Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Of all the items in The Comisar Collection, the bar from Cheers might be the most recognizable. The moment it was assembled in Heritage Auctions’ headquarters – its wood-paneled sides reconnected, its brass railing reaffixed, its barware laid upon the lacquered top – onlookers began congregating in the hopes Sam Malone or Ernie “Coach” Pantusso or Woody Boyd might serve them a beer. They gravitated toward the corner where Norm Peterson held court alongside postman Cliff Clavin. And they looked around for Diane Chambers, Carla Tortelli, Rebecca Howe, Frasier Crane and the other regulars for whom the Boston bar was their home away from everything and anything else during 11 acclaimed seasons. Cheers was almost a workplace comedy presented as theatrical performance; seldom were the episodes that didn’t take place around that bar with those characters who’d become as beloved as family. The namesake wasn’t a real tavern, but from 1982 through 1993, this bar was where America pulled up a stool and nursed a cold one. Following the series’ last call, the bar went to a Hollywood museum that allowed bachelor-party attendees to spill their beers all over these memories. Comisar brought it back to life, and now it can go to your home, where, presumably, everybody knows your name.