Cheers was not a ratings hit from the very first episode. In fact, it performed rather poorly at first. Out of 77 shows that were airing that season, the first episode of Cheers had ranked 74th in the ratings. That number obviously improved over time. But had the show not improved, it most likely would not have seen a second season.
One issue that viewers had with the show, at first, was that they found the laugh track to be annoying. This could be a valid complaint if it weren’t for the fact that the show didn’t have a laugh track. The show was filmed in front of a live audience but viewers weren’t aware of that in the first few episodes, so they added a disclaimer to each episode.
Cheers never shied away from serious or topical themes that were relevant to the time. In the 1980s, HIV was a very touchy subject for people with plenty of misconceptions about it being the “gay disease.” The showrunners of Cheers wanted to touch on the subject, so in 1988, the plan was to give the character of Sam an HIV scare.
Season 6 was to end on a cliffhanger in which Sam Malone discovers that a former girlfriend has discovered she is HIV positive with the implication that he too may be HIV-positive. However, due to the Writer’s Guild of America strike going on that year, that episode and several others had to be abandoned.
Sam and Diana are one of television’s most iconic couples. The will they or won’t they dynamic lasted for quite a while until they finally did get together, and once they got together, the question was whether or not they would make it as a couple. Allegedly, the Sam and Diane relationship was inspired by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
Like Hepburn and Tracy they had a romance that was based on the premise that opposites attract. Hepburn and Tracy were very much in love but very different people. Writer and Director James Burrows described them as being “uptown” and “downtown.” Eventually, however, they strayed away from the Hepburn and Tracy dynamic to find their own footing for the characters.
In the early seasons of Cheers, the absent-minded Ernie "Coach" Pantusso was one of the show’s most beloved characters. The actor himself was nominated three times for an Emmy for his performance. However, behind the scenes the actor was having health troubles people were not aware of.
Having been suffering from cardiac problems, he missed the filming of three episodes in season three. While they had hoped to have him back for the finale, the actor tragically died and they instead used archived footage for the season three finale. Because they were already deep into filming the episode, they had to wait until the following season to address Coach’s death. The of character of Woody was brought in as a replacement.
Ted Danson worked hard to convincingly play a bartender. It wasn’t enough that he serves beers and pour cocktails – he wanted to do it right. That’s why he decided to go to bartending school. Danson told Seth Meyers in an interview, "I went to bartender school and worked my little butt off to learn how to make drinks, and for the first month of [filming] I was making Manhattans and Grasshoppers and all sorts of weird drinks."
Ultimately, the showrunners were not too impressed. According to Danson, they didn’t care if he actually knew how to make drinks like a pro because they would mostly be shooting about his hands anyway, so nobody watching on TV would be able to tell. Nevertheless, you have to appreciate his dedication!
John Ratzenberger had originally auditioned for the role of Norm Peterson but going into the audition the actor could sense that he was not right for the role. That being said, he thought on his feet and came up with a character of his own. He asked the showrunners if they had a know-it-all type character and it turned out they didn’t.
So indeed, it was the actor who would play Cliff that came up with the idea for him. He improvised a quick scene for the showrunners, and they were thoroughly impressed. The character was written in the show specifically for Ratzenberger to play him. And interestingly many of Cliff’s “facts” during the show are improvisations by Ratzenberger.
The season 5 finale is one of the saddest in television sitcom history. After years of romance that kept people coming back, Sam and Diane part ways as Diane leaves for a new job opportunity. While she insists that she’ll be coming back, Sam says to her, “Have a good life,” convinced he will never see her again.
But this is not the only ending that was filmed for the show. To trick the live studio audience, a wedding was filmed. Since Shelley Long’s exit from the show had been a secret, showrunners didn’t want the secret to come out early. So the wedding was shot as an alternate ending that would never be used.
In dealing with alcohol consumption, showrunners made a conscious effort to promote responsible drinking. Sam and the other employees of the bar would always treat patrons in a way that is pretty much legally required today, ensuring the safety of their Patrons, making sure they didn’t drink too much and could get home safely.
While the show was hardly an after-school special, bar staff would promote responsible drinking by ensuring people didn’t drive drunk. If you pay attention enough, you’ll notice bar staff calling cabs for intoxicated patrons or Sam cutting people off from drinks after they have had a few too many. Interestingly, it was one of the first sitcoms to use the term “designated driver.”
It is not entirely known as to what extent this is true but it is said that Shelley Long hated working with Kelsey Grammer – or rather just hated him in general. Of course, since his introduction, he has become one of the most iconic characters in television history and even got his own spin-off show, Frasier.
According to Kelsey Grammar, this is true, and they promoted him to a series regular to spite Shelley Long. Writer Kevin Long has, however, denied this story and insists that the promotion was well-earned. But whatever the truth may be, the feud doesn’t seem to have stuck as Shelley Long eventually guest-starred on Frasier.
The Cheers bar wasn’t just filled with some empty bottles, or bottles filled with caramel-colored liquid and water. The alcohol on the show was very real and they were sure to stock the bar with real alcoholic beverages. Even the beer they drink on the show is real…sort of, anyway.
The beer that Norm drinks and many of the other patrons drink is real, it just doesn’t have a high alcohol content. Near-beer like what they drink on the show is beer that has no alcohol or a very low percentage of it. Usually, it will have around 0.5% or less alcohol. So, not enough to get you even a little intoxicated unless you drank like 20 of them at once. And we don’t recommend that.
Hiding pregnancies is just a normal part of running a show because you can’t just tell people they can’t have kids. One pregnancy here in there is not too difficult to manage, although it must certainly catch them off-guard. The showrunners of Cheers, it seems, kind of got used to it.
During the filming of Cheers, they had multiple pregnancies to hide. Both Shelley Long and Rhea Perlman were pregnant on the set of Cheers. The pregnancies were usually hidden under aprons, or the women were shown from behind the bar where the pregnancy belly could not be seen. And it turns out they did a good job hiding it as most audience members had no idea.
The real-life Cheers bars that the show was based on was called The Bull & Finch Pub. This location was used to film the exterior shots of the bar, while the inside was a studio set. The location in Boston is on 84 Beacon Street. As the show took off, it wasn’t long before everyone figured out that the bar on 84th was the real-life Cheers bar.
As such, The Bull & Finch Pub became a hot spot for tourists. The location would become so popular, even a decade after the show had ended, that the name of the bar would eventually be renamed as “Cheers” to satisfy tourists. There is the original location as well as a second replica location.
As any Cheers fan knows, Sam Malone is a retired baseball player who played for the Red Sox. It’s mentioned a lot and baseball conversations often occur on the show or there are people watching baseball at the bar. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the show without this prevalent theme.
While the show would not have been drastically different, Sam Malone was originally supposed to be a retired football player. However, the character was changed in order to be in tune with Ted Danson’s body type. Plus, it really makes more sense for a Boston setting for baseball to be what everyone talks about, as baseball is the more popular sport there.
The character of Norm is easily one of the most memorable characters on the show. He’s the only truly regular patron at the bar, who always stops in for a beer and epitomizes the idea of going somewhere “where everyone knows your name.” What you may not know is that the character of Norm was based on a real-life person
Co-creator Les Charles based the character on a guy he knew during his college years, who would frequent the bar every night. Often, he would stop in for just one beer but would usually say, “Maybe I'll just have one more.” Usually drunk by the end of the night, he would need help leaving the bar.
Jay Thomas played the recurring character of Eddie LeBec, a boyfriend and later husband to the character of Carla, played by Rhea Perlman. While he had himself a good gig on a successful television series, he ended up throwing it away for opening his big mouth and acting like a jerk.
At the same time acting in Cheers, he was also hosting a radio show. One day, someone called into the show and asked what it was like working on Cheers. Thomas rudely replied "It’s brutal. I have to kiss Rhea Perlman." And it turns out Rhea Perlman was listening in that day. Thomas’s character was killed off-screen in the following season.
