British TV Executive Admits He Might Be ‘Insane’ for Trying to Remake ‘Cheers’
The bar where everybody knows your name (as long as you’re a functional alcoholic who spends 90 percent of your waking hours in a below ground watering hole) was the subject of one of the greatest TV comedies of all time: Cheers. From the Sam and Diane romance, to Norm’s witticisms, to Cliff Clavin’s unhinged theories, there was so much to love about Cheers. It’s still only the second-best show to feature Frasier Crane, though.
Surely remaking Cheers, an iconic series that very much succeeded on the charms of its unique cast during a very specific moment in time, is a horrible, horrible idea — but someone’s going ahead and doing it anyway.
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As reported by Deadline, it was recently announced that U.K. studio Big Talk is currently pitching a brand new version of Cheers, which would shift the action from a Boston Bar to an English pub. Simon Nye, who made the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly, would serve as the showrunner. Although, you’d think the fact that his show was remade in the U.S. with Rob Schneider would have put him off of the idea of remakes, and possibly the medium of television altogether.
Big Talk CEO Kenton Allen seemed to be pretty aware that this project was a daunting task, calling the Cheers remake a “huge honor” to work on, while also noting that it would be a “huge challenge” to get right. Even more candidly, Allen joked that he “might be insane” for attempting to remake Cheers.
A lot of fans seem to agree with that sentiment. People on social media complained that remaking Cheers is a “terrible idea doomed to fail.” Others urged the powers that be to “just leave it alone” and “just make new things, please.” Of course, “new ideas” are tough and don’t come with a familiar logo and a folksy theme song.
To be fair, classic sitcoms get remade in other countries all the time. The English were probably just as skeptical when it was announced that Americans were producing their own version of The Office. And there are countless versions of Everybody Loves Raymond around the world, presumably prompting people to ask “isn’t there anything else on?” in a variety of languages.
If this show goes forward, it wouldn’t even be the first foreign remake of Cheers; in 2011 a Spanish version, about a former footballer turned womanizing bartender, aired on Telecino.
The following year, it was announced that we were getting an Irish remake of Cheers, in which the Sam Malone character was a “former hurling star,” although this series seemingly never came to fruition.
So it’s entirely possible that the new U.K. version will meet a similar fate and, not unlike Norm’s wife Vera, will never see the light of day.
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