Cheers and Frasier vs. Friends

[Castle]

It's a toss up between Fraiser and Friends. Both shows were completely different. I can see the edge towards Fraiser, they had the best actors. I was of recent talking of Kelsey Grammer playing Beast as the best part of X3, which was a mixed bag movie. This is how talented the cast of Frasier was.

[caj]

I think the posters that are neglecting Cheers is sad.

Like the great Mary Tyler Moore show that also is ignored today, Cheers isn't appreciated because people don't realize just how many other shows have 'borrowed' from what it did first.

When Cheers came on, there had never been another show like it. The Hepburn/Tracy relationship, the risqué jokes, a show almost entirely shot on one set (the bar). It did so many things so well and was so well-written and well-acted.

It's a shame more people don't appreciate it more.

[Joker]

Frasier
Cheers
.
.
.
Friends.

Frasier wins for its cast. And while Cheers had a great cast, too, it changed over the years, while Frasier's never did. There were no Rebecca years.

[caj]

For those who do love Cheers, here's a link to an article in GQ Magazine from 2012 where they talk to just about every living person either in front of or behind the cameral associated with the show.

It discusses how the show came together, how it ended, and everything in between. Great article IMO.

https://www.gq.com/story/cheers-oral...printable=true

[Scott Taylor]

Who ignores MTM? The 1970s TV shows are an entirely different conversation, lots to unpack there as far as which show was the best.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Last year, I did a binge DVD watch of Cheers followed by Frasier. That's a lot of seasons.

When Frasier was originally on, I watched the first few years, but then got tired of it and dropped it except for the occasional episode. I bought the DVD box set, so I got to experience a lot of the episodes for the first time.

During the 90s, I would have picked Friends, then Cheers, and not really even considered Frasier even though I knew at the time how critically acclaimed it was.

Having watched it on DVD straight through the 11 seasons, at this moment I prefer Frasier to Cheers. For me, it was like watching mostly new episodes whereas with Cheers, I had already seen all the episodes.

My feelings about Cheers now were the same as when I watched it then. I like the Shelley Long years -- particularly the first 2 seasons, but it took me a while to warm up to Kirstie Alley, and even when she finally found her character, she was never better than Diane. She was just another supporting character for Sam to bounce off of, while Diane as a true co-lead to Sam. Kirstie's finest season to me was Season 8 -- the Robin Colcord season. She was at her needy, neurotic best. She was pretty terrible for most of Season 6, and didn't really get any interesting storylines after the Colcord thing was done.

Frasier was good throughout its 11 year run. Yes, quality took a bit of a dip in the later seasons with changes in the writers' room, but keeping the same cast helped.

Friends also benefited that all 6 friends stayed with the show for the entire 10 years. I would give Friends the crown because you really did get to follow these characters through the changes in their lives in real time from their mid-20s to mid-30s. If you were around that age, you grew up with them and you could even see yourself and your friends in some of the characters, which you really couldn't do with Cheers or Frasier.

As I said in another thread, I really liked that all 6 Friends were friends in the show. There was no antagonism among the cast like Diane and Carla (or Carla and anybody) or like most shows. Friends is an easy show to take because of how they all like and care about each other. That was pretty unique for a sitcom at the time -- and even today, I think. It wasn't a show that was built on insult-humor. That made it easy to care about the characters over such a long period of time.

With all that said, even though I own Friends on DVD, I still haven't done a binge of it yet -- probably because I still remember the show so well. Same goes for Seinfeld.

[steve2275]

Frasier towers over both of the other two shows,

......Seattle
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106004/

[Jim Kelly]

Frasier was on for eleven seasons? How did I not remember that?

[caj]

My feelings about Cheers now were the same as when I watched it then. I like the Shelley Long years -- particularly the first 2 seasons, but it took me a while to warm up to Kirstie Alley, and even when she finally found her character, she was never better than Diane. She was just another supporting character for Sam to bounce off of, while Diane as a true co-lead to Sam. Kirstie's finest season to me was Season 8 -- the Robin Colcord season. She was at her needy, neurotic best. She was pretty terrible for most of Season 6, and didn't really get any interesting storylines after the Colcord thing was done.

Frasier was good throughout its 11 year run. Yes, quality took a bit of a dip in the later seasons with changes in the writers' room, but keeping the same cast helped.

Agree with all of this.

[williamtheday]

MTM Show is on MeTV, has been for some time.