Cheers

June 10, 2019
If readers do not already believe the sitcom Cheers (which ran from 1982 to 1993) was a monumental television comedy, this book will do little to convince them. A serviceable survey by the Darowski brother-and-sister team (who cowrote a history on the Cheers offshoot Frasier) on a show “about alcoholics who are never drunk,” it wastes little time on context or production war stories. Instead, after a preamble on how the self-described “Jew and two Mormons” (director James Burrows and writers Glen and Len Charles) pitched a faltering NBC a surrogate family workplace sitcom in the vein of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the authors embark on a season-by-season recap. Relying heavily on quotes from other critics and bland assertions such as calling it “one of the greatest television shows of all time,” the Darowskis mostly dish out generalizations. There are the odd gems, such as a collection of the best “Norm” lines and a comparison of lovably daft bartenders Woody and Coach (“for both characters there is no subtext, only text”). But except for those moments, and the odd consideration of issues such as how Sam Malone’s womanizing comes across in the #MeToo era, there is not much here to keep readers’ attention. This thin account of a hugely popular TV show disappoints.

June 1, 2019
The authors follow up their recent Frasier: A Cultural History (2017) with an equally interesting look at that show's predecessor, the classic sitcom that introduced the character of Frasier Crane, not to mention Sam Malone, Diane Chambers, Ernie Pantusso, Carla Tortelli, Norm Peterson, Cliff Clavin, Woody Boyd, and Rebecca Howe (among others). Cheers, the show about a bar and its patrons that would have been canceled after its disastrously low-rated first season if NBC had had anything better to put on the air, ended up running for 11 seasons, a major accomplishment for a half-hour comedy, then and now. The Darowskis look at the reasons why the show became a smash hit: the writing, the casting, the stories, the setting (most episodes took place entirely in the bar). Cheers, the authors assert, was a revolutionary show, with many of its key elements, such as multi-episode story arcs, having now become standard; however, the show also had its flaws, including an attitude toward women that would not be permitted in the current climate. Combining perceptive analysis with infectious enthusiasm, this is a must-read for Cheers devotees.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)