Head to the bar where everybody knows your name — it’s not Cheers, it’s Chuck’s.

In honor of the campus favorite, Syracuse University comedy sketch group Humor Whore created a video of the sitcom “Cheers” introduction with an SU twist. Released in December, the parody caught the attention of students, alumni and the community and has a recent spike in views, hovering at just under 4,000.

Chuck’s Café, located in the alley between South Crouse Avenue and University Avenue, can be spotted by its bright yellow sign reading “Good Food and Drink.” The spot is hard to miss on game days, with lines and crowds of people ambling around.

“Cheers,” a 1980s to early 1990s American sitcom that had an 11-year run, is set in a Boston bar also named Cheers. The main characters would meet and wind up in humorous situations. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked the show as the eighth best-written television series, beating shows like “The Wire” and “Breaking Bad.”

The show’s premise is noticeably similar to the shenanigans that sometimes happen during a night out at Chuck’s.

Emma Sauerwein, a junior television, radio and film major, came up with the idea for the sketch and wrote the lyrics for the video during the spring semester of 2013. She pitched the idea to Humor Whore in the fall, and the group began production soon thereafter.

“It was one of those ideas that you know automatically that it’s a golden idea,” Samira Tazari, the group’s executive producer, said in an email.

Joining Humor Whore during sophomore her year, Sauerwein has gotten more involved as a writer and producer for a number of the group’s sketches. She said the team spent about two weeks and eight nights of production at Chuck’s, trying to get the perfect shots for the video.

The process was difficult, as the team had many actors to coordinate in the bar after Chuck’s allowed them to film inside. But the like-minded group managed to pull it together.

“It is a group of people that have an appreciation of comedy and are willing to test out different comedic styles,” Tazari said.

Because the video was intended to be a shot-for-shot recreation of the Cheers song intro, Humor Whore recruited about 100 people to be extras in the video. Otto Tunes was also recruited to provide the vocals. Altogether, the project took a semester of preparation, and two weeks each for shooting and editing to complete.

The parody group made many changes to the theme to better represent the SU bar, including changing the famous line of “Where everybody knows your name” to “Where everybody waits in line.”

It also references the traditional wall-signing at Chuck’s, while giving an homage to the original series, with the lyric, “Write on the wall, where everybody knows your name.”

Humor Whore, well known for their “Cuse is Cray” video released in 2012 and “Boeheimian Rhapsody” video in 2013, has made its mark in the Syracuse community. The group’s campus-related parody videos have totaled more than 300,000 views on its YouTube channel. The “Boeheimian Rhapsody” video received more than 90,000 views, while the “Cuse is Cray” video has garnered more than 126,000 views.

With such high numbers and the amount of work required, the group is relatively selective when choosing members. Only 15 students were selected from a pool of more than 100 last semester. But everyone is working toward the same goal, and the Chuck’s video seems to have reached that level.

Said Sauerwein: “Our goal is to reach as many SU students as well as alums as possible, as everyone knows and remembers their favorite ‘Cuse bar, Chuck’s.”

Published on January 15, 2014 at 10:41 pm