Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/10/2007 Rating: Nr

It looks great: season two of the situation comedy many consider the best ever produced on American television has a superb presentation on this DVD collection. The colors are rich, the images sharp--a vast improvement over those murky reruns in perpetual TV syndication.

Then, of course, there are the consistently brilliant episodes from Cheers' sophomore year. Despite its low-rated debut in 1982, the ensemble farce set in a Boston bar confidently returned with several strong story arcs, including the turbulent, screwball romance between intellectual poseur Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) and affable primitive Sam Malone (Ted Danson), romantic conflicts for the sexually voracious and deeply cynical barmaid Carla (Rhea Perlman), and marital separation for beloved barfly Norm (George Wendt). With John Ratzenberger signing on as a full-time cast member (playing pompous jive-slinger and postman Cliff Claven), and those opaque one-liners by the clueless Coach (Nicholas Colasanto), Cheers was firing on all cylinders.

Episode highlights include "They Call Me Mayday," in which talk-show personality Dick Cavett, playing himself, convinces Sam the public would be interested in the former major league pitcher's autobiography--a notion that throws the unpublished, would-be novelist Diane into disbelief. Also wonderful is "Where There's a Will," guest-starring George Gaynes as a rich, dying man who leaves the gang $100,000 on a paper napkin will. "No Help Wanted" finds Sam's friendship with down-on-his-luck accountant Norm strained when the latter has a go at the bar's books, while the great "Coach Buries a Grudge" features the addled, elder statesman of Cheers delivering a memorable eulogy for a friend after discovering the dead man had an affair with his wife. Opinions vary about the worthiness of Cheers' latter years (the show ended in 1993), but no one disputes the merit of its groundbreaking start. --Tom Keogh

I again was very pleased at the promptness to get this shipped. It was to be a fathers day gift at the last minute and was thrilled it was available and it got to me so quick.

In season two the Cheers characters really gain traction as they continue to define and expand their individual characters. This season offers sharp writing and a very funny look at the doomed Sam/Diane mismatch romance. Coach (soon to be sorely missed following his death and replacement by Woody) is wonderfully confused in these episodes. Watching now, one realizes again what a quality cast was assembled for this show.

During an interview found in the extras section of the DVD set, George Wendt explains that Cheers owes its life to a network executive who decided that they would show quality TV until the audience found it. Which is a good policy, given that most shows don't find their footing until their second season. Not to mention that in today's market, the show's first season, which topped out at number 13, would have likely seen them canned before a second season could begin.

By season two, Cheers knows exactly what it is. The characters have had their final tweaks, the relationships all laid out, and while the focus is on the love-hate relationship between Sam and Diane, the entire cast gets to shine, repeatedly. Stand outs include Rhea Perlman playing Carla's sex-fiend sister and Cliff standing up to a bar bully by displaying kung-fu skills he doesn't actually have. Round it out with a freaky fortune telling carnival scale and the appearances of Christopher Lloyd as a super-pretentious artist and Dan Hedaya as Carl's super-sleaze of an ex-husband, and this is the season where Cheers really takes off.

If only you could own a copy of it for yourself. Oh wait, you can :)


EXTRA FEATURES =

Strictly Top-Shelf: The Guys Behind the Bar (9:30 min.)
Largely culled from old Entertainment Tonight interview footage (from 1983!), the feature has Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Les Charles, Glen Charles, and James Burrow, talking specifically about the second season. To fill that out, contemporary footage with Ted Danson, George Wendt, and Rhea Perlman provides an interesting retrospective contrast. While mostly of interest to the big fans, the fact that Paramount went to the trouble to dig up twenty-year-old ET footage should be applauded.

That, and George Wendt explaining how several years of over-the-shoulder shots past him at Ted Danson has made it so that even today fans can recognize him from behind, is hilarious.

Cliff's Notes: The Wisdom of Cliff Clavin (4:00 min)
Similar to the compilation of Cliff-isms in the first season set, this one is peppered with some interview footage of George Wendt talking about working with John Ratzenberger. Not as much as one might like, but a nice garnish just the same.

Carla The Comeback Queen: Insults for Every Occasion (3:30)
Here it is a wacky compilation of Carla-isms. Which is good, as season two was a stellar season for Carla. Again, the recent interview footage found in the first featurette, in this case Ted Danson, is put in to add a little commentary to the collection of verbal hate!

Di Another Day: Diane Chambers from A-Z (3:35)
Ted Danson returns to kick off the last character scene compilation.

Gag Reel: Bloopers From Season 2 (4:24)
Oh, if only they'd done one for Season One. But I'm not picky. I'll take what I can get. In this case, you get almost five minutes of a fuzzy old video blooper collection. Every TV show has them, they just have to be found. Given that sometimes they are lost in a closet somewhere, it's always a treasure when a disc producer finds them and digs them out for the rest of us to see.

Of particular merit is getting to see Nicholas Colasanto (Coach) goofing around as himself, not as the character we most identify him

When I watch this DVD I think of how impressive Cheers was in that it had heart - genuine affection and incredible rapport between characters - but was also irreverent in its humor and unshy of the racy and the less than wholly tasteful. Danson and Long in particular deserve credit for their outstanding performances and at least partial credit for their great chemistry (as there's always a component of that kind of spark between actors that seems entirely left to hance, I think) but the writing team was also formiddable in that it consistently avoided veering into the saccharine excess that has marked so many romantic plotlines in the sit. comedy genre, particularly of Cheers' day. There are too many worthwile episodes to justify my listing them here, but this DVD constitutes what is undoutedly among my top 3 favorites of the show's 11 seasons.

Though it was remarkably consistent for laughs throughout its run, I personally prefer Cheers in the pre-Kirstie Alley days. It's not that seasons 6-11, or Alley even, were bad, per se. But it was a different show once Shelley Long left. She really deserves all the lauds she received for her portrayal of the neurotic but well-inteded elitist Diane Chambers. Along with the writers she created one of TV's truly memorable, suprisingly multi-dimensional characters in this season and the one preceding it.

The entire cast is stellar, their interaction so natural (also evident in the short but very amusing blooper reel) and the writing unusually (for its genre) and mercifully restrained in its laugh grabs. In the post-Seinfeld era, few sitcoms have seamlessly combined irreverence and warmth the way Cheers did. I miss(ed) it (until I got the DVDs, that is :-).

One of the greatest television comedies in history, Cheers is an absolute "must see" for anyone who's ever had a regular hangout "where everybody knows your name". The shows centers itself around the friendly neighborhood Boston bar named Cheers. The bar is owned by former Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Sam has three employees - bartender Ernie "Coach" Pantusso (Nicholas Colasanto) and waitresses Carla Tortelli (Rhea Pearlman) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). Regular barflies Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) round out a strong supporting cast.

The Cheers (Season 2) DVD offers a number of hilarious episodes and ignites Sam and Diane's long-lasting, on-again/off-again romance. This is also the first season in which Cliff Clavin is an "opening-credits" member of the cast (even though he appeared in most of season one's episodes). Guest appearances by Fred Dryer (of Hunter fame), Dick Cavett, Harry Anderson (of Night Court fame), and Christopher Lloyd (of Taxi and Back To The Future fame) make for some memorable comic sequences. The season ends with Sam and Diane's romance on shaky ground...

Below is a list of episodes included on the Cheers (Season 2) DVD:

Episode 23 (Power Play)
Episode 24 (Little Sister Don't Cha)
Episode 25 (Personal Business)
Episode 26 (Homicidal Ham)
Episode 27 (Sumner's Return)
Episode 28 (Affairs of the Heart)
Episode 29 (Old Flames)
Episode 30 (Manager Coach)
Episode 31 (They Called Me Mayday)
Episode 32 (How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Call You Back)
Episode 33 (Just Three Friends)
Episode 34 (Where There's A Will)
Episode 35 (Battle of the Exes)
Episode 36 (No Help Wanted)
Episode 37 (And Coachie Makes Three)
Episode 38 (Cliff's Rocky Moment)
Episode 39 (Fortune and Men's Weight)
Episode 40 (Snow Job)
Episode 41 (Coach Buries a Grudge)
Episode 42 (Norman's Conquest)
Episode 43 (I'll Be Seeing You: Part 1)
Episode 44 (I'll Be Seeing You: Part 2)

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