If nothing else, Thursday will bring an end to the avalanche of what’s-it-feel-like-to-say-goodbye-and-what-will-you-be-doing-next interviews with the stars, co-stars, ex-stars, writers and bar stools of “Cheers.”
At 10 p.m. Thursday on NBC-Ch. 5, the show will end what has been a creatively and financially successful 11-year run-275 episodes. There should be about 50 million people watching, give or take 10 million or so and not including the entire populations of such places as China or Sweden.
The end of a long-running TV series has become a public relations event on par with the Super Bowl, attended with all the lists, stories and interviews that media minds can manufacture.
But let’s not fool ourselves; it is all part of one final push for a ratings-and advertising revenue-bonanza. That virtually every major news organization aids the networks’ grasp for a cash register ringing farewell says much about the ways the media can be herded onto a bandwagon.
I liked “Cheers.” I also liked “The Wonder Years,” which bowed out last week with considerably less hoopla.
I’m sorry to see them go. TV can ill afford to lose quality programs. And with their passing, I am again amazed how a TV series can so work its way under our skin, into our lives. It suggests that there is an alarming lack of pleasure in our real, daily lives. Provide a few laughs, a few huggable characters and, yes, a few people goofy enough to make us feel superior, and most of us will become devoted fans.
“What am I going to do at 8 o’clock on Thursdays next week?” I heard a colleague say.
I have no answer, but that TV life goes on-in reruns. Now you’ll be able to see “Cheers” only 32 times a week instead of 33.
On Saturday, a terrific guy named Joe Parkin died. He was the president of the Retirement Research Foundation, an organization that, among many things, presented yearly Media Owl awards to filmmakers and producers whose work represents positive images of the elderly. Parkin was 70 years old. That’s roughly 25,550 daily episodes. There are no reruns in life.
