NY Daily News Honors Cheers by Reposting 1993 Story
This article was posted on nydailynews.com. Click to read the full story. (Originally published by the Daily News on May 16, 1993. This story was written by David Bianculli.) Here are two quick anecdotes, spaced a decade apart, attesting to the excellence of NBC’s “Cheers,” which ends its 11 season run Thursday night. After the 1982-83 TV season, the Television Critics Association (TCA) polled its members to nominate and acknowledge, for the first time, the best new series on TV. Although the competition that year included much-appreciated “St. Elsewhere,” the runaway winner was a then-little-known sitcom named “Cheers.” Ten years later, in an interview with Kurt Vonnegut that I was conducting a book called “Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously,” Vonnegut made this appreciative comment about his favorite sitcom: “I would say that television has produced one comic masterpiece, which is ‘Cheers,’” Vonnegut said. “I wish I’d written that instead of everything I HAD written. Every time anybody opens his or her mouth on-that show, it’s significant. It’s FUNNY.” Continue reading this article on...
read moreWhat “American Made” Means to John Ratzenberger
This article was originally posted in HuffPost Business by Stacey Alcorn. Click here to read the full article. There’s a good chance you know him as Cliff Clavin, the know-it-all postman onCheers. Or maybe you know him from his hit show Made In America on the Travel Channel where he showcased the people behind the products made in the USA. He has worked on feature films like Superman and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, as well as independent films like The Woodcarver. He’s also the only actor to voice a role in every Pixar film with such beloved characters as Mack the Truck and Hamm the Piggy Bank. John Ratzenberger has been listed as the 6th most successful actor of all time in terms of box office receipts and there’s no slowing him down. In addition to an average of 5 speeches a month, regular visits with Congressional leaders on issues that affect American manufacturers and another Pixar film release this summer, he’ll be launching 1-2 minute syndicated vignettes called “It’s a Little Known Fact” on radio stations nationwide starting this month. Successful? No question. Self-made? You bet. He started his acting career while working part-time as a carpenter to pay the bills. Ambitious? Let’s just say that in between his acting, vocal talents, and screen writing, he is also an avid entrepreneur with his hands in several businesses. Ambitious is an understatement. Passionate? Without a doubt. And that’s what brings us to today and this article.John Ratzenberger loves acting, writing, and entrepreneurship. But his absolute passion is America. He’s a fascinating person to talk to, rich with knowledge of history and how things work. He could talk for hours about the infrastructure of America and how highways, tunnels, and cities were meticulously built during a time when the only manpower was true man power; the blood, sweat, and tears of laborers. Ratzenberger is an aficionado of learning, a connoisseur of understanding the mechanics of how things work, and an advocate for re-introducing trade, mechanics, shop, and carpentry skills back into schools so that we can truly marry human talent and skill to today’s innovative society in order to create a better America. He says that he hopes his legacy, when people fall upon his name one hundred years from now, is not that he was Cliff from Cheers, or Mack the Truck in a Pixar film, but that he was that guy who advocated for empowering individuals to leave America better than it was found. Here are John Ratzenberger’s four simple strategies for putting the most powerful brand in the world back into the hands of the people to make Made in the USA mean something again: Click here to continue reading this article at...
read moreJohn Ratzenberger Delivers the Weather Report
You may know him as an actor, a spokesman, a philanthropist, or even a mailman, but John Ratzenberger can finally check Weatherman off his bucket list! He’s delivering the weather for his favorite cities ~ and talking the science of air travel from Elite Aviation Products. Check out the weather report as only Ratzie can deliver it on The Weather...
read moreCheers Cast Joins Friends, Will & Grace, Frasier, to Honor James Burrows
This article was originally posted on E!Online. Click here to view the full article Must See TV lives again on Sunday, Feb. 21 on NBC. The casts of Friends, Fasier,Taxi, Will & Grace, The Big Bang Theory, Cheers, and more are coming together to honor TV director James Burrows for Must See TV: A Tribute to James Burrows. Burrows made his directorial debut with an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and went on to work on Taxi, Cheers, Frasier,Will & Grace, Mike & Molly, Two and a Half Men and currently NBC’s Crowded, among other shows. “There is nobody with better TV comedy instincts than Jimmy Burrows, and because of his guiding hand these remarkable shows will be forever celebrated and stand the test of time,” Paul Telegdy, president of alternative and late night programming at NBC Entertainment, said in statement. “The caliber of talent joining us to celebrate Jimmy’s accomplishments is a testament to his imprint in television history.” Continue Reading...
read moreJohn Ratzenberger Reunites with Cheers Cast Members
This article was originally posted on people.com, click here to view the full article. Kirstie Alley is going back to where everybody knows her name. The actress, 64, lost 50 lbs. with Jenny Craig and has kept off the weight for the past year – and now she’s celebrating her success with some familiar faces in a Cheers-themed commercial for the diet program. “When they asked me to do the commercial, I had a lot of consideration that it was an iconic show – I didn’t want to walk onto some set that looks artificial,” Alley tells PEOPLE. But her fears were put to rest when she saw the set, which perfectly recreated the bar from the popular 80s sitcom. “Honestly, when John [Ratzenberger] and George [ Wendt] and I walked on, it was a little bit like The Twilight Zone because it was an exact duplicate,” she says. “It was crazy. I didn’t think anybody would ever be able to replicate that set like...
read moreJohn Ratzenberger to Deliver Speech at Milford Chamber of Commerce Meeting
This article was originally posted on patch.com. Please click here to view the full article. The Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce is proudly holding its 61st Annual Meeting & 2015 Awards of Distinction on Wednesday, January 27, 2016, 11:30 am, at Grassy Hill Country Club in Orange, CT. This year features keynote speaker John Ratzenberger, actor and producer, and advocate for The American Manufacturing Hall of Fame. Continue...
read moreThe Good Dinosaur Premiers November 25
This news was originally published by By BusinessofCinema News Network on October 7, 2015. Click here to view the full article. …The trailer is absolutely adorable and you should surely mark your calendars for it! From kids to adults, who doesn’t like Disney movies? Over the years Disney Pixar has given amazing films like‘Cars’, ‘Toy Story’, ‘Brave’, ‘Finding Nemo’, ‘Monsters Inc.’, ‘Up’, ‘The Incredibles’, ‘Wall-E’, ‘Ratatouille’, ‘Lifted’ and ‘Monsters University’ amongst others. After the possible Oscar contender film ‘Inside Out’, Disney is back to amaze us with ‘The Good Dinosaur’. The Good Dinosaur will see actors Neil Patrick Harris, Bill Hader, John Lithgow, Judy Greer, Lucas Neff, Frances McDormand and John Ratzenberger bringing the characters to life with their voice. Produced by John Lasseter and John Walker, the film’s story has been written by Bob Peterson who has also codirected the film with Peter Sohn. The film is set to release on November 25, 2015 in...
read morePixar’s “Inside Out” Premiers
This news was originally published by Eric Kain at Forbes, click here to read the entire article. ‘Inside Out’ is Something Truly Special, Even for Pixar Inside Out is the kind of movie that usually only gets made by some small, art-house indie studio. And even then, an artsy movie anthropomorphizing our emotions made for adults would likely be a grimmer, more cloying affair. Or a snoozefest. Or maudlin and depressing like the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. Not so with Pixar. To make a movie about the emotional composition of a young girl’s brain, and to give life to those emotions, and not just life but also conflict and adventure, is sort of remarkable for a kid’s movie. Then again, Inside Out isn’t just a kid’s movie. Just like all the best kid’s movies, and certainly all of Pixar’s best, Inside Out works just as well, if not better, for adults. Continue...
read morePixar’s ‘Inside Out’ Debuts New International Trailer
Can you spot John Ratzenberger’s voice in this new international trailer for Inside Out? Watch the full video below!
read more200,000 reasons to dial before you dig
It was recently National Safe Digging Month in the United States, when owners of underground infrastructure and others back events around the nation to raise awareness of the national Dial-Before-You-Dig service, which is available to anyone in the US by dialling 811. In other initiatives, Atmos Energy Corporation, which distributes natural gas in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, launched a “Yard Rescue 811” contest. Residents of its service areas were invited to submit a photo of their yard – which could be a home, church, school or business – and ask friends and family to vote for it on the Atmos Energy Facebook page. The photos garnering the most votes in each state that Atmos Energy serves will win a $2000 prize. Marathon Pipeline, which operates oil pipelines across large swathes of the US, sponsored a poster contest for children. They have been invited to create a poster to raise awareness of the 811 service. The best poster will win a $50 prize. Marathon has also, since 2013, produced three humorous videos that feature an exchange between actor John Ratzenberger and his neighbour ‘Joe’. “While undertaking a do-it-yourself project, Joe finds out the hard way that ‘safe digging always starts with a free call to 811’.” WhaTech Channel: Infrastructure Protection News Submitted by Stern...
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