Discover the most popular TV show the year you were born

1990: Cheers

Cheers is an NBC sitcom that ran from 1982 until 1993, and everybody knows its name! (Get it? The show’s catchphrase is “where everybody knows your name”…) The show was set in a bar — named Cheers — in the Boston area, filled with colorful locals and the bar regulars. Most of the show takes place in the bar, where the bartenders and regulars rubbed shoulders and discussed their issues.

The show had a seriously rocky start, and that’s not an exaggeration. The first season of Cheers ranked almost last in the ratings — 74th out of 77 shows — but they didn’t give up hope. And thankfully they didn’t, because the show went on to become one of the highest rated shows in the US, and has gone down in history as one of the best shows on television. By the second season, the ratings picked up, and after the third season, the show regularly rated in the top 5 shows in the United States.

For a show that started out at the bottom, it still went on to do great things. Cheers was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series every season until it went off the air in 1993. Over the years, it earned an unheard of 117 Emmy nominations, and went home with 28 of them. The show also spawned the spin-off Frasier, which went on to become a huge hit in its own right.