Created by director James Burrows and writer-producers Glen and Les Charles, Cheers would become the last blast of pre-irony prime-time. There was no callous snark, no deconstructive riffs, and only a handful of time-stamped pop-culture references. For the most part, people sat around a bar and talked. But despite its elemental simplicity, the show sparked a quiet revolution in the way TV comedy was produced, with each half-hour episode playing into a soap-style arc of love, death, and bar-bets that would go on for eleven seasons. “It was something bigger than a sitcom,” says early Cheers writer-producer Sam Simon, who’d later help develop The Simpsons. “It was a sweeping narrative. [Nowadays], producers sit down with the network at the beginning of the year and talk about the arc of the show. That’s because of Glen and Les and Jimmy.”

• “The Best TV Show That’s Ever Been” | GQ

Essential reading for one and all.