Why Cheers still matters 25 years after its series finale

Esquire

Cheers ended its 11-season run on May 20, 1993 with 93.5 million Americans watching, the second highest-rated TV series finale of all time after M*A*S*H. "For all its highs and lows, Cheers represents a pinnacle of American pop culture, culminating in a record-breaking finale that caught the attention of millions of viewers," says Tyler Coates. "Twenty-five years after its final episode, Cheers remains one of the great American sitcoms." Coates visited the Cheers bar in Boston not that long ago, and says of the experience: "Being there was a reminder that TV is ultimately important; it’s one thing that can unite us all when we’re at our most divided, and the best TV show can appeal to everyone subtly enough that the audience might not actually realize how much they have in common with the others who watch it. Many years later, after all, we are still thinking about Cheers because it's still so present in the TV we consume today—and because it's nice to think about the distant past, relatively less fraught than our present, and ignore the problems of the world that didn't seep into the entertainment we enjoyed."

ALSO:

• Creators Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows look back at the series finale and the potential of a revival
• Cheers had one of the greatest closing scenes in TV history
• Here are nine essential episodes for getting caught up on Cheers
• May 20 is also the 25th anniversary of the Cheers cast getting wasted live on Jay Leno's Tonight Show from Boston
• At the time, Leno called the infamous live episode "a huge mistake. But that's OK. You win some and lose some"