Where Everybody Knows Your Name

It's funny that, for most of my adult life, I'd always wanted to have a place like Cheers, a local bar that I could go to where everybody knows your name.

I didn't find one that truly felt like "my Cheers" until I discovered The Winking Judge on Augusta Street in Hamilton. And the place only came onto my radar because I wrote about it in my 2012 book Haunted Hamilton. (Here is a video of me sharing some ghostly tales from the bar).

But not long after, and, particularly after I ended up moving into an apartment on the same block as that bar, practically "upstairs" from it (as I could look out my living room window down onto the back patio of the Judge), I became a regular there and everyone did know my name.

I was home.

Heck, Liz and I had our second date at The Winking Judge, and that was the date that pretty much clinched it for us. Actually, our first date, which had been at a brewery in Toronto a couple of weeks earlier, was quite awesome. But it was the second date that confirmed it hadn't just been a single spark moment of our first meeting.

Even after moving to Waterloo, I would still visit The Judge on almost every return visit to Hamilton. Because it was always so good to walk into a place where everybody knew you.

The song, written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, has long been one of my favourites. And I love the entire song, not just the short snippet of lyrics that are used for the show's theme. (Heck, I bought the vinyl single of the song, with Portnoy's other great song "Jenny" on the flip side when I was in University and Cheers was still on the air)

These are the full lyrics for the song "Where Everybody Knows Your Name."

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Of course, since the global pandemic, I hadn't been able to get to The Winking Judge to fulfill that lifelong desire to hang out in a Cheers-like atmosphere.

But we do have a home bar.

And I had been making music parodies with Liz as well as silly Dad Joke short films on my own as a method of creative expression. One of those short dad joke films was called "The Things We Miss Most" and it featured me playing three different people sitting at a bar (my home bar) - in that film one of the Marks is wearing a Winking Judge hoodie. But making that short made me think that my home bar should have a name.

I made a joke sign that read "Mark's Tavern: Serving Marks Since 2020" and imagined it being a place where I could share some of the silly dad jokes - a consistent setting with recurring characters.

Not long after, I was reminded of my affinity for Cheers.

So I schemed up a song parody of one of the coolest songs in the universe as well as a scenario for Mark's Tavern.

Heck, I even went and bought a license for the two fonts used to create the Cheers logo (Candice and Flamenco), and spent some time crafting a logo that conjured up a similarity to the Cheers logo.

My re-written lyrics, which were set to piano from my friend and fellow writer, Joe Cron, went with the shortened version of the Cheers opening.

Getting through isolation times

Takes everything you've got

Having a laugh and a craft beer pint

Sure would help a lot

But you just can't get away

Sometimes you've got to go

Where everybody shares your name

And they're always spelled the same

You wanna laugh and see eyes roll

Where dad jokes are awful lame

You wanna go where everybody shares your name

And then I wrote a 1000 word script for a short episode, complete with cold opener, the title song, sequence, and a scene between Mark the bartender, Mark the new patron, and the Norm-style Mark who was the main regular.

I shot most of it in a single evening, but once I got through just the opener bit, I realized how much work it was, so I cut the entire episode down to what was supposed to be the opener. As it was, it was six minutes. But still a heck of a lot of fun.

Because I got to tell a few jokes, parody a classic sitcom, and show off a picture of me having a beer with Norm (or rather, George Wendt, who played the loveable barfly on the series)

Click here to see the Video