It was the cold openings. The first season or two had the slackest, dullest, all-around unfunniest cold openings in series history. All the great cold openings people remember came from the third season onward. No wonder Cheers was so slow to win its audience. People tuning in during the first two seasons watched a blah cold opening and thought, "Well, if the rest of the show is going to be this bad..."
shareThat's not true at all. They were always funny, and retro actively the first two seasons of Cheers are considered the very best of all the seasons.
X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.
I hate sitcom cold openings in general. Just start the episode and lets get going I don't need these lame sketches at the beginning that have no bearing on the plot. Not to mention all the time spent writing these sketches could've been spent working on the scripts of the actual episodes.
shareThe Cheers writing staff has two Emmys for their writing. They did alright.
X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.
I wasn't knocking the show or saying the writing sucked. I'm just saying the time spent writing those cold opens could've been spent better elsewhere.
shareThat's debatable. Some of them were very funny.
X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.
It was the lower-level writers who would write the cold opens. They had to work their way up to get their name on an episode. It was just the farm system they had back then. Not that I don't agree with you - but they were tradition at the time.
shareGiven how popular the show is, the low ratings when the show first aired kind of surprised me.
Metallica and Iron Maiden are Bronies
Believe it or not, Seinfeld started out with crappy ratings as well.
RIP Matt Roberts. You were great.
And by the end of Seinfeld, my wife and I realized how mean spirited the show was. What is it about a show that starts out great, and when the writers start running out of ideas, they just make the cast always angry and yelling almost all the time.
shareDid you know they used the same cold opening twice in the first season?
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The one with Chuck, I believe, and then spraying down, decontaminating everything he touched?
RIP Gene Wilder. RIP Robert Vaughn. RIP Carrie Fisher. RIP William Christopher. 2016 is the worst!