Oh, there is so much more wrong with all of the all White sitcoms, but the unspoken all-Whiteness racism (everybody) and blatant sexism (Sam, Norm, Frazier) and "casual" alcoholism (Norm) and celebration of dim ignorance as a "funny" quirk (Cliff) or "signifier" of inner goodness (Coach, Woody) of Cheers make it a great place to start.
Sure, it was inoffensive, but you couldn't get a sitcom on network television in the 1980s by being controversial or "real". And it should be said that dramas were allowed to be "real" in a different way- for the first part of its run "Cheers" aired on the same NBC Thursday schedule as "Hill Street Blues", which rewrote all of the rules for TV cop shows by being extremely "real". You might say "Cheers" was originally intended as an appetizer for that main event....
Sitcoms of the 20th century were expected to be predictable, because their three-act narrative structures and live-in-the-studio taping processes did not allow for a great amount of experimentation. While Norman Lear ("All In The Family", etc.) managed to produce "realistic" sitcoms in the '70s, that production approach wore out its welcome by the end of that decade, and "Cheers" was a product of that backlash era.
The more experimental sitcoms of the 21st century are entirely products of a system where cable and streaming usurped a great deal of the audience of network television, chiefly by exploiting the fact that they were not bound by the same legal restrictions that the network were. But in the 1980s producers were forced to do as they were told to do by the networks because they had no other options, and what resulted is a reflection of that deal-with-the-devil compromise.
Insightful naming of the clear success and unspoken failures of that show of conformity.
Reminds me of golf, or going fishing -- men being 'busy' while doing nothing.
Oh, there is so much more wrong with all of the all White sitcoms, but the unspoken all-Whiteness racism (everybody) and blatant sexism (Sam, Norm, Frazier) and "casual" alcoholism (Norm) and celebration of dim ignorance as a "funny" quirk (Cliff) or "signifier" of inner goodness (Coach, Woody) of Cheers make it a great place to start.
seems like always a subtext of the celebration of ignorance
Sure, it was inoffensive, but you couldn't get a sitcom on network television in the 1980s by being controversial or "real". And it should be said that dramas were allowed to be "real" in a different way- for the first part of its run "Cheers" aired on the same NBC Thursday schedule as "Hill Street Blues", which rewrote all of the rules for TV cop shows by being extremely "real". You might say "Cheers" was originally intended as an appetizer for that main event....
Sitcoms of the 20th century were expected to be predictable, because their three-act narrative structures and live-in-the-studio taping processes did not allow for a great amount of experimentation. While Norman Lear ("All In The Family", etc.) managed to produce "realistic" sitcoms in the '70s, that production approach wore out its welcome by the end of that decade, and "Cheers" was a product of that backlash era.
The more experimental sitcoms of the 21st century are entirely products of a system where cable and streaming usurped a great deal of the audience of network television, chiefly by exploiting the fact that they were not bound by the same legal restrictions that the network were. But in the 1980s producers were forced to do as they were told to do by the networks because they had no other options, and what resulted is a reflection of that deal-with-the-devil compromise.