20 Little-Known Facts About Cheers That Even Its Most Obsessive Fans Won’t Know

As the skirt-chasing bar owner Sam Malone, Ted Danson undoubtedly convinced many that he was a Lothario in real life. Ironically, Danson didn’t share his character’s fondness for fooling around, which made stepping into his character’s shoes a difficult task. As he told GQ in 2012, “It took me at least two years to feel, ‘Oh. I know how to play this now.’”

Due to Cheers coinciding with the AIDS crisis, depicting a character as promiscuous as Sam was problematic. In fact, producers pitched a story wherein the barkeep discovers that an ex-girlfriend, and possibly Sam in turn, is HIV positive. However, the episode, which cast and crew considered too dark, never ended up being shot.

Although he didn’t share Sam’s affinity for womanizing, Danson nevertheless was dedicated to getting his character right. To wit, the actor spent a fortnight at a bartending school to nail the mannerisms of a real-life mixologist. Likewise, Rhea Perlman, who portrayed sour waitress Carla, spent hours studying the trade in the bar Cheers was based upon.

Now known for his supporting parts in Pixar movies, John Ratzenberger gained fame as Cheers’ resident know-it-all Cliff. Nevertheless, the character didn’t exist in the original plans for the show. During his audition, the actor actually pitched Cliff based on his own experience of New England bar patrons, impressing producers enough to write him into the series.

Undoubtedly the show’s breakout character, stuffy psychiatrist Frasier Crane was so well loved that he received his own phenomenally successful series. Part of Crane’s appeal lay in Kelsey Grammer’s delivery, which the show writers exploited at every turn. Indeed, the actor admitted on Twitter in 2014 that he sometimes received intentionally terrible dialogue that sought to challenge his comic ability.

After its 1993 end, Cheers characters regularly reappeared on Frasier. In fact, only Kirstie Alley, who portrayed manager Rebecca, declined to cameo on the show owing to its leading character’s profession. “Kirstie once said… she’d never do a show about a psychiatrist,” Grammer told Entertainment Weekly in 2002, alluding to Alley's belief in Scientology — a religion that strictly opposes the study of psychiatry.

Beloved as bartender Ernie “Coach” Pantusso, Nicholas Colasanto was an essential part of the show’s early seasons. Nevertheless, health problems made it impossible for the actor to remember his lines, so he created an ingenious solution. Rather than learn his dialogue, Colasanto simply wrote his lines on the set itself.

Sadly, Colasanto’s health deteriorated leading to his death from a heart attack in 1985. But while the actor was loved by his co-stars, network NBC couldn’t afford the show’s whole cast time off to attend his funeral. As a result, only John Ratzenberger was allowed to appear at the service.

After Colasanto’s untimely death, Woody Harrelson amply filled out the show’s ranks as bartender Woody Boyd. But, as the actor recalled on The Late Show in 2013, the role was originally meant for someone else. Indeed, it was only after a comically loud nose blow during his audition that Harrelson convinced casting agents of his credentials.

Before Harrelson sneezed his way onto the show, some surprising people tried out for the role of Woody Boyd. One such individual was naturalist Timothy Treadwell, who was shockingly mauled to death by bears in 2003. Later, his life would inspire the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man.

Besides adding extra on-screen laughs, Harrelson was also adept at bringing out his co-stars’ wild sides. While playing hooky from the set, the actor even convinced Ted Danson to take magic mushrooms with him. However, the two instantly regretted their decision after making a trip on Ratzenberger’s boat. “[We] thought we were going to die,” Danson told GQ in 2012.

And it wasn’t just the male co-stars who Harrelson had a bad influence on. According to her 2012 memoir The Art of Men, Kirstie Alley developed feelings towards her co-star following his repeated advances. “‘We’re not sleeping together’, I would say, half wishing I wasn’t married so we could,” she once confessed.

Success can turn the most modest people into egomaniacs and Shelley Long, who played waitress Diane, was no exception. Prior to her 1986 departure, the actress began driving her co-stars crazy by incessantly discussing each episode. “I had trouble hanging around her until we stood onstage together,” Danson told GQ, “and then I was in heaven.”

Shelley Long wasn’t the only cast member to get under their co-stars’ skin. Indeed, Jay Thomas, who played Carla’s husband Eddie, was fired after he complained about kissing Rhea Perlman on his radio show. What’s more, producers decided to kill off his character in the most undignified way possible: an accident with a Zamboni.

Between filming, the actors loved playing pranks on each other. In particular, some cast members had a creepy habit of catching one another showering in the dressing rooms. “I have the greatest picture of Ted,” Kirstie Alley confessed to GQ in 2012. “He’s decapitated, but totally nude. And he’s really well-endowed.” Good to know!

Many fans are familiar with the show’s “filmed before a live studio audience” introductory voiceover. However, according to writer Ken Levine, the disclaimer was added because viewers didn’t believe a live audience could laugh so hard at the show. “The public didn’t believe our laughs were real,” he wrote on his blog in 2006.

In 1993 the Cheers finale drew in a staggering 93 million viewers, a feat only matched by M*A*S*H’s epilogue ten years earlier. And while the show drew in record viewers towards the end, its start was very different. In fact, its 1982 debut finished dead last in the Nielsen ratings.

Naturally, Cheers gained countless fans, but its influence extended way beyond casual TV viewers. Of particular note, the show was a favorite of revered author Kurt Vonnegut, who claimed in 1991 that he “would rather have written Cheers than anything I’ve ever written.” That’s high praise coming from the man who penned Slaughterhouse-Five.

When Diane left Sam at the altar in season five’s finale, fans were no doubt surprised by the departure of one of their favorite characters. Fittingly, producers went to amazing lengths to conceal this twist. To wit, they actually filmed an alternative ending where Diane married Sam in front of a studio audience, in the hopes that attendees would spread false information.

To celebrate the series’ 1993 finale, The Tonight Show planned a special live interview between Jay Leno and the show’s stars. Unfortunately, the cast had been doing some celebrating of their own beforehand and arrived on the set steaming drunk. As Ken Levine wrote for Vulture in 2013, Harrelson and Alley made obscene remarks, and most of the stars couldn’t stand straight without assistance.

Kirstie Alley's shockingly sudden death at the age of 71 prompted her former co-stars to pay some touching tributes to the woman who brought so much joy to others throughout her career. Ted Danson, who played her on-again, off-again lover in Cheers, told Deadline, “I am so sad and so grateful for all the times she made me laugh. I send my love to her children. As they well know, their mother had a heart of gold. I will miss her.” Another on-screen boyfriend echoed those words in his own statement, too.

John Travolta — who starred opposite Alley in the Look Who’s Talking series — posted two photos of Alley on his Instagram page. In the caption, he wrote, “Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had. I love you, Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.” Cheers co-star Kelsey Grammar also said, “I loved her.”

Few stars have rocketed to fame faster than Alley, of course. By the time the sitcom Cheers aired its final episode in 1993, Kirstie Alley was on top of the world. Her living room was full of awards, and her phone was ringing nonstop with offers — yet she never really planned on becoming an actress at all.

Like Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, Alley started out in life as an ordinary Kansas girl with no idea of the winding road ahead of her. She once told The New York Times that her favorite person when she was growing up was her grandfather. He owned a lumber company in Wichita, and she thought of him as “her soulmate.”

But after dropping out of college, Alley went into interior design — and soon became addicted to cocaine. She moved to Hollywood to kick the habit... and figured she may as well start a new career while she was there. Her first TV appearances were on 1970s game shows. Alley netted $6,000 on Match Game PM and tacked on an extra $800 on Password Plus a few years later.

Alley also became a Scientologist, as her rehab program was affiliated with the church. “It answered a lot of questions for me,” she told The New York Times in 1997. She added, “I wanted to get rid of the barriers keeping me from what I wanted, to be an actress. It’s just part of my life.”

Her feature film debut came in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirstie pulled off the part of the Vulcan lieutenant Saavik so well that the producers wanted to bring her on for a slew of sequels — if they could get her. But Alley actually turned them down, as she didn’t think they were offering enough money. Clearly, she had her eyes set on a bigger prize.

Sure, she had smaller parts in One More Chance, Champions, Blind Date, and Runaway. But in 1987 she nabbed one of the starring parts in the Carl Reiner-directed Summer School. A decent critical and commercial success, it set her up for an opportunity — one that would possibly be the biggest challenge in TV history.

At the time, of course, Cheers was one of the biggest things on TV. But in 1987, Shelley Long shocked the world by announcing her departure from the show. Her character’s will-they-won’t-they dynamic with Ted Danson’s Sam Malone was the backbone of the sitcom. So the producers desperately needed a way to go on without their star.

It was a gamble, but they brought in Alley as a new character: Rebecca Howe, a business-minded basketcase who was the furthest thing from a romantic interest for Danson’s Malone. And critics and audiences alike were astonished to see Cheers become even better. Alley’s presence transformed the sitcom into a joke-a-minute ensemble show.

Riding high on Cheers fame, Alley also managed to fit some blockbuster films into her busy schedule. Look Who's Talking — while not a critical favorite — raked in a box office haul of $295 million — 40 times its budget. And according to Alley, her chemistry with co-star John Travolta did cause some issues on and off the screen.

Alley confessed on Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2018 that she had strong feelings for John Travolta. “I think I kissed Travolta,” she said. “I almost ran off and married John. I did love him, I still love him. If I hadn’t been married I would’ve gone and married him.” But the success of the Look Who’s Talking sequels and Cheers wouldn’t last forever.

Cheers ended in 1993, and Alley went straight from that to an Emmy-winning turn in David’s Mother. But in 1995 Alley’s movie career seemingly stalled — and could never quite recover. That year, she starred in It Takes Two and Village of the Damned. Both of those offers may have looked good on paper, but they failed to find a foothold at the box office.

Alley returned to TV in 1997 for Veronica’s Closet. “It’s the best lifestyle,” Alley told The New York Times, “Movies are so intense. When you have kids, you don’t want to put in all that time.” The show debuted at number three with an impressive 24 million viewers. But the ratings quickly declined, and Veronica’s Closet was closed after three seasons.

Personal struggles made the actress’ life tabloid fodder, too. Besides continued criticism for practicing Scientology, Alley came under fire for her fluctuating weight. However, Alley refused to bend to the Hollywood naysayers. She spoke out against fat-shaming and discrimination on social media. “I stay positive because it’s the only way to live. When I play ball, I play hardball,” she revealed.

Alley’s star never dimmed, and she leaned into her tabloid personality in her self-penned show Fat Actress and the reality series Kirstie Alley’s Big Life. She also became a Jenny Craig spokesperson — all while consistently working on TV. Her biggest acting role in recent years was in season two of Scream Queens. But a couple of higher-profile gigs also brought her back into the public consciousness.

Many people still fondly recall her 2011/2012 run on Dancing with the Stars. But in 2022 Alley appeared in another popular reality show: The Masked Singer. She was — as if you could forget — Baby Mammoth in the singing contest. “I have grandchildren, and they’re really young, so they are going to think this is good,” Alley said after being unmasked during season seven.

Alley’s appearance on The Masked Singer occurred just seven months before her untimely death. “To all our friends, far and wide around the world … We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce, and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered,” a statement from Alley’s children, William “True” Stevenson and Lillie Price Stevenson, revealed.

“She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead,” the statement continued. “As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother. We are grateful to the incredible team of doctors and nurses at the Moffitt Cancer Center for their care.”

“Our mother’s zest and passion for life, her children, grandchildren, and her many animals, not to mention her eternal joy of creating, were unparalleled and leave us inspired to live life to the fullest just as she did,” the statement concluded. We know, of course, that Cheers left a legacy that resonates 25 years after it called last orders. And while the show had plenty of stellar scenes, some of the series’ best moments actually occurred behind closed doors.