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00:00The Golden Age of Television.
00:09I Love Lucy didn't just change American television, it invented American television.
00:13Back when one screen brought everyone together.
00:16Watching television was a family event.
00:19The shows that shaped us.
00:21The Brady Bunch was part of the American soul.
00:25It's timeless.
00:26The familiar faces.
00:27Ralph Cramden was loved by the Honeymooners.
00:31He was a presence.
00:33The unforgettable moments.
00:35Dynasty captured the essence of what the 1980s were about in America.
00:39These are their stories.
00:40Cheers is the pinnacle of how great the sitcom can be.
00:43This is TV We Love.
00:50It's 1982.
00:52Ronald Reagan is the president.
00:54The U.S. was in a deep recession, high unemployment.
00:57America's still in the Cold War, and there's the war on drugs going on.
01:02For relief, gym-goers sweated out to Jane Fonda's workout and danced along to Michael Jackson's thriller.
01:10And in that setting, a show premiered about an average Boston bar.
01:15Cheers is one of the best sitcoms ever made.
01:29You disgust me.
01:31I hate you.
01:32Are you as turned on as I am?
01:33More.
01:34That's me.
01:35Cheers was just funny as hell.
01:37I am running with scissors.
01:39Because you're Kelly Kelly.
01:41I am too stupid to live.
01:44But when Cheers premiered, it certainly was not the hit that we come to know it as.
01:50Glenn and Les Charles were the creators of the show, along with Jimmy Burroughs.
01:55A few years before Cheers was developed, Glenn and Les Charles and Jim Burroughs were working on another show on ABC Taxi.
02:02And in 1982, NBC is in really, really bad third place.
02:08Many people were predicting, in fact, that NBC was going to go out of business.
02:12So this was a great opportunity for Glenn and Les Charles and Jim Burroughs to form their own company and create a show.
02:17The quality of their work was so well known that they were able to secure a series order from NBC, a 13-episode order blind, before the show was even really created and put together.
02:27And so they set out to create a setting that could be the core for the show.
02:32We were really big fans at that time of Fawlty Towers and we'd kind of been thinking of the idea of a hotel.
02:37But realize that even in a hotel, where do some of the most interesting scenes take place?
02:41The bar.
02:44It occurred to us that very few shows had ever focused on bars.
02:47It was a great place for people to meet there and they celebrate there and console themselves when they've had a tragedy.
02:53And it's a great focal point for human drama in common.
02:55When they were deciding where to set their fictional bar, the producers were thinking, well, sports bars are very popular.
03:02So let's pick a city that has a real affinity for its sports teams.
03:06And they fell in love with Boston as an idea.
03:09Les Charles was in Boston doing research, looking at different bars.
03:13And at the Ritz, the concierge said, there's a really great bar in Boston called Bull and Finch.
03:20It's amazing.
03:21And they went there and just knew immediately this is the feel and kind of bar that they wanted.
03:26And what they came up with was Cheers.
03:30The idea of Cheers is that it's owned by Sam Malone, an alcoholic and a former athlete.
03:38He's the epitome of charisma, the ultimate playboy.
03:42My mother told me to watch out for guys in bars.
03:45Well, then let's get out of this bar so you don't have to worry.
03:47And Diane is this hyper-educated, highly pretentious, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, talking constantly.
03:55Back in college, I held a party where everyone came as their favorite Elizabethan poet.
04:00I remember I chose Christopher Marlowe because I was deeply into Dr. Faustus at the time.
04:04And the crux of the story is the attraction between Sam and Diane, who come from two different worlds,
04:09and the way it affects the rest of the patrons and workers within the bar.
04:13I've never met an intelligent woman that I'd want to date.
04:16On behalf of the intelligent women around the world, may I just say, whew.
04:22And so when they were casting Cheers, they were looking particularly for pairs of Sam and Diane.
04:29Initially, the character of Sam Malone was written to be a football player.
04:33So the studio wanted Fred Dreyer because he was a former football player.
04:38But the Charles Brothers and Burroughs really loved Ted Danson on Taxi.
04:43This young woman came to me this morning with a hairdo that her high school must have found boring.
04:48And I gave her this.
04:50Ted Danson was an absolute gift from the gods.
04:54Because it is so hard in Hollywood to find a leading man who is handsome and can do light comedy.
05:02But the interesting thing is that Ted Danson is so unlike that character.
05:10I never went to bars.
05:11I never picked up somebody.
05:14You know, if the woman was standing opposite me, buck naked, I'd go, oh, me?
05:20But he was able to pull it off.
05:22And they had to rework that character because he doesn't really have the build of a football player.
05:27So they made him a relief pitcher for the Red Sox, which Ted Danson fits that build perfectly.
05:34The producers were considering Julia Duffy as his possible Diane.
05:39But we kept hearing from independent sources, you got to see this new lady in town, Shelley Long.
05:43She's perfect for your show.
05:45And when Shelley was paired with Ted, I think that they could really see the spark.
05:49Don't you ever hit me again!
05:51Like hell.
05:52They just enjoyed playing with each other.
05:56They really took off and we, the three of us huddled and said, there's no choice here.
06:01And now they had to find the other main cast members.
06:04Cheers assembled one of the all-time greatest ensemble casts in television history.
06:11And they got Nicholas Colasanto, who played Coach, a beloved character, a wonderful character, the bartender.
06:17Coach is this beacon of just earnest naivete that I think the bar really needed.
06:23And some of that innocence is explained by him having been hit in the head by some fastballs.
06:28Well, sometimes I took one right in the old melon.
06:30That's why he is that way.
06:32But you need to be really smart to play a dumb character.
06:36And that was Nick Colasanto.
06:39And we wanted a volatile waitress.
06:43That's a contrast to Diane.
06:44Does not suffer fools gladly.
06:46And has had a very rough life.
06:48And a chip on her shoulder as well.
06:55And Rhea is not very much like Carla.
06:59She's a little bit like Carla, but not very much.
07:01She's a very nice lady and a lovely actress.
07:05Rhea once said to us,
07:07Carla's not mean.
07:08She's just honest.
07:10Thank God I don't have an alcoholic personality.
07:13You don't have a personality.
07:14The character Cliff is so interesting because it didn't originally exist for the show in the original script.
07:20John Ratzenberger, he came in originally to audition for the role of Norm.
07:25And he left the audition, came back into the room, and said, have you thought about having a know-it-all?
07:36You know, a real Boston know-it-all.
07:38And he was just the man for that.
07:41If a pig had thumbs in a language, you could be trained to do simple manual labor.
07:45You mean they'd be part of the workforce?
07:46Yeah, yeah.
07:47They'd give you 20, 30 years of loyal service.
07:49Then at the retirement dinner, you could eat them.
07:51But the bar feels a little incomplete without Norm there.
07:55Les Charles once worked as a bartender, and the character of Norm is based on one of the regulars that he knew as a bartender.
08:00And he was always there at closing time, having just one more beer.
08:04And it was the same, very much like Norm, we would get every time the phone rings, if that's my wife, I just left.
08:09And then George Wendt was cast in that role.
08:11And what made Norm's character so special is he didn't look like a television star.
08:17He didn't sound like a television star.
08:19He looked like your neighbor.
08:21And he looked like a guy, ultimately, you want to have a beer with.
08:24And he has the fantastic entrances where everyone calls his name.
08:29Afternoon, everybody.
08:30Norm!
08:31Afternoon, everybody.
08:34Afternoon, everybody.
08:35Norm!
08:37That was it, Woody.
08:38Last chance, I'm out of here.
08:39That first season of Cheers, the staff was very, very small.
08:44It was Glenn and Les Charles, Jimmy Burroughs, and me and my partner, David Isaacs.
08:50And that was it.
08:51And we learned so much from the Charles brothers.
08:55The Charles brothers are the best writing team I have ever seen.
09:01And Jimmy knows how to deal with actors.
09:04I had the great pleasure and privilege of working with Jimmy Burroughs.
09:08So I understand firsthand what it's like to work with a director like that who knows how to take what a performer is doing and giving them just the right note to take that comedy or that beat to the next level.
09:25And he's a whiz with the cameras and the technical aspect of it.
09:30And he was able to really create a terrific-looking show.
09:36And the Cheers theme song, where everybody knows your name, is one of the most classic openings to any TV show in history.
09:44It was written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo.
09:48The producers asked Portnoy and Hart-Angelo to write the Cheers theme song.
09:52And they submitted three songs, and the third one they liked.
09:55So they revised some of the lyrics, and they settled on that, you know, catchy phrase of where everybody knows your name.
10:00The first seven-note intro is instantly recognizable.
10:04Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
10:09The story kicks off with Diane Chambers walking in to the bar with her professor boyfriend.
10:14They're just stopping for a drink on their way to start their new life.
10:18Thunder, this is crazy.
10:20Diane, we're about to be married.
10:21I'm married! Congratulations!
10:24But he abandons and dumps her there.
10:26So she takes refuge in the bar, and Sam gives her a job.
10:29I do need a job. And I'll find one. And you can bet that it won't be waiting tables.
10:35What are you qualified to do?
10:37Nothing.
10:38Shelley Long is a fabulous actress, and there's really great chemistry between her and Ted Danson.
10:43Everyone knows that hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is.
10:47Well, whatever you say, I really don't care.
10:50But they do also break from that for some really great moments.
10:55Cheers? Yeah, just a sec. Is there a Rudy Pantuso here?
10:59That's you, coach.
11:00Speaking.
11:01I saw the pilot of Cheers, and I thought it was very funny.
11:06But when Cheers premiered in September of 1982, it certainly was not the hit that we come to know it as.
11:12It was literally the least watched thing on all of television, according to the Nielsen ratings.
11:16It was a flop.
11:20When Cheers first went on the air, it failed spectacularly in the ratings.
11:31There were some weeks where it was literally the least watched thing on all of television.
11:35We were saying, what are we doing here? No one's watching this.
11:40As someone who had to make a lot of decisions about programs that didn't do very well in their initial runs,
11:47I don't know if a show like Cheers would succeed today if it had the ratings out of the gate in its first season that it did.
11:56But even though we were not getting great ratings, I just felt this was something special.
12:02It was a show that we were incredibly proud of.
12:06There was incredibly strong, smart writing.
12:09But also phenomenal characters that you grow to love.
12:13Ultimately, mine is Sam Malone, the driving force of the show.
12:16You know, I haven't seen Christy since, uh, Woodstock.
12:20You were at Woodstock?
12:21A friend of mine told me to go down there and said it was a great place to pick up chicks.
12:25You should have known you weren't there for the music.
12:28There was music at Woodstock?
12:29And Shelley Long is underrated for her physical comedy.
12:33There's one episode where she was on a motorcycle and she comes in with this wind-swept hair and she just owns that moment when she enters the bar.
12:40And Norm and Cliff are so funny.
12:42I mean, it doesn't exactly take a Phi Beta Kappa to stick a brush in a bucket and slap it on the wall, does it?
12:47I mean, any monkey can do that, huh?
12:49Oh, yeah.
12:50As opposed to the high level of skill and precision it takes to shove a postcard through a slot.
12:53I love the episode, The Boys in the Bar.
12:56Cliff!
12:56Hasn't had a date in quite some time.
13:00Where there are a couple of gay guys in the bar who make it known that they're there but they don't say who they are and it sparks paranoia among people like Norm and Cliff.
13:07Oh, yeah, Norm.
13:08Well, uh, how come we've never seen this Vera you're allegedly married to, eh?
13:12Really smartly written.
13:14Yeah, the guys I was talking about are still here.
13:18Right, guys?
13:19Right.
13:20And Cheers would have people come in that weren't main characters of the show.
13:25They were just people who came into the bar.
13:27Paul Krepentz was one of the bar flies at the stool and his one-liners became a fan favorite on the show.
13:33You did good, kid, but I still think I got a more reliable system.
13:37Yeah, I could really use one.
13:38What's yours?
13:39I just bet opposite whatever you pick.
13:41Norm and Cliff were friends of mine.
13:44So I was sort of part of their little subset and I did more than 50 episodes, ultimately.
13:50So even though our ratings were terrible the first year, at the time, the president of NBC was Grant Tinker, who was just a wonderful executive.
14:04And he felt, you know, unless we have something better, then let's stick with this.
14:10His feeling was, give them quality and they'll find it.
14:16Most good shows, in my opinion, take more time to find an audience than not so good shows.
14:22And also, Cheers was definitely championed by TV critics and it won awards.
14:27Shelly Long for Cheers.
14:29Thank you, too.
14:30I think that alerted a lot of people to, wow, this is a show that won the Emmy and I've never seen it.
14:43And so people, having heard word of mouth that the show was good, started tuning into Cheers and falling in love with it.
14:49The moment I'm proudest of from season one is the last one.
14:54It's the very last moment.
14:56And that was when Sam and Diane finally kiss.
15:02You disgust me.
15:04I hate you.
15:05Are you as turned on as I am?
15:06More.
15:07That was just such a great moment.
15:11Seeing Sam and Diane in mortal combat that ends in full-on mutual lust.
15:21And the audience went nuts.
15:26That moment is, I think, one of the great moments in the history of television.
15:33It was the first show that had an actual will they or won't they.
15:37The way Ted Danson and Shelly Long, the way their characters were written, and the way they slowly came together after squabbling.
15:47And it was perfect.
15:48It certainly influenced many programs that came after it.
15:54Sam and Diane, as a will-they-won't-they couple, has become like a generic element of the sitcom.
15:59Most TV shows before weren't terribly serialized.
16:01Every episode was self-contained because you never know if people have been able to watch the previous show.
16:06And there's no means of ready access for them to go re-watch an episode that they missed.
16:10But in the 1980s, that was like an act of trust in the American audience that they'd be able to follow this along.
16:16Cheers really was a master class of how to keep your characters changing and evolving in ways that were new and did keep the audience wanting to see more.
16:25And our ratings were vastly improved when the Cosby show premiered.
16:32The Cosby show was a phenomenon.
16:34And it brought lots of eyeballs to NBC on Thursday night.
16:38So the Cosby show led into Family Ties, which led into Cheers, which led into Night Court, which led into Hill Street Blues.
16:44And so Cheers was critical to the success of must-see TV in the 80s on NBC.
16:52Hello, Sam.
16:53And then Kelsey Grammer brought another whole level to that show.
16:57I'm Dr. Fraser Crane. I'm sorry I startled you.
17:00Kelsey Grammer initially was only supposed to be in three episodes.
17:05I always thought of him as like a male Diane, very pompous and overly erudite.
17:11And it was interesting that early on, the audiences did not like him because he was coming between Sam and Diane.
17:16But we saw that we had lightning in a bottle with this guy and just kept writing more and more.
17:25There was not a line you could throw at him that he wouldn't elevate.
17:31I am running with scissors!
17:33And eventually was brought on as a full cast member.
17:36Well, Sam, Diane and I really must be going.
17:38But it looks like we'll be seeing each other again.
17:41But during that period of time, Nick got sick.
17:46He had certain heart issues.
17:48And if you look at his last episodes, Nick does not look well at all.
17:56You could see his health kind of declining.
17:58He was getting skinnier.
17:59The cast was told he has heart disease.
18:02And it's, we don't know how long he'll have, but it's not looking good.
18:05And he died at the end of that season.
18:10It really felt like the first time you lose a family member.
18:17So, um, yeah, it was, it was very sad.
18:26It hit the cast really hard.
18:27He was very beloved.
18:29They were very close.
18:30He was just a dear, dear man and meant a lot to us and especially to me.
18:36He was one of my closest friends on the set.
18:39Oh, Coach, I'm going to miss you.
18:42How do you replace somebody like Coach?
18:46There are people who think that that was the end of Cheers.
18:48After Nicholas Colosanto passes away, the producers knew they would need a new regular that could work in the bar.
19:03There wasn't any discussion of replacing the actor and just keeping Coach as is and just putting someone else in.
19:08Or replacing him with a similar aged individual.
19:12When we lost Nick, we, we knew we wanted youth on the show.
19:16We wanted to go younger, um, the network thought that was, that was a good idea.
19:20And they had created the idea of this character that they were going to name Woody.
19:24He wasn't named after the actor.
19:26That was the name that they already had in place.
19:27Excuse me.
19:28My name's Woody Boyd.
19:29I mean, how many Woodys have you met in your day?
19:34Woody Harrelson came in and there's just something special about him.
19:39He brought all of that genuine, honest-to-goodness Indiana energy.
19:47And we needed that energy, that innocence.
19:50He was amazing.
19:51I'm a friend of Coach.
19:52Is he around?
19:53The producers chose not to do a specific episode about Coach's passing.
19:58Uh, when Woody Boyd is introduced, he comes to the bar to meet Coach and Sam just says,
20:04I'm sorry, Woody.
20:05I guess you hadn't heard.
20:06No, uh, Coach passed away a couple months ago.
20:10Coach gone.
20:11I can't hardly believe it.
20:15There's a moment of somberness, but if they just treat Coach's passing happened in that
20:18interim for the people in the bar and for the viewers.
20:20I don't remember him mentioning Woody.
20:22Well, we never met.
20:24We were kind of like pen pals.
20:25You exchanged letters?
20:27No, pens.
20:28And he just revitalized the whole show.
20:31Not to mention, which he's just fall-down funny.
20:34You got a spot right there.
20:36Yeah, yeah, right.
20:37You're not going to make me look like a dope.
20:39Woody really scratched a lot of the same itch that Coach did, though, in terms of the naivete
20:44to the point of stupidity.
20:45But every once in a while, I had something really sharp to say.
20:48You know, when I left home, my father gave me some very sound advice.
20:52Never trust a man who can't look you in the eye.
20:54Never talk when you can listen.
20:57And never spend venture capital on a limited partnership without a detailed analytical
21:02fiduciary perspective.
21:04It just adds to the comedy because we're not used to that coming from Woody.
21:08And Lilith is a brilliant character.
21:11We wrote an episode for Kelsey.
21:12And to start off that episode, we were going to see him on a bad date.
21:16And that bad date was just going to be a one-and-done appearance by Bebe Neuwirth.
21:22I thought that we might have a drink or two, thereby lowering our inhibitions a bit and
21:26enabling us to go back to your place and have a physical encounter of some sort.
21:31Well, we won't.
21:32And there was that magic.
21:34There was that chemistry.
21:35There was something we had never seen on the show before.
21:37And so we thought, let's bring her back.
21:41She just owns the screen when she is on there as Lilith.
21:44Her line readings are so funny.
21:46The way that she can imbue such kind of sardonic disdain into simple words.
21:53If you ever open that gateway to hell, you call a mouth in my direction again.
21:57I'll snap off your extremities like dead branches and feed them to you at gunpoint.
22:01There's a whole lineup of Iconic Cheers episodes.
22:04I do love Thanksgiving Orphans.
22:06That is a good one.
22:06It's Thanksgiving, Carla.
22:08That was a favorite.
22:09We still get a lot of love for that every November that rolls around.
22:14It's a really funny episode.
22:17Thank you, Carla.
22:19Hello, everyone.
22:20And the food fight is obviously iconic.
22:24Kiss your butt.
22:25Goodbye!
22:25Goodbye!
22:26And it does have the only appearance of Vera, sort of.
22:33Norm's wife Vera is one of the most famous, never seen characters on television, where there'll
22:39be references to what this character is doing.
22:41Norm's on the phone with Vera very often, but they never cast a Vera.
22:44And then you hear Norm welcoming Vera from off screen, and Shelley Long throws a pie at
22:49Ted Danson, and he dodges it.
22:51And then an actress walks in with pie all over her face.
22:56Everybody, this is Vera.
22:58So we do kind of have Vera on screen for one brief moment there, but we never see her face
23:05in the series.
23:06Eventually, Cheers became one of the biggest shows on television.
23:09And the show that everybody was talking about.
23:13But Shelley Long decided to leave the show.
23:17I love you.
23:17I was surprised, because it was doing so well.
23:21She was doing so well.
23:22The show was obviously a hit.
23:24She was very, very popular.
23:26She had done five years as Diane Chambers, over 100 episodes.
23:31And Shelley Long had a movie career, and it was about to take off big time.
23:37And also, she did feel like the Sam and Diane relationship, we've done everything we can
23:41do.
23:42They fought, and then they got together.
23:44And then they were together, and then they broke up.
23:45I mean, there's only so many ways you can do that.
23:48But there was a lot of concern that the show would go in the tank without Shelley.
23:55I mean, it's half of the core of the show is going to be walking off.
23:59So yeah, of course it would be so scary to say, what's next?
24:03None of us knew what was going to happen.
24:06The producers were hoping that Shelley Long, right until the last minute, might have a
24:10change of heart.
24:11So when they shot the fifth season finale of Cheers, and they also shot a different ending
24:16to the scene, where Sam and Diane get married, in case Shelley changed her mind.
24:21You saying to me that you want to marry me?
24:23I do.
24:23Are you saying you want to marry me?
24:25I do.
24:25I now pronounce you man and what?
24:28It was a way to keep spoilers from being revealed.
24:31Had the word gotten out that it's definite that Sam and Diane break up, it might have leaked
24:35out before the episode aired.
24:39So after the in-studio audience left, they continued filming a scene in which Sam and Diane essentially
24:46just break up.
24:47And Diane goes to fulfill her dream of writing a book.
24:50And that was what aired.
24:53Have a good life.
24:55Ted Danson's delivery of that line is so fantastic.
24:57It's like I'm getting choked up just thinking about it.
25:01Like he knows that she's gone.
25:04And I felt that too.
25:07I felt that too.
25:09Yeah.
25:11I've actually never said this even out loud, certainly not on camera, but I'm really sad
25:18they didn't get together in the end.
25:20Everyone at Cheers was very worried when Shelly left.
25:25She was so integral to the show for so many years that to lose Shelly, we didn't know whether
25:36the show could survive that.
25:38It was controversial when Shelly Long chose to leave Cheers.
25:48It was truly, I think, one of the hardest decisions of my life.
25:52There were a couple of TV critics who said, that's it, that's the end of Cheers, when
25:55Shelly walked out the door.
25:56Because everyone believed that Cheers was Sam and Diane.
26:00It was the Sam and Diane show.
26:01Sam and Diane.
26:01How do you do a show with just Sam and no Diane?
26:04They didn't try to recast Diane, and I think that was a good idea.
26:08We wanted her to be a very different character.
26:11We didn't want her to be just Diane Chambers 2.0.
26:15How do you do?
26:17Uh, woo.
26:17And Kirstie Alley was just a breath of fresh air.
26:23Get over here.
26:24She's supposed to be with me.
26:26Kirstie Alley, everybody.
26:29Kirstie's first day on the set.
26:30Well, I thought it would be awkward for everybody, so I dressed like Shelly.
26:33She was wearing a blonde wig like Shelly.
26:40And we just knew, like, okay, okay, she's gonna be fun.
26:44But it took us a while to really find how to write that character.
26:50She's introduced this very serious, confident woman that was really gonna put Sam in his
26:55place.
26:56You know, Mr. Malone, we've known each other only seconds, and I'm already tired of you.
27:00We just couldn't figure out what the magic was and what the funny was.
27:06And then one day, Kirstie Alley showed us that she could swallow a cigarette and then
27:12push it back out of her mouth, fully lit.
27:17Hey, uh, where's the pool table?
27:19Wrong room.
27:23And we went, oh, we can use that.
27:26And more important than that, she showed us that she could cry.
27:31Maybe you could send me a postcard from the Caribbean and address it to me at, oh, I don't
27:37know, the YWCA Skid Row.
27:41And not since, I think, Lucille Ball.
27:46Man, what a great cry.
27:47Has there been a more wonderful and varied set of cries?
27:54I am too stupid to live!
27:56When the writers saw how well she could fake cry and how she could be really good at playing
28:01a mess, they realized that's who she is.
28:04We all just said, that's it.
28:06Have this beautiful, seemingly together woman be a complete and utter mess.
28:15And she was really, really funny.
28:18So Cheers was not slowed down by the loss of its leading lady.
28:21And in fact, people amazingly gave Rebecca Howe a chance.
28:25Talk about a stroke of luck.
28:27But there is a group of people who feel, eh, after Diane, the show is terrible.
28:35And then there's other people who came upon Cheers in the fifth, sixth, seventh season
28:41with Rebecca.
28:42It just jump-started the series in a way.
28:45It became less of a romantic comedy, and we leaned more into the bar and all of the
28:55characters and their relationships.
28:59Like, Norm gets more of a soul episode.
29:02Enough foreplay.
29:03Let's be sheet meat.
29:05I tell you that I was married.
29:07Congratulations.
29:08Let's celebrate with a roll in the hay.
29:10And then Frasier and Lilith take off as, like, the main romantic couple.
29:13Which is just comedic gold.
29:16You know, I'm beginning to wonder if you're fit to carry my seed.
29:19I'm beginning to wish you kept it.
29:20My favorite episode that I wrote was Frasier's bachelor party.
29:25And something really cool in that episode, Frasier comes into the bar and he has a speech.
29:34I was listening to a rock and roll station on my way over here.
29:36There was a passage in one of those tribal songs that I feel, uh, well, is the keynote
29:43for this evening.
29:45Everybody have fun tonight.
29:49Everybody Wang Chung tonight.
29:51And it, it, it got a really big laugh.
29:56And my partner, David, and I loved writing Carla episodes.
30:01Tell me the truth.
30:03Well, my curse on you is going to be your tongue is going to swell up so big.
30:10You're going to have to buy a seat on the plane for it.
30:13How gullible does he think I am?
30:17Ken and David wrote the most episodes.
30:19And they have really owned the whole Gary's Bar rivalry.
30:25There are sheep in my office.
30:29Ah, cheers.
30:31Where good times go to die.
30:33We wrote all of the Bar Wars episodes.
30:36What are you trying to say?
30:37Don't rip off the day!
30:39Those are where cheers goes to war with Gary's Old Town Tavern.
30:47And, uh, hilarity, of course, ensues as things get more and more ridiculous in the battle
30:52between the two.
30:52We just shut down Gary's Old Town Tavern on one of the busiest bar nights of the year.
30:57At a certain point, we were reaching 34 million people every Thursday.
31:05Stunning.
31:05The year we were number one, uh, was the year that Roseanne goofed up the Star Spangled Banner
31:12in San Diego.
31:13And it cost her just a thousand points in the ratings that we were able to be number one.
31:24But once we got it, we didn't let go.
31:25But there were all kinds of problems going on behind the scenes with Kelsey Grammer.
31:33Kelsey is a very sweet man, but he was troubled.
31:36He was using drugs and stuff.
31:38And that occasionally impacted his work.
31:42And it did come to a head a couple of times where producers were really concerned that
31:46he may either lose his life or be incapable of continuing to work on the show.
31:52Kelsey Grammer was fantastic as Frasier, but his substance abuse issues and some of his
32:05other personal demons became ongoing issues on Shears.
32:09But he also had a very tough life.
32:12His father was murdered.
32:14His sister was murdered.
32:15His stepbrothers died in an accident.
32:17And it seems like in trying to cope with some of this tragedy, he had some unhealthy coping
32:22mechanisms as he tried to navigate that.
32:25It's remarkable I survived some of that.
32:27I might be asleep on one of the benches and the chair set.
32:30And then when it was my turn, I had to stand up and go do it.
32:33The cast was very supportive and loved him and took that to heart.
32:38And they respected his comedy acting ability.
32:40I mean, I don't know if anybody was funnier on the show than Kelsey.
32:45It just shows what a family they all were together on and off the show.
32:49He's such an endearing person and so incredibly talented that they were willing to deal with
32:54that.
32:55And from then on, he really got it together.
32:58He came to work.
33:00You know, to thick or thin.
33:02And it was always great.
33:03And the last three years of the show, it was quite an experience.
33:07The characters are all given their time to shine.
33:09Let me buy a beer.
33:12The character work that was done on that show is unparalleled.
33:19That's what made the show.
33:20You wanted to see what was going to happen to each of them.
33:22You have activated the internal laser beam motion detector.
33:26What's that mean?
33:26Come over for a little action.
33:31I'm stuck in the middle of Star Wars.
33:33Lilith is pregnant is one of the standout episodes.
33:37I am mother.
33:38My man's seed is nourished within me.
33:43Touch my breasts, my friend.
33:44I am lactating.
33:45It's so different than what we'd seen before from Lilith.
33:48And you get Woody Boyd entering into a relationship with Kelly.
33:51Will you go out with me again?
33:53Well, sure.
33:54Probably my favorite Woody scene was singing Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.
33:58Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y.
34:01Why?
34:02Because you're Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly of mine, mine, mine, mine.
34:14And my character became more integral to the show because they figured out what to do with him.
34:20Ever since my wife left me, I've been sort of desperate for female companionship, you know?
34:25So there were storylines created around me.
34:28The episode in which there's a party at Cheers.
34:32Carla made one of her specialty drinks last night.
34:35Things got out of hand.
34:36And everybody got so drunk they forgot what happened.
34:39Carla knew that she'd had sex with somebody, but she couldn't remember who it was.
34:44Oh, Sammy, Sammy, please, please tell me it was you.
34:48And then I come into the bar.
34:50Hey, sexy.
34:57That was very funny.
35:01It was a glimpse into my character that perhaps could have been enlarged the next season,
35:08but we didn't go to the next season because Ted wanted to move on.
35:13Ted felt that that was enough.
35:17And it's hard to say that he was wrong.
35:22We did, like, 250 episodes of Cheers.
35:27So Ted Danson was having this kind of come-to-Jesus moment.
35:30How much longer do you want to play this character?
35:33How many more stories do you think the show has in it before it becomes repetitive?
35:37And he was going through some personal turmoil at the time.
35:39He had infamously had an affair with Whoopi Goldberg.
35:42It ended his marriage.
35:43And I think that just a combination of doing the same old thing at work
35:47and having the rug pulled out from your personal life
35:49was the impetus, finally, to end the show.
35:53And I know they really, really, really tried to keep him.
35:58They apparently offered him plenty of money if he was willing to come back,
36:02but he kind of said, I've done 11 years,
36:04and this is probably the right moment for me to step off here.
36:08They knew they couldn't continue the show without Sam alone.
36:10It wouldn't never be the same.
36:13America's favorite bartender confesses
36:15the decision to stop starring in Cheers was agonizing.
36:18Danson says he's, quote,
36:19not leaving Cheers as a career move.
36:21That'd be a stupid career move, end quote.
36:24I think everybody, all the writers,
36:26Jimmy and Glenn and Les,
36:27were concerned because they knew how important it was
36:31to get that finale right.
36:33The fans were just sort of skeptical
36:38and waiting to see what we would do.
36:42And luckily, they had a chance to really go out in style
36:46with the big return of Shelley Long as Diane.
36:50The producers knew they wanted Shelley Long for the series finale,
36:52and it makes all the sense in the world
36:55for her to be back in the finale.
36:57I was so happy to see Diane come back
37:06in the series finale of Cheers.
37:08It's funny.
37:09It's a little strange.
37:11It's different than it was before,
37:12but it feels very familiar.
37:14There had been a lot of loose ends when she departed.
37:17It was left on such a tenuous note
37:20with her saying to Sam,
37:22I'll be back in six months,
37:23and him saying, have a nice life.
37:25So it was a must-see event for everyone,
37:29and the ratings for the finale were massive.
37:32Over 80 million people tuned in
37:34to watch the ending of Cheers.
37:36And it's such a nice plot line.
37:39Is it really her?
37:41Diane Chambers has won an award
37:42and is in the news
37:43and is back on the radar of the Cheers gang.
37:47Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania
37:50are too soft to be heard.
37:53Forgive me, gals, if I forgot someone.
37:55God, is it her?
37:57It was great to see Shelley Long come back
37:58in the bar, looking wonderful.
38:00Hello, everyone.
38:03The night that the show aired,
38:06all of us were in Boston,
38:08and we were at that Cheers bar.
38:11Hey, there's Woody,
38:12the absent-minded bartender,
38:14walking the crowd.
38:15And outside, they had set up a large jumbotron,
38:20and there were like 20,000 people.
38:23You would hear a joke and 20,000 people laughing.
38:28Can you do me one little favor, please?
38:30This isn't what you used to mean by favor, is it?
38:33And ultimately, Sam and Diane get back together.
38:36Sam is going to leave with her to go to California
38:39and sell the bar and be done with the bar
38:42and leave all his friends.
38:44And while on the plane with Diane,
38:46both realize this isn't right,
38:48this isn't going to work.
38:49And has to apologize to all his friends.
38:53I'm sorry about blowing up like that.
38:54I hope you understand where that was coming from.
38:57Yeah, it's all right, Sam.
38:58We understand.
39:00I mean, here you are,
39:01washed up ballplayers,
39:03alcohol problem, sex problem.
39:06Lost your one true love.
39:07Twice.
39:08No apology necessary.
39:09And it's just a beautiful moment
39:11when he turns the lights out
39:13and pulls the blinds down
39:15and tells that last set of feet
39:17coming down the stairs into the bar.
39:19Sorry.
39:20We're clothed.
39:21It's poetic.
39:23It was like, wow.
39:2711 years and it's over.
39:31It's a lot of hugging and crying.
39:35We realized it's our last exchange together on Cheers
39:39and we were sad, you know.
39:41It was heavy and I cried.
39:43I cried that day.
39:45Haven't even yet got to
39:46what happens after the show is over.
39:50Live from the Bull and Finch,
39:51the Cheers Bar in Boston,
39:53The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
39:56All the cast of Cheers
39:58were at the Bull and Finch Bar in Boston
40:00watching the final screening.
40:01And then the cast had to go do
40:03The Tonight Show live.
40:04Unfortunately, the cast showed up early
40:07for that taping
40:08and just started drinking.
40:10And when you watch the footage
40:11of The Tonight Show,
40:12they are hammered.
40:14Kurt, Presti, you know,
40:15you are my best friend,
40:17but we all need to say this to you.
40:19Yes.
40:20You're so bad!
40:22Jay Leno is trying to wrangle this cast
40:25into something that could possibly make the air.
40:27It was magic.
40:28Talk about it.
40:28All right, damn this.
40:29Talk about it.
40:31Can I get you all another drink?
40:33It was like,
40:33oh my God,
40:34this is such a train wreck.
40:37You can feel the tension from Jay Leno
40:39as he's trying to corral these people
40:41who are celebrating
40:43this decade-plus-long accomplishment
40:44of being on one of the most popular shows
40:47in television history.
40:49Chelsea, you got a show coming up, right?
40:50Yeah, I have a show coming.
40:52At the end of Cheers,
40:54they decided to do Frasier as a spinoff,
40:56which was really a popular show
40:58and ran for 11 seasons.
40:59You expect me to give up my study,
41:00the place where I read,
41:01where I do my most profound thinking?
41:03I use the can like the rest of the world.
41:06And there's a very long tale of influence
41:08that Cheers has had on so many shows
41:10that have come after.
41:12Any show that came after
41:13that took place a lot in a bar,
41:15Cheers gets credit for it.
41:16How We Met Your Mother is a perfect example.
41:19Swarmy!
41:20And Cheers still gets reference
41:21in media that's being produced today.
41:24Cheers, Sam and Diane,
41:27a guy and a girl on a TV show
41:29who'd dig each other but never say it
41:30because if I do,
41:31the ratings would go down.
41:32We now return to Cheers.
41:34Norm!
41:35And Peter!
41:36Yay!
41:37How's life in the fast lane, Mr. Peterson?
41:39Griffin!
41:40I can't find the on-ramp, Woody.
41:41He was talking to me, Norm.
41:43Quit stealing my punchlines,
41:44you fat drunk.
41:45So Cheers is a show
41:46that continues to be discovered
41:48even by younger generations.
41:50It's the pinnacle of how great the sitcom can be
41:54and one of the greatest shows of all time.
41:56Thanks for listening, Mr. Peterson do I get this?
42:03He made it to be found on the one on-ramp,
42:06until this time...
42:07refugees misscale
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