I don't know. Maybe it's my fault that the Patriots won the Super Bowl. You see, in order to avoid all the pregame shows, I decided to watch "Cheers" on the weekend of the big game. Maybe if I had chosen to watch "Frasier" instead, the Seahawks would have won.
I had been watching "The Office" throughout the fall. Following the story of Jim and Pam made me want to revisit Sam and Diane. So I decided to rewatch the Boston based sitcom.
Interestingly, we were watching "Cheers" while we were pregnant with Timeout Boy six years ago. Then when he was born, we were watching "The Office". When he was a little toddler crawling around the living room, he would always look up whenever the theme song played and then return to playing once the music was over.
Anyways, I gained a newfound appreciation for Shelley Long this time around. She was really amazing and funny. Her writers actually created a great role for her.
I never realized that before. When I first watched the series, Kirstie Alley was the female lead. I had already grown fond of her when I realized that there had been someone else before her.
The show used to come on after the ten o'clock news on Channel 11 in New York. I remember the news anchor (usually Kaity Tong) would always say at the end of the broadcast, "'Cheers' is next." And then "Cheers" would be next.
I was 12 years old when I first discovered the show. Or maybe 13. I was in the seventh grade. It's kind of funny how it happened, but it's sort of been how I've gotten into new things.
When I first came to America at 11 years old, I used to just watch whatever shows my mom was watching. They were shows like "Full House", "America's Funniest Home Videos" and Columbo TV movies or something. On New Year's Eve 1992, while staying up to welcome 1993, WPIX-11 had a "Honeymooners" marathon. So I watched that, and I learned that it came on at 11:30pm. So I programed the VCR to record it at nights. I would watch it in the mornings, and I would always catch the tail end of "Cheers".
I remember just seeing the credits appearing on that shot of the empty bar. That image, along with the soft saxophone (I think) always gave me a melancholy feeling. It made me feel like I just missed a fun event. And it being a bar, and me going through puberty, it was like I had missed out on on a mature grown up adult event. And it kind of made me curious of what it was.
I think I saw a story on TV Guide or something. After all, it was the number one show on television. I don't remember which I watched first, the syndicated reruns or the current primetime show. I think it was the Thursday night show though, because I would have still been up for that. But then later on, I started taping the 11pm reruns.
In the mornings, I would wake up, rewind the tape and watch the previous night's rerun. That was my morning routine while I changed for school. And I timed it just so I finished the show before having to leave the apartment.
So I moved on from Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joe to Sam and Rebecca and Norm and Cliff.
At the time, the show was on its 10th season, while the reruns were of Season 9 at the time that I began tuning in. There was the 200th episode show, and that was when I first saw Shelley Long and learned about Diane Chambers. As well as Coach Pantuso. Eventually, the reruns went back to the first episode. I never fully appreciated those two characters, I think, because in the back of my mind, I was just waiting for when Rebecca Howe and Woody Boyd would come along.
This time around, after not watching the show for a few years, I was able to just enjoy each episode. Again, I found Shelley Long simply amazing. I think it was actually great for the show that she left. The producers and writers were able to take everything away from the lead character and start over. And they brought in a new lead who was totally different from the previous one.
It's funny that some of the things that I never thought about as a kid kind of bother me now. Like how the characters would always come to the bar before and after going anywhere. They would come in dressed up for their trip, or they would lug their luggage down the steps say goodbye to the gang and then carry their bags up to the street again. Things like that.
I was pretty smart as a kid, and aware of certain things, but there were jokes that I originally didn't catch. I also noticed that they seemed to try to make the bar patrons diverse in the background. It doesn't make up for the fact that the cast was all white. Or that one of the first times a black guy had multiple lines, he was brought in to indicate a threat of violence.
Anyways, it was good that the show ended when it did. They were pretty much running out of ideas, and they were able to leave on a high note. (Unlike "The Office", and I'll get into that later.) But obviously, "Cheers" was able to influence the situational comedy genre. Like the elaborate pranks you see on "The Office" or the inane conversations on "Seinfeld" or the adult jokes on "Married... with Children".
And I'm not sure about this, but they were probably the first to have a shortened theme song. I think this came about during the to-be-continued episodes around Season 4 or 5. They edited a shorter version of the song, and flashed the names fast to fit it. I also noticed that they added the background "Ah-ha"s on the fourth season as well. I remember thinking that it sounded like it was Woody singing the song, and then there was an episode where he sings the Kelly song on the piano.
I guess I'll check out "Frasier" next. I've only seen a few episodes of it. I was never really into it, although I never hated it or anything. It's funny that he mentioned that his parents were dead on "Cheers" (Season 4, I think).
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