Cheers
Long before Lost, there was a series about the connections among a group of unrelated people on an island. This island just happened to have stools around it and an alcoholic ex-pitcher pulling beers in the middle of it. Cheers' settingnot home, not an officeset it at the margins of its characters' lives; a bar is where you go to get away from the big events of your life, not live them out. That meant that Cheers was free to find humor in the little thingsCliff's obsession with trivia, Norm's greetings, Carla's insults. And the one big thing driving the show's early years, Sam and Diane's bickering romance, was a rare will-they-won't-they-oh-they-just-did storyline that didn't disappoint. Cheers was playful, urbane and bracing as a tall cold one.

















Cartoons of the Week
Tell No One: That French Mystique
A Gourmet Family Meal for $10?
Disabled Models: A UK Reality TV Hit
Mopping Up the CO2 Deluge
Among the FARC's True Believers
Jesse Helms: Stubborn on the Right
10 Things to Like About $4 Gas
Buckminster Fuller: The Big Thinker
Looking Kindly on Vigilante Justice