small basement bar in Boston did finish its 11th and final season at the Top. The series won 28 Emmys out of 117 nominations. You couldn’t go through an airport without encountering a recreated Cheers bar with Norm and Cliff robots. The series was not an instant success, but was lucky to have one important fan.
In the Fall of 1982, NBC was still stinging from the double disaster of the 1980 Moscow Olympics that America boycotted and Super Train that America ignored. Brandon Tartikoff, the new Network president needed to turn things around. He took a chance on Cheers. The series was created by the brothers Glen an Les Charles who had written for M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show and Taxi and James Burrows who was a regular director on Taxi. This trio understood how to make a workplace comedy click without being schtick.
While the creative team were veterans of the sitcom game, the cast was relatively unknown. Playing Sam Malone, the ex-Redsox pitcher who ran the bar was Ted Danson who had a small role in Body Heat and guest appearances in sitcoms. Shelley Long played the upper-class intellectual who ends up working in the bar had won regional Emmys in Chicago and was just getting noticed for playing a hooker in Night Shift with Henry Winkler. The most notable hiring was Nicholas Colasanto as the befuddled Coach. He’d played a mobster in Raging Bull and the greatest episode of Columbo. “Étude in Black” pitted Peter Falk against John Cassavetes and Colasanto captured it all. Rounding out the cast was Rhea Pearlman as Carla, the scrappy cocktail waitress, George Wendt as Norm an accountant who was naked without a beer in his hand and the know-it-all mailman Cliff played by John Ratzenberger. Cheers seemed like it would be a quality comedy that would do well out of the gate.
The first season was a ratings disaster finishing 74th out of 77 shows on the three networks. The sit-com got pummeled by Simon and Simon and Too Close For Comfort. Even at the bottom of the heap, Cheers won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series. Brandon Tartikoff didn’t abandon the series. He saw it and Hill Street Blues as key to the future of NBC. Ratings inched up during the second season to the middle of the pack and the series won another Best Comedy Emmy. By the third season, NBC created “Must See TV” with a lineup of The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court and Hill Street Blues. Brandon Tartikoff’s future vision paid off handsomely for the network as it would dominate the ’80s and early ’90s with Cheers being a key to the success.
As you rewatch the show after nearly 40 years, you’ll notice things that seem rushed. People complain about how they shouldn’t have forced Sam and Diane to get into a relationship so fast. You can think about stretching it out when you think of Cheers as a great success. But during season one, it was scrapping the bottom. They needed these two get closer since there might not be a season 2. People also complain that they rushed the bumpy and rather toxic relationship between Sam and Diane during season 2 to a nasty cliffhanger. The series could have been canceled at any moment if NBC fired Tartikoff and killed his pet projects. You might remember 93 million people watching the final episode. But the series wasn’t attracting a fifth of that audience early on. There was a different pace necessary.
Unlike so many sitcoms that had episodes that stood alone so you could shuffle them and not feel like you’re missing out, Cheers had a certain chronological order. The characters had a certain amount of history from previous episodes. Early in the first season Norm gets fired from his accounting job and we see him struggle over seasons to find steady work. Sam and Diane’s relationship isn’t a constant. At the end of each episode, they don’t go back to being a happy couple. Sam gets nasty when Diane introduces her to her new fiancé Fraiser Crane. Sam goes through a lot including relapsing into an alcoholic. A few changes are spurred by the actors in their real life. During season three, Nicholas Colasanto health went bad. You’ll notice over the season he lost a lot of weight. He only sporadically pops up in the second half of the season. He passed away before the season ended. At the start of season four, they mention Coach has died when Woody (Woody Harrelson) arrives looking for him. Woody ends up taking Coach’s job behind the stick. His comedy comes from extreme naivety as opposed to Coach being befuddled from being hit by too many pitches. After five seasons, Shelley Long left the show at the end of her contract. She’d been starring in movies and wanted to move on. This meant Diane had to leave her job. This allowed the creative team to do more than hire in another waitress. Season Six brought on Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) who was now running Cheers for a company that bought the bar. This creates a narrative of Sam attempting to get the bar back. The departure of Shelley Long didn’t ruin the show as it only grew in the ratings and was the Top ranked show during Season 8. The show was still in the Top 10 when the producers decided to shut the bar down while Cheers was still a hit.
Getting to see Cheers on Blu-ray really does bring me back to a familiar place that had gone fuzzy in my memories. You’ll see how Cliff keeps his postal uniform sharp and the identify the Redsox player photos on the wall. The show still packs a lot of comedy into the small bar. The bar that you see dressed up with Cheers signage for the Boston exterior shots is small. During the height of Cheers, my College Bowl team went to MIT for a tournament. One evening we went over to the Bull & Finch Pub before it changed its name to Cheers. We went down the staircase expecting it to resemble the interior from the soundstage in Hollywood. There was no shout of “Norm!” as we entered. Two steps inside and we were elbow to elbow with fellow tourists. The bar took up a third of the room and the gift store selling t-shirts and glasses that declared The Bull & Finch Pub the real Cheers was the other third. There was barely enough room to drink a beer. At first, I suggested we sneak into the pool table backroom except that turned out to only exist in the television version. We drank and left. There’s probably more space inside the Cheers: The Complete Series Blu-ray boxset.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. This is just how we watched it on the Trinitron back in the ’80s. The 1080p transfer will allow you to see the Boston sports stars in the photos and posters such as Fred Lynn on the bar walls. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 2.0. You’ll hear all the names being called out when the regulars arrive. The episodes are subtitled in English.
Setting the Bar: A Conversation with Ted Danson (8:11) has him talk about finding out about the show when the creative team were still doing Taxi. He auditioned with Shelley Long for the roles. He feels he got the role because Shelley and him worked well. This interview was done around the time Danson was making Becker.
Love At First Fight: Opposites Distract (4:03) are highlights of Sam and Diane giving each other the business.
Coach Ernie Pantusso’s “Rules of the Game” (4:17) are his best quips.
I’ll Drink To That: Stormin’ Norm-isms (4:24) is a montage of Norm’s arrivals at Cheers.
It’s A Little Known Fact…” Cheers Trivia Game is an interactive game with clips to show the answers.
Strictly Top Shelf: The Guys Behind The Bar (9:34) has clips of the Ted Danson, Shelley Long and creators Glen Charles, Les Charles & James Burrows talking about the show from an Entertainment Tonight segment in 1983. There are behind the scenes shots of the bar set. There’s newer interview with George Wendt.
Cliff’s Notes: The Wisdom of Cliff Clavin (3:59) has George Wendt talking about his comedy partner. We get a montage of the mailman’s genius.
Carla The Comeback Queen: Insults for Every Occasion (3:28) has Ted Danson point out that Rhea Pearlman was the first person cast on Cheers from the creators seeing her in a play.
Di Another Day: Diane Chambers from A-Z (3:35) has Ted Danson talk about working with Shelley Long in the early seasons. We get a montage of her best moments from this time.
Gag Reel: Bloopers From Season 2 (4:23) has Norm cracking up and as Coach keeps firing down the cheese doddles.
Virtual Vera (2:53) are clips about Norm’s wife.
Shrink-Warped: Introducing Frasier Crane (2:49) are clips from his early seasons before he went off to Seattle for his own show.
Carla’s Whipping Boy (3:23) has her taking care of Cliff.
Nicholas Colosanto: His Final Season (6:34) has Ted Danson remember his co-star that he felt was the heart and soul of the show. Rhea Pearlman and George Wendt go into his befuddlement. Wendt talks about the Columbo episode directed by Colosanto. He also talks about his heart disease that only let him be Coach for three seasons. Danson lets us know the message on the set from Colosanto that lasted for the entire run of the show.
Cheers Bar Tour has interactive tour of the Cheers bar set.
Promos (0:33) are provided for episodes on the final season. These were done when the series was syndicated.
CBS Blu-Ray and Paramount Home Entertainment present Cheers: The Complete Series. Starring Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Pearlman, Nicholas Colasanto, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer, Woody Harrelson, Kristie Alley and Bebe Neuwirth. Boxset Contents: 275 episodes on 33 Blu-ray Discs. Release Date: April 25, 2023.
