Product Details

• Actors: Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Nicholas Colasanto, Rhea Perlman, John Ratzenberger
• Directors: James Burrows
• Writers: James Burrows, David Angell, David Lloyd, Earl Pomerantz, Glen Charles
• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English (Unknown)
• Dubbed: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Paramount
• DVD Release Date: January 6, 2004
• Run Time: 539 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000E32X2
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,799 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Cheers: The Complete Second Season" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It looks great: season two of the situation comedy many consider the best ever produced on American television has a superb presentation on this DVD collection. The colors are rich, the images sharp--a vast improvement over those murky reruns in perpetual TV syndication.

Then, of course, there are the consistently brilliant episodes from Cheers' sophomore year. Despite its low-rated debut in 1982, the ensemble farce set in a Boston bar confidently returned with several strong story arcs, including the turbulent, screwball romance between intellectual poseur Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) and affable primitive Sam Malone (Ted Danson), romantic conflicts for the sexually voracious and deeply cynical barmaid Carla (Rhea Perlman), and marital separation for beloved barfly Norm (George Wendt). With John Ratzenberger signing on as a full-time cast member (playing pompous jive-slinger and postman Cliff Claven), and those opaque one-liners by the clueless Coach (Nicholas Colasanto), Cheers was firing on all cylinders.

Episode highlights include "They Call Me Mayday," in which talk-show personality Dick Cavett, playing himself, convinces Sam the public would be interested in the former major league pitcher's autobiography--a notion that throws the unpublished, would-be novelist Diane into disbelief. Also wonderful is "Where There's a Will," guest-starring George Gaynes as a rich, dying man who leaves the gang $100,000 on a paper napkin will. "No Help Wanted" finds Sam's friendship with down-on-his-luck accountant Norm strained when the latter has a go at the bar's books, while the great "Coach Buries a Grudge" features the addled, elder statesman of Cheers delivering a memorable eulogy for a friend after discovering the dead man had an affair with his wife. Opinions vary about the worthiness of Cheers' latter years (the show ended in 1993), but no one disputes the merit of its groundbreaking start. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

22 episodes on 4 DVDs. 1983-84/color/9 hrs/NR/fullscreen.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Show, Excellent video transfer to DVD. January 9, 2004

By cyclista

Format:DVD

I was unsure of how the video transfer to DVD would be for a 20 year old TV show. I was surprised to find that it has only a slight amount of graininess and little or no detectable video noise! Some episodes are better than others, but I found the video quality to be quite good. Certainly the picture is much better than what I see on my cable signal. The audio, Dolby Digital 2.0, is acceptable for a sit-com. The voices are understandable with only occasional distortion. The audio sounded a little flat at times.

"The Guys Behind the Bar" discusses Season 2 in general. I didn't find it to be very interesting and I probably won't watch it again. "Cliff's Notes", "Carla The Comeback Queen", "Di Another Day" do not contain new footage. Instead, they showed clips from several episodes that show off the named actor/actress. They were nicely done. The bloopers segment was laugh out loud funny, although it was short. The extras are not a reason to buy the DVD set, in my opinion.

I like Shelley Long and Season 2 has several episodes about the on-off relationship between her and Ted Danson. Many episodes are very funny. I liked the episode "Just Three Friends". Markie Post plays Diane's friend who is attracted to Ted Danson! "Cheers" does a good job of portraying everyday conflicts, and the fact that it is set in a bar becomes unimportant.

Here are the episodes, with a tiny description:

1. Power Play (Diane & Sam together? You gotta be kidding!)
2. Little Sister Don't Cha (Carla plays her own sister)
3. Personal Business (Can Diane get another job?)
4. Homicidal Ham (Diane's blind date)
5. Sumner's Return (The return of Diane's former fiance)
6. Affairs of the Heart (A man is interested in Carla)
7. Old Flames (Can he break up Diane & Sam?) This episode won 2 Emmys.
8. Manager Coach (Coach coaches a Little League team)
9. They Called Me Mayday (Writing Sam's autobiography)
10. How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Call You Back (Sam says "I love you")
11. Just Three Friends (Markie Post likes Sam)
12. Where There's a Will (A dying man tends bar)
13. Battle of the Exes (Carla's ex shows up)
14. No Help Wanted (Sam could get a BIG income tax refund)
15. And Coachie Makes Three (Diane and Sam want to be alone)
16. Cliff's Rocky Moment (Cliff gets into it with another patron)
17. Fortune and Men's Weight (A fortune-telling scale)
18. Snow Job (Sam lies to Diane)
19. Coach Buries a Grudge (I have to say nice things about WHO?")
20. Norman's Conquest (Norman's romantic interest)
21. & 22 I'll Be Seeing You (Part 1 & Part 2) (An artist paints Diane)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic season of great sitcom May 19, 2005

By ontheEspie

Format:DVD

When I watch this DVD I think of how impressive Cheers was in that it had heart - genuine affection and incredible rapport between characters - but was also irreverent in its humor and unshy of the racy and the less than wholly tasteful. Danson and Long in particular deserve credit for their outstanding performances and at least partial credit for their great chemistry (as there's always a component of that kind of spark between actors that seems entirely left to hance, I think) but the writing team was also formiddable in that it consistently avoided veering into the saccharine excess that has marked so many romantic plotlines in the sit. comedy genre, particularly of Cheers' day. There are too many worthwile episodes to justify my listing them here, but this DVD constitutes what is undoutedly among my top 3 favorites of the show's 11 seasons.

Though it was remarkably consistent for laughs throughout its run, I personally prefer Cheers in the pre-Kirstie Alley days. It's not that seasons 6-11, or Alley even, were bad, per se. But it was a different show once Shelley Long left. She really deserves all the lauds she received for her portrayal of the neurotic but well-inteded elitist Diane Chambers. Along with the writers she created one of TV's truly memorable, suprisingly multi-dimensional characters in this season and the one preceding it.

The entire cast is stellar, their interaction so natural (also evident in the short but very amusing blooper reel) and the writing unusually (for its genre) and mercifully restrained in its laugh grabs. In the post-Seinfeld era, few sitcoms have seamlessly combined irreverence and warmth the way Cheers did. I miss(ed) it (until I got the DVDs, that is :-).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, happy day! January 7, 2004

By jenbird VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

I was counting the days until the second season of "Cheers" was released, and I was not disappointed. Not by the DVD itself, anyway. I noticed that Amazon raised their price by a few dollars between pre-order and release date. In the end, I bought the set for much less at Target. Just a word to the wise.

On to the DVD itself..."Cheers" really hits its stride in the second season, with the beginning of the Sam & Diane relationship we all watched with amusement, interest, and amazement back in the day. The extras are slightly more substantial this time, too; while they all feature scenes from only the second season, we have "Diane Chambers from A to Z," "Carla's Insults for Every Occasion," "Cliff's Notes of Wisdom," and "Strictly Top Shelf: The Guys Behind the Bar," which includes both new and 1983 interviews with Jim Burrows, Ted Danson, George Wendt, and Rhea Perlman. I was a little disappointed no one even mentioned the late Nicholas Colasanto (Coach) and what it was like to work with him.

I'm hoping future "Cheers" DVD releases have a big, meaty documentary about the show, along the lines of the "E! True Hollywood Story." Don't get me wrong, I love the episodes themselves, but part of the fun of a DVD is the potential for lots of behind the scenes goodness.