I’d just like to point at that Nick at Nite is running Cheers this fall. Yes, that’s right, Cheers. It was bad enough when Happy Days graduated from daytime syndication to Nitely showings, and i could excuse the addition of The Wonder Years because it was a quirky show and it was set in the era that is the bread-and-butter of the channel’s programming. However, Cheers is from the 80’s. Cheers ran in my lifetime; in fact, it used to be my favourite show. I remember being in sixth grade and desperately trying to stay awake through the movie-length finalé and not quite making it and having to glean the last details from my History teacher the next day inbetween classes. There is (lamentably) a show still in first run Must-See-TeeVee downward spiral that features a character from Cheers.
I remember when Diane episodes were prime 7pm syndication fodder, and then where we were upgraded to the shinnier funnier Kirstey Alley episodes. And, then, they slowly started trickling away, giving way to Coach, and then The Simpsons and finally Friends. And, i suppose just one more measure of how old you are is how many of your favourite shows are syndicated, and how many more are owned by a Turner Network, but somehow it doesn’t all add up in my head. When i was little i knew that Bewitched was a better built affair than Gilligan’s Island, and that i’d take Donna Reed over Dobey Gillis. But, inexplicably, Donna has been absent from the N@N schedule for years, and Gilligan is up next after I Love Lucy, the Christmas marathon of which i still have recorded on a Beta tape that still works in the Sony Beta Machine that’s older than i am.
Yesterday this page turned a year old, and in a month i’ll be twenty. However, i’m starting to get the feeling that age isn’t so much the years that pass so much as it is the scenes you remember. And the episodes you forget.