The smash comedy “Cheers”, set in a bar with an unrepentant babe hound, wise-cracking waitresses, befuddled bartenders and beer-guzzling barflies, celebrates its 40th anniversary today as a timeless delight.

Whether “Cheers” is an old favourite or still needs an introduction, it holds up to modern viewing.

Some argue that the sitcom’s feat of casting, consistency and sharp writing is unmatched.

Few comedies have made it so long without a dip in quality and after 11 seasons, “Cheers” said goodbye with the 90-minute finale aired in 1993.

Join FMT in celebrating “Cheers” that was filled with such humour and finesse that it’s easy to see why it remains popular four decades later.

On Sept 30, 1982, NBC premiered the show about a bar owned by reformed alcoholic and womaniser Sam Malone (Ted Danson).

It gave audiences many a laugh from the employees and patrons of the bar in Boston “where everybody knows your name, and
they’re always glad you came.”

Two of the funniest characters in the bar were barflies Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) who poured hilarious zingers straight from the tap.

Never mind that nobody cried funnier than Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) who was usually neurotic and unsure of herself compared to the aspiring poet waitress Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) who was confident and full of herself.

Norm generated a buzz the second he walked into the bar. In one scene when Sam asked him, “What are you up to, Norm? he replied: “My ideal weight…if I were 11 feet tall.”

He was rarely seen without a sudsy glass of beer in his hand and often spewed witty one-liners and funny questions to piss off those around him.

Norm: “Hey Frasier, you are a doctor. What happens to old, dead skin?”

Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer): “Apparently it sits on barstools and drinks beer all day.”

On his birthday, he tells Sam to give him a beer, stick a candle in it “and I’ll blow out my liver.”

When the nonplussed bartender Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) asked him, “How would a beer feel, Mr Peterson?”, he sniped back: “Pretty nervous if I were in the room.”

He had to have his beer fast, so when Woody at another instance greeted him, “How’s it going, Mr Peterson?”, he snorted what sounded to Woody like “poor”.

Woody: “I’m sorry to hear that.” Norm: “No, I mean pour.”

Cliff, everyone’s favourite mailman and a show-off, said the least-normal things and considered himself a master of little-known facts.

Many of the random (and untrue) facts that Cliff offered were ad-libbed by him.

He tells Rebecca: “I don’t know why you’re so concerned about your figure. You know, back in the Renaissance times, full-figured women were revered.”

Norm: “Get out.”

Cliff: “It’s true. Artists would only paint big, voluptuous women. In fact, that’s how they got rid of a lot of their old paint.”

Cliff wins a spot on a Boston taping of Jeopardy! and with categories like “civil servants” and “stamps around the world,” it’s not surprising that he racks up more than double his opponents.

But the final Jeopardy! clue of “Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur” is his undoing when he bets everything and answers, “Three people who’ve never been in my kitchen?”

In the season nine “Veggie Boyd” episode, Cliff’s feelings get hurt when everyone loves Sam’s new trivia napkins. Still, it wasn’t the end of the “trivia king”.

Both Wendt and Ratzenberger auditioned for the same role in the pilot, a minor character named George who had a single line: “Beer!”

The character’s name was changed to Hillary Norman Peterson when Wendt was cast.

As the bar’s resident lush, he did not drink real beer but near beer, a weakened strain of ale mixed with a bit of salt to keep a perfect head on the glass at all times.

But Ratzenberger wasn’t about to give up so easily. “As I was leaving the office after the audition, I turned around and asked them, ‘Do you have a bar know-it-all?” he recalled in an interview.

While they each have moments of deeper character growth, they portray the everyday people who gather around the bar, not as strangers, but as friends.

They talk to each other, joke around, share what’s bothering them, and wait for exciting things to happen in the midst of everyday life.

Still, they had to deal with Diane who drove everyone nuts, so much so when she cried, “I’m having a bad day. Aren’t I allowed to have a bad day?”.

The unforgiving waitress Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman), hit back, “Sure, you’ve given us plenty. Keep one for yourself.”

Some shows have aged rather poorly and their jokes are no longer amusing to today’s audiences but such is not the case with the Emmy-gobbling classic that was “Cheers”.

Director James Burrows and writers Glen Charles and Les Charles had a remarkable knack for crafting hilarious situations and saying it in just the right way.

By 1993, at the end of its 11-season run, it was earning an unheard-of 26 million viewers per week.

“Cheers” had 275 episodes and earned a record 117 Emmy nominations (28 wins) and claimed six Golden Globe awards.