1980s & 1990s COMEDIES
83”
ICONIC EPISODE: CHEERS BAR CLOSES IN SERIES FINALE
CURATOR’S NOTE: “The Cheers bar has the special designation of having taken longer to acquire of anything I have ever archived. Actor Ted Danson, who played bartender Sam Malone on Cheers , originally inquired about it on my behalf and was told that the bar was ‘somewhere’ in storage. His e ff orts hit a brick wall. As did mine, despite contacting various individuals every three months from 1994 to 2014. When I found out where the bar was stored, I decided to take photos to show studio execs its current level of care (including a deceased skunk decaying in the back bar, brass rails pitted beyond recognition, and scenery stacked high on top—digging into the very bar counter where Norm & Cli ff hung out for 273 episodes). My persistence paid o ff and more than 20 years after the final episode first aired, the Cheers bar was moved to its new home in the Comisar Collection. It looked like its glory days were far behind it. But after 250+ hours of intricate restoration and conservation, this iconic set piece was returned to its production-used condition. We are lucky here in Los Angeles to have exceptional, professional art conservators willing to treat an artifact of pop culture with the same degree of detail, skill and respect as a Rembrandt painting. Such a high skill level is not cheap, and at more than $150 an hour for ‘visual integration’ (trying to reduce the appearance of deep gauges, discoloration and other damage caused by indi ff erent studio warehousing), the overall preservation e ff ort and related storage to date is clicking in around $50,000. Doing this kind of work is much more than a job to me, and I’m grateful for every day I get to do it. But materials given over to this collection ‘at no cost’ (in many cases instead of being hauled to the dump) require an incredible commitment with the outlay of time, money, and bandwidth. Some wonder why I invest in museum-quality care that very often exceeds the art market value of the object. I wonder why back in the day, nobody cared enough to throw a few furniture pads over the top of an iconic set such as this so I didn’t have to.” - James Comisar
Cheers bar logo front door (center) from Cheers with curator James Comisar looking in. Photo credit: Forbes Magazine.
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