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October 26,
1990 Features CHEERS! AT EPISODE 200, IT'S PARTY TIME AT TV'S HAPPIEST HANGOUT
In late November 1982, Cheers threw a show, and nobody came. Since its
premiere two months earlier, NBC's new comedy about the denizens of a
Boston beer joint had been languishing in the Nielsens. In its 9 p.m.
Thursday time slot, the show was being routinely clobbered by CBS' Simon
& Simon and ABC's Too Close for Comfort. That week, the news was even
worse. Cheers had finished dead last-68th out of 68 prime-time shows. The
series' theme song, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," fared no better;
released as a single, it topped out at No. 83 on Billboard's Hot 100
chart.
"We were terrified and despondent," recalls Les Charles, who had spent
a year creating Cheers with his brother, Glen, and director James Burrows.
"We had a ; funny show, and we couldn't get anyone to watch-there was a
great deal of prejudice simply because it was set in a bar." "Luckily,"
adds his brother, "NBC was the lowest-rated network. Beggars can't be
choosers." The abysmal ratings were for a comedy that many critics had
called the season's best- although The New York Times' John J. O'Connor
groused, "Obviously, Cheers will not win many awards for originality."
Twenty-two Emmys, eight seasons, and 200 episodes later, Cheers has
survived long odds, cast defections, and competition ranging from Ted
Knight to Twin Peaks to become America's favorite watering hole-a
neighborhood bar for a neighborhood of 35 million people. On Nov. 8, the
show that barely survived its first season will celebrate its bicentennial
with an episode in which pundit John McLaughlin conducts a mock Q-and-A
session with the show's regulars-a lovable, complicated, perfectly tuned
ensemble of indelible comic characters. (See related stories.) Next
spring, when the Nielsens for its ninth season are tallied, Cheers could
well be the No. 1 series of the year. That would be a first for the show
(though it has finished in the top five for the last five seasons).
It could all have been so different, if everything had gone according
to plan. For one thing, Sam Malone wasn't supposed to be a former relief
pitcher at all, but an ex-football player. And he wasn't supposed to be a
smart dope, just a dope. For a while, he wasn't even supposed to be Ted
Danson. According to Cheers lore, Fred Dryer (Hunter) and Julia Duffy
(Newhart) came very close to grabbing the roles of Sam and Diane, and
igniting the relationship that sparked the show's first five years.
(William Devane and Lisa Eichhorn were also in the running.) It was
Danson's chemistry with Shelley Long during an audition for NBC executives
that convinced the Cheers team that they had found the perfect pair.
"Shelley was Diane the minute she walked in the room," recalls Glen
Charles. "Ted was not the Stanley Kowalski we were looking for, but he
brought a dimension to Sam we hadn't anticipated-a feeling that he was
pretending to be dumber than he was just to make Diane miserable."
Danson tells a different story. "I had no glimmering of how to play the
character whatsoever," he says, laughing. "Here was a guy who was an
alcoholic relief pitcher-do you know the kind of arrogance that takes? I
don't think I had the requisite disrespect you need to play this part
until about the third or fourth year."
The rest of the ensemble evolved throughout the first year.
Acid-tongued waitress Carla (Rhea Perlman) and bar-bellied accountant Norm
(George Wendt) were in from the start. Another Cheers customer-an old,
cranky, wheelchair- bound woman who spouted political invective-was
dropped from the show before the first episode aired. Conversely, John
Ratzenberger's Cliff, the postman with a mailbag full of irritating
factoids, was a happy accident. "Ratzenberger brought that blowhard
character to us," says Burrows. Originally signed for a few episodes, he
became an official regular in the second season. (Some Cheers writers now
keep trivia books handy as sources of Cliff-style useless knowledge.)
By Cheers' second year, the show's popularity was growing. When Sam and
Diane began to date during the 1983-84 season, the program jumped to 41st
in the Nielsens; the next year, when the unhappy couple came apart and
Diane's Jung lover Frasier Crane was introduced, it moved up to 13th.
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