The Cheers Legacy

[TMC]

https://thiswastv.com/2013/08/15/the...-introduction/

Whether it could be transparently quantified or not, every scripted comedy that currently exists is influenced by Cheers. Sometimes the inspirations are known to the creators behind the shows — like with Michael Schur and Dan Harmon, the two men responsible for Parks and Recreation and Community respectively, comedies that have occupied Cheers’ night and network for a few years now. In every Schur interview, he effusively praises the 1982-1993 show and its smart, fiery dialogue that evoked the crispness and literacy of old radio plays and legitimate theater while everyone else was quoting movies and beginning to comment on television itself; Harmon alternates between calling the Greendale study room table the equivalent to the Cheers bar and the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith. Other showrunners for the most part are of those gentleman’s ages, meaning that the show that lasted for eleven seasons had been on at some point during their most instructive years. It doesn’t matter that shows like Barney Miller and Taxi existed before Cheers and were just as critically praised and funny while dealing with a surrogate family: neither lasted for more than a decade. Also, like the great M*A*S*H, they weren’t the big critical and financial darling when the writers were getting their first writing gigs. Not to mention that they didn’t seemingly invent true TV romance. Or was it lust with Sam Malone and Diane Chambers? Either way, Sam and Diane are the Adam and Eve of “Will They, Won’t They” relationships, somehow both the original and the absolute set standard to all men and women who love and hate each other and take a season or two to open up about it.

• The Cheers Legacy: Season 1
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 2
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 3
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 4
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 5
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 6
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 7
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 8
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 9
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 10
  
• The Cheers Legacy: Season 11