An 11-year run from 1982-1993 made Cheers the longest airing comedy on NBC, and rightly so. The clueless-playboy and former Red Sox pitcher, Sam Malone, was the star of the show and was portrayed by then bit-actor Ted Danson. The setting for the romantic comedy was a Boston bar named Cheers, which was regularly visited by beer buddies, postal carrier Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) and accountant Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Sam’s womanizing life-style was sorely tested, when he hired the intellectual-highbrow feminist Diane Chambers as a cocktail waitress, after she was left stranded at the bar by her soon-to-be-husband.

Diane and Sam began a love-hate relationship that evolved into a tempestuous romance, that ebbed and flowed over the first five seasons.

The series became wildly popular, a few years after it premiered, as the characters evolved and the story line swiftly changed. Acerbic one-liners emanated non-stop with the entire bar crowd, but became the only way in which Diane and waitress Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) communicated with each other. Pompous Psychiatrist Frasier Crane joined the bar scene after meeting Diane, while she was treated for severe depression, at the Goldenbrook Psychiatric Hospital where she landed after a devastating break-up with Sam. She and Dr. Crane had a fling, but Diane jilted him, in Italy, on their wedding day. Diane eventually left her waitress job for the chance to become an author.

In the ever-changing storyline, Sam sells Cheers, buys a boat and takes off for regions unknown, that is until he sinks his boat. He returns to his beloved bar and is hired on as a bartender by the new manager Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley). Sam begins a web of scheming to become the Cheer’s owner once again. He succeeds in that endeavor, in season eight, after exposing Rebecca’s rich haughty boyfriend as the instigator in a hostile takeover of the corporation, which owned the bar.

This ground-breaking comedy won 26 Emmy Awards over the span of the show, and fostered the endearing and successful series Frasier. The slapstick laugh-out-loud charmer has earned a special place as one of my all-time favorite shows, so it is a stroke of luck that all 11 seasons have been released on DVD.