Cheers: Opening Theme

By Nicholas Stix

(Based on the cast, this was early on, or the original opening.)
 

Thanks to Tiktook.
 

Cheers: Full Theme Song Played for the 200th Episode
 

Thanks to PaintYourOffice.
 

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came,
You wanna be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same,
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
People are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

[This section was only used for the 200th episode.]

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those nights when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail,
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by its tail,
And your third fiancé didn't show,

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came,
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same,
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning’s looking bright,
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write,
And your husband wants to be a girl,

Be glad there’s one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came,
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same,
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came,
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...

[Thanks to TV Themes on Demand.]

It’s a sweet theme, but if anything, part of Cheers’ greatness was in showing that people aren’t “all the same.”

With 271 episodes, Cheers (1983-1993) was the longest-running comedy series of all time. As with so many great shows—e.g., its dramatic contemporary, Hill Street Blues—it was almost cancelled early on, due to anemic ratings. Cheers’ brand of comedy was character-driven, and it takes time for characters to develop.

The show took place in the eponymous Boston saloon full of oddballs of different walks of life and social classes. White oddballs. That was before the networks all submitted to the NAACP, and began casting blacks as all-knowing characters on every show, even if black characters didn’t fit the story and setting.

The most popular characters were the conspiracy-obsessed mailman Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) and Norm (George Wendt), who was married, but who lived like a bachelor. And unlike in the four different David E. Kelley shows to come that were supposedly set in Boston, none of whose characters was a recognizable denizen of Beantown, Cliff Clavin spoke with a Boston accent.

Cheers was one of those shows I never watched until it was in syndication. During its first three seasons I was out of the country, and I only bought my first (used) TV set during its fourth season (1985-86).

In the fall of 1987, one of the local New York re-run channels, Channel 11 (WPIX), started running re-runs of the just cancelled Hill Street Blues, and the still-running Cheers. I’m not sure how often WPIX ran Cheers, but it did a great thing with Hill Street: It ran the episodes every night of the week in order, even weekends, if memory serves, for a couple of years. That gave every viewer about five chances to see every single episode.

I’d only seen the last season of Hill Street, long after NBC had fired its creator, Steven Bochco, and after the heart and soul of the show, Michael Conrad (Sgt. Phil Esterhaus), had died of cancer.

WPIX put together a really sweet commercial spot for the occasion. It was built around Cheers, which was the fall lineup’s anchor. A modified version of the Cheers theme played throughout the spot. The folks at WPIX found scenes from each series that took place in a saloon, and cut them into the spot, to make it seem as if they had produced a special commercial with the still living stars from all of the newly scheduled old shows coming together at Cheers, for a big get-together, as the theme played.

You want to go where TV shows
Don’t all look the same,
Eleven’s the place where
Everybody knows your name.

I only saw a portion, say 20 percent, of Cheers 271 episodes, but 54 shows is still a lot of great TV. And I got to see why a lot of people thought Hill Street Blues was the greatest dramatic series in TV history.