Cheers, no more!
September 13th, 2011 | Back to Blog Listing

The DVD jacket of the final season
On May 11th, 2011 I watched the very first episode of the famous 80s show, Cheers. In fact it was the pilot episode. It's taken me just over 4 months to watch the show from start to finish - ten whole seasons. Of course I'd seen many of the episodes in syndication over the years, but the story is a lot different when you watch it in order like this (courtesy of Netflix). The show did not end the way I assumed it would, but it was a great series and I'd recommend it to anyone.


Me standing in front of Cheers a few years ago
I know a lot of people tell me I'm crazy for watching these old types of sitcoms, but it was a brilliantly written show. Perhaps more interesting though is that you can start to see how their ideas were copied in later shows. Had I known from the beginning, I definitely would have started cataloging all of the overlaps that Seinfeld took from Cheers since I'm such a huge fan of Seinfeld (and more importantly know all of the episodes inside and out). The most esoteric reference I remember off-hand was when someone in Cheers (unfortunately I cannot remember the specific episode) used and then explained the word anathema. I can only assume that Larry David saw this episode and wrote the word down in his little black book because in Seinfeld S2E6 "The Statue":

George: Students can't clean. It's anathema. (explaining)They don't like it.
Jerry: How long have you been waiting to squeeze that into a conversation?

It's not a word one hears every day, and certainly not one I think would make for your average punchline, but there was in both of them. There is also a pretty sizable number of people in Seinfeld who originally appeared as guests on Cheers first. In an early episode of Cheers for example, Michael Richards (better known as Kramer) plays as character that winds up laying a claim to Sam's bar. Anyway, I would highly recommend starting this show at the very beginning to anyone who has a Netflix account.