Blogger Lance Mannion always holds up Cheers as one of the premier television comedies of all time. Right now, I'm watching Cheers and Frasier in tandem, and I'm up to Season 5 for both. Cheers has truly archetypical characters, and is very funny, but Frasier makes me laugh out loud in every episode, even though I've seen them each a dozen times or more.
Perhaps the thing that makes Cheers the less funny of the two, for me, is that I know the whole story - the center couple ultimately does not stay together. And so much of the humor is one person insulting another (Diane/Sam, Sam/Diane, Carla/Cliff), which grates on my humanity after a while.
Presumably Lance Mannion likes Cheers so much because he identifies with Sam - I just saw the LM episode a few days ago - and certainly I always identified with Diane. But her story is a sad one. Whereas there is no one on Frasier with whom I identify (aside from Niles).
Frasier won Emmys 5 years in a row, I believe - a record - and I can see why. It plays to the strengths of the actors in an amazing way. Ep. 1 of Season 5 - Frasier's Imaginary Friend - is one of my favorite episodes and has one of the best-delivered lines in the series. In any series. And David Hyde Pierce is possibly the finest comedic actor of this generation. Posture, gesture, facial expression, timing, delivery - he can do it all, and plays the piano too.
Plus, Frasier has Eddie (see esp. Season 4).
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