Wings Title Card
Wings was an American television series originally airing on NBC from 1990 to 1997 created by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee.
History[]
Wings was an American sitcom television series created by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee that ran on NBC for eight seasons (172 half-hour episodes in total) from April 19, 1990 to May 21, 1997. Wings was produced by Grub-Street Productions and Paramount Network Television.
The series focused on a pair of estranged brothers, the straight-laced Joe Hackett (Tim Daly) and laid-back Brian Hackett (Steven Weber), who reunite to run a one plane airline together. At Tom Nevers Field on the small New England island of Nantucket, the Hackett brothers are surrounded by an eclectic and funny group of friends and coworkers including the lunch counter manager/aspiring concert cellist and childhood friend Helen Chapel (Crystal Bernard), their rival Roy Biggins (David Schramm) the owner of Aeromass, the sharp-tongued and cheerful ex-stewardess-turned-ticket-agent Fay Cochran (Rebecca Schull), and the eccentric mechanic Lowell Mather (Thomas Haden Church). Later seasons would see the additions of the perpetually down-on-his-luck cab driver Antonio Scarpacci (Tony Shalhoub), the no-nonsense ex-military helicopter pilot Alex Lambert (Farrah Forke), and Helen's newly single and broke former socialite sister Casey Davenport (Amy Yasbeck).
The co-creators of Wings Angell, Casey, and Lee spent several years working together on Cheers before creating Wings. As a result, Wings and Cheers share a cinematic universe and are considered sister series. During Wings' first four seasons, characters from Cheers would periodically appear as special guest stars in episodes of Wings (but no characters from Wings ever appeared in Cheers).
Main Cast[]
- Tim Daly as Joe Hackett (Seasons 1-8)
- Steven Weber as Brian Hackett (Seasons 1-8)
- Crystal Bernard as Helen Chapel/Hackett (Seasons 1-8)
- Thomas Haden Church as Lowell Mather (Seasons 1-5)
- David Schramm as Roy Biggins (Seasons 1-8)
- Rebecca Schull as Fay Cochran (Seasons 1-8)
- Tony Shalhoub as Antonio Scarpacci (Seasons 3-8)
- Farrah Forke as Alex Lambert (Season 5)
- Amy Yasbeck as Casey Davenport (Seasons 6-8)
Trivia[]
- Over it's eight seasons, Wings had 172 half-hour episodes in total, or more accurately 170 half-hour episodes and the one-hour finale for a total of 171 episodes. However, in syndication the hour-long series finale was separated into two half-hour episodes.
- The theme song for the series was a shorten version of Piano sonata No. 20 in A Major, D. 959, IV. Rondo. Allegretto. by Franz Schubert. Schubert received screen credit as the theme composer in every episode.
- Wings is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a spin-off of Cheers, but Wings was actually a wholly originally concept created with no preexisting characters. However, Wings does occur in the same cinematic universe as Cheers making them sister series.
- Because Wings shares a cinematic universe with Cheers, it also occurs in the same universe as Cheers' spin-offs Frasier and The Tortellis.
- On April 1, 2013 Funny Or Die posted a video titled The Wings Serenity Movie Project to prompt a KickStarter to fund a Wings movie. Obviously, based on announcement date and sponsor, this was a parody.
| Season One | Season Two | Season Three | Season Four |
| Season Five | Season Six | Season Seven | Season Eight |