Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too.

Once, while bemoaning a generation’s regrettable reliance on television rather than books as a conduit to learning, the great novelist Kurt Vonnegut had to allow for an exception to his complaint. He famously noted, “I would have rather written Cheers than anything I’ve written.” Obviously, this is no faint praise, given than it emanates from the author of some of the most justly revered novels of his era. I could go on at length as to why Cheers should still be prohibitive favorite in any discussion of the greatest television comedy of all time (ground I’ve at least skidded across previously in this digital space), but for now I’ll simply acknowledge that I’ve routinely returned to this clip in the past couple weeks, any time I needed some rejuvenation. And it’s worked every time.

Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag.