> Cheers director James Burrows has long denied his show was lifted from Park St. Under, maintaining that it was inspired by Duffy’s Tavern, a radio program created in the 1940s by his father, Abe, a Tony Award–winning humorist and writer. The troika of Cheers creators... claimed to have modeled the Cheers bar on Boston’s Bull & Finch, which they visited while developing the sitcom.
> The similarities between the two make an argument for some kind of influence. The question of whether Cheers took something from Park St. Under, however, obscures something vital: As special as the little Boston sitcom was, and there’s reason to think it was truly loved, it was never going to be Cheers. It had its shot. ABC Entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos... told Bennett, “I like them, but I just want to tell you they’re really not deserving of being on the ABC network level.”
> One reason, perhaps, why the legend lived on so long is that Cheers affirmed that there really was something great about Park St. Under.
> To me, the things that are so lovable about Park St. Under—the local feel, the rough-around-the-edges inside jokes that make it seem familiar—aren’t the things that made Cheers such a hit.... With its production woes and shoestring budget, she didn’t even think season two of Park St. Under was likely to happen. The claim that Cheers made off with a ready-made hit misses what the local show really was—the good and the bad.
> Does this mean the legend is finally done? Doubtful... The claim that Cheers looted the show is just too juicy and has been part of local legend for too long to be forgotten entirely.
> Three men developed and created the Cheers television series: Glen and Les Charles ("Glen and Les") and James Burrows, who identified themselves as "two Mormons and a Jew."
> The original idea was a group of workers who interacted like a family, the goal being a concept similar to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The creators considered making an American version of the British Fawlty Towers, set in a hotel or an inn. When the creators settled on a bar as their setting, the show began to resemble the radio program Duffy's Tavern, originally written and co-created by James Burrows' father Abe Burrows. They liked the idea of a tavern, as it provided a continuous stream of new people, for a variety of characters.
> Early discussions about the location of the show centered on Barstow, California, then Kansas City, Missouri. They eventually turned to the East Coast and finally Boston. The Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, which was the model for Cheers, was chosen from a phone book. When Glen Charles asked the bar's owner, Tom Kershaw, to shoot exterior and interior photos, he agreed, charging $1.
>Three men developed and created the Cheers television series: Glen and Les Charles ("Glen and Les") and James Burrows, who identified themselves as "two Mormons and a Jew."
I served my LDS mission in Nevada. One day, while tracting, we knocked on the door of the Charles brothers' parents. One of the sons' Emmys sat on the cable box on the TV.
Does that matter in terms of who the show's creators were? Writing credits are a rather political system that doesn't actually reflect who did the writing.
Like 12 people in a writer's room may contribute to an episode fairly equally, but only one person's name is semi-randomly chosen as the official writing credit.
> Cheers director James Burrows has long denied his show was lifted from Park St. Under, maintaining that it was inspired by Duffy’s Tavern, a radio program created in the 1940s by his father, Abe, a Tony Award–winning humorist and writer. The troika of Cheers creators... claimed to have modeled the Cheers bar on Boston’s Bull & Finch, which they visited while developing the sitcom.
> The similarities between the two make an argument for some kind of influence. The question of whether Cheers took something from Park St. Under, however, obscures something vital: As special as the little Boston sitcom was, and there’s reason to think it was truly loved, it was never going to be Cheers. It had its shot. ABC Entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos... told Bennett, “I like them, but I just want to tell you they’re really not deserving of being on the ABC network level.”
> One reason, perhaps, why the legend lived on so long is that Cheers affirmed that there really was something great about Park St. Under.
> To me, the things that are so lovable about Park St. Under—the local feel, the rough-around-the-edges inside jokes that make it seem familiar—aren’t the things that made Cheers such a hit.... With its production woes and shoestring budget, she didn’t even think season two of Park St. Under was likely to happen. The claim that Cheers made off with a ready-made hit misses what the local show really was—the good and the bad.
> Does this mean the legend is finally done? Doubtful... The claim that Cheers looted the show is just too juicy and has been part of local legend for too long to be forgotten entirely.