"But...I'm...White..." : Cheers vs Wings

Eeek! Blogging fail. I don't think I've ever abandoned you all for so long. But hey, I've been on vacation and there hasn't been any new TV to provide me with some initiative, so I guess it's up to my weary brain to come up with ideas for good summertime posts. Don't worry, things won't remain at this sporadic pace - once I'm working again I'll be back to writing on a more regular basis.

So, a few weeks ago - or maybe it was a month, I can't keep track - Linda on Pop Culture Happy Hour was talking about how Cheers is on Netflix instant now, and how she spent the whole weekend watching Cheers and how the comedy really holds up. Now, Cheers ended shortly before I became a regular primetime viewer, so I only had a few brief memories of the show when it was on. I decided that this would be a great opportunity for me to educate myself on one of the most classically beloved sitcoms.

It did not go so well. Cheers does not, sorry Linda, does NOT hold up. The only thing that makes the show even remotely enjoyable is Ted Danson's inescapable charm. I have never found him attractive, but damn if he couldn't charm the pants off of anyone he wished. However, basically all other elements of the show are unbearable. Diane is a huge bore whose backstory consists of being abandoned at a bar by her creepy boss with whom she was about to elope, but instead he leaves her to go back to his ex-wife. Wha??? It informs her character not at all except to establish that she is a snob and an intellectual and here she is surrounded by all these boors isn't that hilarious? Not really. Carla, who I remember liking when I was a kid, is instead one of those people that thinks that being tiny allows them to get away with being a violent asshole. It's not cute when you shout in people's faces and punch them in the neck when you don't get your way, EVEN IF YOU ARE SHORT. Now, let me ask: is Coach supposed to be retarded? Nevermind, it doesn't matter, either way he is The Worst. The way he screams "NAAAHHRM!" whenever Norm walks in is so abrasive and awful it boggles my mind that it became a touchstone of the show. Speaking of Norm and Cliff, these characters are not endearing. They are drunks. Barney on The Simpsons is such a great character because he is an exaggeration of what Norm & Cliff would really be like. Anyway, when you come down to it, none of them are likable except Sam.

And here's where we get to the crux of the issue of watching Cheers from a modern standpoint: this is a show about a bar. Everything happens at a bar. Almost all of the characters we see are drunks or at least drink a fair amount - except Sam, who's an alcoholic, and Diane, who is boring. Maybe in 1982 it was normal for people to get off of work and go drink by yourself in a bar every night; these days, that kind of behavior is sad and problematic. Thus characters like Norm, who, at that time might've been the guy who reminded you of your uncle or something, are now just pathetic misogynists who have probably caused multiple drunk driving accidents without even knowing it. Knowing what we know now, it's hard to find any of the Cheers ensemble endearing.

The comedy is also incredibly stilted and old-fashioned. I can see the setup of a joke coming from a mile away, and when the punchline eventually comes, it's painful. I mean, I understand that this is Eighties television we're talking about - I've seen Alf and Family Ties and all that and I get how low the bar was set for a long time. But just because Cheers might've been better than 21 Jumpstreet (and it's not, I watched all of that after-school epic last summer) doesn't mean that it deserves all the love it gets.

Now, it's possible (and, in fact, probable) that Cheers gets better in later years. I'll admit that I couldn't motivate myself to make it past the first season, and there are TEN MORE or some bullshit. I do remember Kirstie Alley being great, and I know that Frasier shows up at some point before he gets his own spinoff. I'm sure that Coach has a stroke and dies pretty early on. I should probably have stuck around at least until Woody showed up, but I just didn't feel like anything I had watched so far warranted me wasting any more of my time on the show, and then Netflix suggested: "You might like: Wings".

Well, you know what? I do like Wings. Wings debuted eight or ten years after Cheers, so it was in syndication by the time I was a cogent child. I used to watch it at my piano teacher's house while my sister was having her lesson because the only things on Nickelodeon were Duck Tales and Inspector Gadget, and I hated both of those (I know, I'm sure you loved them, but I have always been much more interested in live-action shows, be they with people or Muppets or Lamb Chop). I'm sure if you were watching cable in the Nineties, you saw reruns of Wings on USA, too, right before Pacific Blue, USA High, and La Femme Nikita. Anyway, this is just a little background to qualify that my opinion of Wings is tainted by nostalgia, but I did try to come at this analysis from as objective a viewpoint as possible.

Maybe you don't know what Wings is. It's a pretty standard ensemble comedy that centers on a small airport in Nantucket. Pretty much all you need to know. And, interestingly enough, I found out after I decided to write this comparison that Wings was created and produced by two of the creators of Cheers. So, it's unsurprising that it's such a similar sitcom with such a similar obsession with New England. However, even MORE interesting is that Christopher Lloyd and Steve Levitan (of OMG Doc Brown is THE BEST/Modern Family fame (by way of Angels In The Outfield and Camp Nowhere - yeah, that's right, Chris Lloyd, I know your canon)) are listed as producers, which explains why there's more that's actually good and funny about Wings. So, we've got a similar structure, theme, and starting point - what's next?

Well, after careful analysis (I actually watched over three seasons of Wings), I can safely say the actors have a big part to do with it. Cheers has one solid comedian (Danson) and a bunch of lazy joke-makers who rely almost entirely on stereotypes. Wings has Steven Weber, who has incredible delivery and timing and is really entirely underrated (Go watch Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh from the first season of Party Down and tell me he's not a genius). It's got a young Tony Shaloub, taking his Italian immigrant cab-driver character (speaking of lazy stereotypes) and playing him with a subtlety one usually doesn't find on shows that were on the air opposite Empty Nest. But hands-down the best part about Wings is Lowell, played by Thomas Hayden Church. Church's career has been on a strong upswing ever since the great work he did in Sideways, but he deserves major props for being the driving comedic force behind Wings. The village idiot archetype has been around for centuries, but Church's use of silent pauses and restrained physical comedy make Lowell into a laugh-out-loud scene-stealer. Oh, Tim Daly and Crystal Bernard aren't bad (special shoutout to Rebecca Schull as my gal Faye, the best ex-stewardess ever), and David Schramm as the antagonist Roy can be great glinty-eyed fun, but it's Weber, Shaloub, and Church that make Wings worth watching again.

That is not to say that it's all perfection, of course. There are lame sitcom-y gags, one-liners that fall flat, zero chemistry between the romantic leads, and hilariously bad shots of Steven Weber flying a plane on a soundstage. Oh, and apparently in the 90s in order to prove that you were a rebel who played it fast and loose you had to wear some of the ugliest ties ever made, so everyone knew you didn't care what people thought of you. Seriously, if I were the kind of person who had the ability or desire to make supercuts, I would make one of all of Brian Hackett's ties. Anyway, I never said Wings was The Best, just that it was better than Cheers, and I stand by that assertion. Seriously, when you break it down, it's clear. Character likability? Wings. Quality of joke-writing? Wings. More adaptable setting? Wings, although it is weird to think about all the jokes that wouldn't be possible today due to airport security restrictions and whatnot. Acting? Wings, with the Danson caveat. It seems like the Cheers creators got some experience under their belt, saw what worked, and then hired a great cast to make their second go-round even better. Wings isn't television that will challenge you, but at least it won't make you think about all the alcoholics you know every three seconds, and it doesn't have Shelley Long. Maybe you love Cheers; maybe you don't find Carla skin-crawlingly irritating or the intro unnecessarily pretentious and long. For me, the best part of Cheers is the song, which is just great, as a song. The rest of it can stay below ground where it belongs. If I'm going the cheesy sitcom route, I want to be up in a very fake airplane with Steven Weber making faces. What can I say? I am what life has made me, and it made me a Wings girl.

There is a coda to this crazy-long post, and it is this: both of these shows are PAINFULLY white. I mean, Wings has Shaloub (as an Italian) but he is still white. It takes place on Nantucket (AKA White People Island), and although on rare occasions you can see people of color as extras, they almost never have lines. The same is true for Cheers, which doesn't even have the Nantucket excuse because it is not like there aren't black people in Boston! But yes. It really is demonstrative of the era, but also helpful in showing us how far we haven't come: Joel McHale and Danny Pudi were both just nominated for Critic's Choice Awards - McHale for Lead Actor and Pudi for Supporting. Anyone who watched this season of Community will tell you that it is totally an ensemble but if there were a star it would be Abed and that Community would not be what it is without him...and yet the white guy gets to be in the lead (Also: give Donald Glover his snaps, y'all! In fact, just give all the awards ever to Danny Pudi and Donald Glover, please.). This is not to say that there aren't talented white people, or that I don't totally love and want to bone Joel McHale. I just think it is retarded that there are so many white faces in pop culture (and on television in particular) and that even on a show like Glee, the white kids seem to be the only ones whose stories are given any weight. Or look at Modern Family, even, the much lauded Levitan/Lloyd creation, where there are some people of color kind of and outside the family the only black person with lines has been Longeness. But the world that I live in is multiracial (much like the people I know), and the best television gives some representation of what the world is really like.

Also, in case there was ever any doubt, I think we can all agree that both The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air are miles better than the shows I just spent two hours writing about - and not because they star black actors but because they're told from fresh perspectives and the writing is sharp and edgy. I mean, talk about a show standing up to the test of time; it's still hard to beat The Cosby Show in terms of pure, unadulterated hilarity, and now this is done I can switch from Wings to The Cos on Netflix and get ready for my next big-ass post. And as for the Prince, I will watch it any day of the week - even Ted Danson can't touch Will Smith on charisma and charm.

Smell ya later!