The ubiquitous and unassuming bar stool has played a huge part in the culture of our society for years, and an extraordinary amount of television and film has capitalised on its popularity.
Bar stools give our stars somewhere to laugh, plot, whisper and bicker about others. They have been the meeting place of some of our most beloved heroes, and the scene of some of the most enduring relationships.
Here are just a few famous bars, cafés and pubs, and their inhabitants.
We were introduced to one of the most enduring anti-heroes of science fiction – Han Solo, in Star Wars in 1977. He waited for young Jedi Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi at the Mos Eisley Cantina. The notoriously cool pilot was immortalised for “shooting first” when he barely allowed an aggressive alien enough time to sit down at his stool and enjoy his blue milk.
Inspector (Endeavour) Morse however preferred solving murders, and he always found time to have a rest at one of the local Oxfordshire pubs. His love for British Ale and crosswords typified the beauty and pace of the relaxing countryside. He and detective Lewis pondered the psychology of rural murderers for a staggering 13 years from the ease of a bar stool.
And where would Ross and Rachel be if they couldn’t sit at the bar for a heart-to-heart in the relationship that spanned a decade in Friends?
The Central Perk café was a mainstay for cosmopolitan coffee-lovers everywhere who loved nothing more than sitting on the couches and stools watching New York run on the midnight oil.
The Old Vic in Eastenders is the only place where you might find a bar stools being used for something other than sitting on. The whole cast pretty much live in the pub made famous by Peggy Mitchell’s bust of Queen Victoria and its inhabitants.
The cast of Cheers could also never leave the bar, but that’s ok, we didn’t want them to. The whole show was filmed within the bar for the first season and it had little reason to leave. Guests that dropped in on the happy-go-lucky bunch included Senator John Kerry and musician Harrick Connick Jr. We continued to watch them for 11 years.
And finally, where would Homer Simpson be without his favourite prop at Moe’s Tavern? Certainly if Moe ever lost his stools, he would certainly be out of profit.
The bar stool to some is the centre of the fictional universe. There’s no better place for entertainment than the crowd around the bar stools.
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