Cheers is fantastic! Friends, just meh.
I would put both Seinfeld and Cheers on equal footing in my sitcom hierarchy. I don’t believe in setting rules about what you’re “supposed to get from a sitcom.” Seinfeld was funny as hell, and I don’t see why people find it as transgressive as they do. Even watching it as a high schooler, it didn’t seem so avant-garde and revolutionary, and I actually liked the characters! Then again, perhaps that says something about me. 
I also would put stuff like Soap up there in the best-of-the-best (or at least the seasons before the aliens.)
My problem with Friends is that it just seemed to me, from the episodes I watched, like more of the same-old, same-old mainstream pablum. Shows like that, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc. Ugh. Can’t stand 'em. Friends had perhaps more finesse than those, but still bored me.
Cheers by far was more entertaining. Friends was boring. Frazier was a Cheers spin off with huge success. Friends got nothing.
I was the same age as the characters on and the ideal demographic for Friends, and I loved the first two seasons. But I grew and matured, and they didn’t. That just turned me off.
Cheers was timeless. I still chuckle when I think about “Who are three people who’ve never been in my kitchen.” I don’t have any moments like that with Friends.
I was wondering about that myself. That post you quoted made it sound like @Heffalump_and_Roo’s real question was “Which is better, if you’ve never seen an episode of either one?”
Cheers is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Just 5 years ago my wife and I binged the whole series and it was still well done and hysterical. Friends wasn’t even good during its initial run.
In one of the later seasons, Lilith is pressuring Frasier to complete a will and Sam is concerned about his sperm count. Frasier finally relents and writes his will and Sam goes to a doctor but when he receives the results he’s too afraid to open the envelope and see what his count is.
The episode ends with an elderly Lilith and an adult Frederick in a lawyer’s office about to read Frasier’s will. He opens the envelope and is surprised to find that he’s got the results of Sam’s sperm test. The episode ends with Lilith saying, “That damn bar.”
There are some memorable moments from Friends, “We were on a break!,” but I just don’t think it was as well written or performed as Cheers.
I loathe ‘Friends’. I hate each and every one of them and Jennifer Anniston most of all. I realize I am railing against the establishment, and they are still swooned over and gossiped about, and there are entire cable channels 24/7 showing re-runs. I’ve tried to watch. I’VE TRIED. Can’t get through half an episode…Don’t care much for ‘Cheers’, but it is 10 x better. I can watch ‘Cheers’ in much the same way as, if the cupboard is bare, I can always make a peanut butter sandwich until I shop for better food, it will do till then. ‘Friends’ is off the table, would rather starve.
Friends is a minor league Seinfeld knockoff. (With a stupid friggin theme song) Cheers is a television institution.
Let’s throw another comparison in here.
I much much preferred The Drew Carey Show to Friends. Yeah, the actors in Drew Carey fell out of character some times - you can catch Drew laughing in a lot of episodes. That being said, they were real. I could believe those peoples with real jobs in Cleveland a lot more than I can believe 6 yuppies with questionable job status living in upscale New York apartments.
I really don’t get the Friends-Seinfeld comparisons. They’re both about a group of friends living in NYC… that’s it. That’s pretty much all they have in common.
Yeah, it hadn’t even occurred to me to compare the two until it being mentioned in this thread. Oddly, googling it, apparently Seinfeld himself has suggested that which, to me, is really weird. I don’t see them alike in the least. I find something like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to have more in common with Seinfeld than Friends. Now that one I can see as being inspired by Seinfeld, but taken to an extreme.
I liked both. But i was a young teen when Cheers was on. I related more to Friends, who i was the same age as. Though less attractive.
Let’s throw in another comparison: theme song, Cheers vs. Friends.
It’s not even close. Cheers by far.
Where everybody knows your name…
The Big Bang Theory.
{SHELDON VOICE} Clearly. It’s so obvious. {/SHELDON VOICE}
Was it the one where Ross had sex with the waitress because he was on a break?
I liked both shows, but Friends eventually much more than Cheers. Snarky humor can be funny, but I like it better if it’s directed at a situation or oneself, not other people. At some point, Carla and Rebecca and a couple of others just started wearing on me.
That, by the way, is one reason Seinfeld worked for me… they were huge assholes, but there was a lot of self-recognition of that assholery.