10 Cheers Episodes Better Than Anything Made Today

Cheers sets itself apart as one of the best sitcoms of all times, and the show still has episodes that outshine anything made today. The Ted Danson-led TV show established its place in the hearts of Gen X and Millennials everywhere, and it found an even bigger audience once it hit streaming.

In today’s world, Cheers has to go up against modern sitcoms that have established themselves as top-tier entertainment. However, the NBC sitcom included many of the most beloved storylines and traits long before they joined the likes of Friends or Community.

Found family who is completely dysfunctional? Cheers! A will-they-won’t-they relationship that keeps the audience invested? Cheers! A sitcom focused on a workplace instead of blood-related family? Cheers! An iconic theme song that can be appreciated separate from the show? Cheers! The show may not have created all of these dynamics and storylines, but they certainly popularized them for TV shows starting in the 90s.

Similarly, Cheers released many episodes that completely beat out anything made today. These ten episodes, in particular, defy expectations in fresh and exciting ways. Someday, another sitcom might outshine them, but until then, these ten episodes are peak television.

10

Give Me A Ring Sometime

The first season of Cheers was a complete and total flop in terms of viewership and ratings. The show nearly got the axe before season 2. However, we can now look back at that first season and appreciate what everyone missed at the time. Cheers has one of the best sitcom premiere episodes of all time, easily beating out modern shows.

From the moment the theme song plays to the last moment, Cheers gives the audience a warm hug. The episode does all the heavy work of introducing us to the titular bar and most of Cheers’ major characters. Plus, plenty of moments provide a good laugh. Ultimately, it’s hard to start a show off so perfectly, but Cheers does the impossible.

9

What Is…Cliff Clavin?

High-concept episodes in sitcom and comedy shows frequently flop, but Cheers nailed it with “What Is…Cliff Clavin?” In the episode, Cliff participates in Jeopardy! and racks up $22,000. However, he loses it all in the final round. Alex Trebek tries to quit hosting, and Cliff saves Jeopardy! by convincing him to stay. The dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny and well-written.

The episode is definitely cheesy, but that’s exactly the style of Cheers. The even more hilarious part is that “What Is…Cliff Clavin?” inspired a whole wave of real-life Jeopardy! contestants who used either Clavin’s identical answer from Cheers or a similar one.

Plus, in the B-plot, Sam gets his just desserts for being a womanizer, with all the women in his little black book getting mad at him. Even though he didn’t directly cause the conflicts, they wouldn’t have happened if he weren’t such a player.

8

Dinner At Eight-ish

Fraser and Lilith move in and invite Sam and Diane to dinner in “Dinner at Eight-ish,” one of the funniest episodes of Cheers. The premise is simple, but it’s executed perfectly. The story involves one conflict after another. Every time one thing gets cleared up, another thing pops up. Still, the storyline never feels overwhelming. The whole thing had a very I Love Lucy feeling.

What’s more, it’s a bottle episode, which is hard to pull off for any TV show. The actors don’t have different locations to work from, so there’s a lot more focus on performance elements. Bebe Neuwirth, Kelsey Grammer, Ted Danson, and Shelley Long have top-notch comedic timing, and they bounce off one another well.

7

One For The Road

If How I Met Your Mother and New Girl have taught us anything, it’s that even the best sitcoms have a hard time ending the story in a satisfying way. They often feel rushed or poorly written. However, “One For The Road” defies this by providing a truly satisfying ending that understands exactly what made Cheers special to begin with.

They tapped into the emotionality of ending something as beloved as Cheers without it feeling like a tearfest. The writers pack in great laughs and callbacks. Most of the Cheers characters received an ending that felt earned. What’s more, they ended the whole thing in a way that would allow the show to be revisited one day.

6

Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back

One of the best ongoing story arcs in Cheers is the Bar Wars, which includes seven episodes from season 6 to season 11. The Bar Wars should be the model for every comedy TV show with a running gag across multiple seasons. While all of the Bar Wars episodes are worth watching, the peak entertainment comes in “Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back.”

The bar once again gets into a competition with Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern over the best Bloody Marys. The story is chaotic, hilarious, and filled with twists that audiences would never see coming.

The antics and pranks just keep building, making the episode feel zanier with every minute. It’s just such a great episode, and the sequel manages to one-up the already pretty perfect first episode in the arc.

5

Where There’s A Will

One of the funniest episodes of Cheers season 2 is “Where There’s a Will,” which features a terminally ill bar patron named Malcolm leaving his $100,000 to the folks at Cheers after they help him live out his dream. This episode shows the absolute best and worst of the characters.

They come together to support someone they care about. Then, of course, they turn on each other. It’s extremely difficult to balance these two dichotomous depictions of fan-favorite characters. However, it shows them as nuanced and more realistic.

Ultimately, everyone at Cheers is like family, but families can be dysfunctional, greedy, and petty. “Where There’s A Will” shows this part of the Cheers gang.

4

Pick A Con…Any Con

“Pick A Con…Any Con” is a top-notch Cheers episode because it embraces the silliness of the sitcom genre without letting it get too off the rails. Coach gets conned by their friend George. To get their money back, they bail out Harry “The Hat” Gittes.

The episode pits conman against conman, asking “who is the best?” It would be difficult to do this silly of an episode in a modern sitcom without it feeling cheesy or too contrived. However, it worked perfectly for the time that the Cheers episode came out.

3

I Do, Adieu

One of the harsh realities about rewatching Cheers all these years later is that Sam and Diane’s will-they-won’t-they relationship isn’t cute. It’s toxic and brought out the worst in both characters.

However, the episode “I Do, Adieu” truly shows why the couple could have been so great together. Diane finally decides to choose herself, with the caveat that she’s going to come back to Sam. Meanwhile, Sam supports Diane’s decision to move to Boston to finish her manuscript, even telling her to have a good life.

What’s more, “I Do, Adieu” is a special episode because it does what’s best for the characters, even if the audience might hate it. At the same time, it does provide a glimpse of what their future might have looked like together. It didn’t feel like having your cake and eating it too. It felt like a great way to wrap up a meaningful relationship that the audience invested in for so long.

2

Veggie-Boyd

Woody Harrelson is a delight in Cheers, and “Veggie-Boyd” is the absolute peak of his comedic episodes on the show. The episode centers on the character Woody, who gets a commercial job promoting Veggie Boy, a horrendous drink. He feels a quandary about lying, by saying his one line: “I like it.” To solve the problem, Frasier hypnotizes him into being obsessed with Veggie Boy.

This episode feels like the spiritual successor to I Love Lucy and her commercial with Vitameatavegamin. Except, instead of getting drunk on the product, Woody gets so obsessed with it that he’s distraught when they stop selling the product.

There’s also quite a bit of humor, from a psychology perspective that Lilith absolutely hates Freud, which feels hilariously ahead of its time for a 1990 episode.

1

Endless Slumper

“Endless Slumper” is, without a doubt, my favorite episode of Cheers because it managed to Sam’s hidden alcohol use disorder without making a joke out of the serious topic. He lends his lucky bottle cap, which as from the last bottle he drank, to a pitcher who’s down on his luck.

However, this causes instability for Sam, who saw that as a tool for survival. Without it, he experiences a lot of anxiety and fear of relapsing, and he comes close. The moment The episode particularly hones in on the difficulty of owning and running a bar as an alcoholic in recovery.

“Endless Slumper” could have gone wrong in about a million ways, but it stands out instead as one of the best examples of incorporating serious topics into an otherwise lighthearted and comedic show. The Cheers episode never feels like a PSA or a forced storyline. It feels completely and utterly real.

Release Date

1982 – 1993-00-00

Showrunner

James Burrows, Glen Charles, Les Charles, Ken Estin, Sam Simon, David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee, Bill Steinkellner, Cheri Steinkellner, Phoef Sutton, Tom Anderson, Dan O’Shannon

Directors

James Burrows, Andy Ackerman

Writers

James Burrows, Glen Charles, Les Charles