Original subtitles

"Cheers."

One of the top five sitcoms

in the history of television.

It was where everybody knew your name.

♪ And they're always glad you came ♪

It felt like a family,

and it felt like a family that you wanted to be a part of.

Created by award-winning brothers

Glen and Les Charles.

They were wildly talented.

The Charles Brothers changed everything for television.

And executed under the watchful eye of

legendary director James Burrows.

He did things that were rather unorthodox.

My boss at the time used to say,

"There's Jimmy Burrows, and then there's everybody else."

It changed the game for national television network

desperate for a successful comedy.

NBC wasn't known for sitcoms.

We had nothing.

Back in the early '80s,

there were still only three networks,

but NBC was thought to be number four.

It was that bad.

There were high hopes for "Cheers,"

but when it first premiered, no one watch.

The ratings sucked the first couple of years.

But it soon became must-see TV.

And the Best Comedy is "Cheers".

Then after five seasons, Shelley Long drops

a bombshell.

When she announced that she was leaving,

I personally, I panicked.

That was scary.

And then came Kirstie.

She had swagger.

After 11 years with "Cheers" on top,

it was lights out for America's favorite bar.

Let's just say it was like time to move on.

In this hour,

hear from the people behind the landmark sitcom.

I said, "Wow, this is really special."

Yes, we want to be a part of it.

It's as good as it consistently

because everybody trusted everybody

to do their jobs.

Every once in a while, magic happens.

Now, a look behind the scenes and how it would go

to change television.

There was something electric going on.

By the early 1990s, after 11 seasons,

"Cheers" had earned its place as one of the most popular

and celebrated American sitcoms in television history.

It's a show that galvanized people.

People really embraced the idea that you could go to this bar

and you could be accepted no matter what your flaws were.

It is one of the top five sitcoms

in the history of television, maybe even the best.

As big as the world is, it reminded all of us

that we all live in our own little community of

friends, neighbors and family.

In 1993, after 275 episodes,

"Cheers" wrapped with a 90-minute finale,

and at the end of the final episode,

it's lights out in the bar.

I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth.

♪

Airing in more than 42 million households,

a staggering 80 million viewers, 40% of the US population

watched the last episode of "Cheers".

The finale becomes the highest-rated TV show

in the 1992-93 television season.

It set record numbers.

It was the highest-rated show that year,

and was in the record books as one of the most-watched nights

of television for many, many years.

A celebration right to the end for "Cheers",

a pioneering stroke of television genius

that begins not in the 1990s, but almost two decades earlier.

♪

In the late 1970s,

creative power team of brothers Glen and Les Charles

are working with famed director James Burrows

on the television sitcom "Taxi".

With "Taxi",

the Charles brothers and James Burrow learned that

the ensemble was great, and the work dynamic was great,

and it was very appealing to audiences.

Toward the end of the show's run,

the three decide to create a show of their own.

The Charles brothers and then also James Burrows,

their story itself is kind of fascinating.

It's kind of a Hollywood story.

They decided they wanted to be TV writers,

and they kind of willed that into existence.

The term they use is that,

"We blanketed the city with spec scripts."

Like, "Anyone that was making a TV show,

"we wrote a spec script for it.

"We didn't have an in with anyone."

Back in the early '80s,

there were still only three networks,

but NBC was thought to be number four.

It was that bad.

I was part of the team where the mandate was,

"Do more, find more.

"It has to get better than this."

NBC was so desperate to get the Charles brothers

and James Burrows into the NBC family

that they offered them a series deal

without knowing what the show was gonna be.

The team starts developing

a "Fawlty Towers"-type hotel concept,

but settles on a bar in Boston as the location.

"Cheers" gave us the perfect location

where we could get together, discuss our joys, our heartache.

Everything that happened in life happened in this bar,

and the series captured that.

They decided we're gonna do this show that's set in a bar,

but it's not gonna be about the drinking.

It's gonna be about the camaraderie

that can exist in that kind of environment.

ABC was in a renaissance of comedy.

They had 14 comedies on their schedule.

It was all working, something to really be envied.

CBS had Carol Burnett.

CBS had a plethora, a dozen comedies.

They were in great shape.

We had nothing.

If you're familiar with the history of television,

you probably know NBC as "Must-See TV"

and the juggernaut of its Thursday night sitcom block.

That did not exist for it in the '80s.

NBC gives the Charles brothers

a green light to move forward with the show.

The Charles brothers changed everything for television.

They came out with the format of the linear story of

here's a season, we're gonna plot out

what we want in the first episode,

middle, and how we want it to end.

Prior to "Cheers",

most television shows were extremely episodic,

meaning like everything was a self-contained story,

and you could drop in on any episode,

and it didn't matter what had happened the week before,

and it wouldn't matter what would happen the next week.

With "Cheers", we see the introduction of

the popularization of the long-form storytelling

across an entire season.

Writer and producer Ken Levine gets a call

from Jim Burrows that will change his life.

We were doing our own pilots,

and we got a call one day from Jimmy saying,

"The Charles brothers and I are doing a new show.

"Would you want to produce it with us?"

And my first thought was,

why do we want to produce someone else's show for?

But I said, "Sure, send me the script,"

and when I read the script,

same with my partner David Isaacs,

we both said, "Wow!

"This is really special.

"Yes, we want to be a part of it."

We joined "Cheers" right from the beginning.

We were there as writer/producers,

and back in those days, it was a very small staff.

It was really just Glen and Les Charles

and David Isaacs and myself.

We were the luckiest writers in town.

I mean, we had these master teachers, legacy teachers,

who were bringing everything that they had learned

and teaching it to all of us.

Jim Burrows started directing on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

and worked his way through MTM, and then when a lot of

the producers of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

went on to Paramount and created "Taxi",

Jim became their full-time director.

Jim directed probably close to 100 episodes of "Taxi".

In the world of creating an atmosphere

of love and fun and everything you do

is going to work because if it works for Jimmy, it works.

He is so creative and somebody who can

look around a set and find 100 ways to be funny

that we in our writerly verbal heads never imagined.

What Jimmy brought to the whole concept

was really making the bar a character in the show,

and Jimmy is like

the Mozart of multi-camera directors.

I mean, he can do it all.

He is the A-plus director.

My boss at the time, Brandon Tartikoff,

used to say, on sitcom directors,

"There's Jimmy Burrows, and then there's everybody else."

With the production team in place,

casting begins for the two lead characters,

Sam Malone and Diane Chambers.

For Sam and Diane, I think the touchstone

for the Charles brothers and Jimmy was

a Tracy-Hepburn relationship.

They wanted an attraction, but they also wanted real sparks

and they wanted some comedy muscle.

They cast them as a pair.

They were focused on the chemistry of the two of them.

They weren't gonna pull one actor that they liked

and another actress that they liked

and hoped it worked out.

It was, you audition with another,

and you moved up together.

Ted Danson and Shelley Long make it to

the final stage of casting, but two other paired couples

are vying for the top spot.

Next team was Fred Dryer and Julia Duffy,

and they were good, they were contenders.

The final team was Bill Devane and Lisa Eichhorn.

The network in particular liked Fred Dryer.

He was a former professional football player.

He was newer to acting.

While executives like Long,

they're aren't sold on Danson.

Ted Danson was early on a strong contender.

However, the role of Sam Malone had been originally written

as a football player, ex-NFL player.

They looked at Ted and they said,

"You're not really much of an athlete, are you?"

He was like, "No," and Ted, tall, slender.

You wouldn't believe that he had been in the NFL,

and so they said, relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

And at the end of the day, there was something electric

that was going on between Ted Danson and Shelley Long.

After the lengthy and thorough casting process,

"Cheers" finally decides on Shelley Long and Ted Danson

as their two leads.

I remember early on in the run,

one day, Jim Burrows came up to the office during lunch,

and he said, "Sam and Diane are your money.

"No matter what show you do,

"even if it's not a Sam and Diane show,

"at least have a page or two to keep that relationship alive."

"Cheers" never, ever compromised the writing.

They never lowered the bar.

They didn't appeal to the lowest common denominator.

They wanted a smart show and that's what they got.

There was a lot of skeptics that didn't think "Cheers"

could appeal to the masses.

We were constantly rewriting, constantly looking

for better, fresher, more clever ways of telling stories.

The other thing that the Charles brothers

were adamant about, if there was a storyline

that had been on any other show,

they would say, "Okay, it's out."

NBC rolls the dice on the new format,

but will there be an audience for it?

After an exhaustive casting process,

"Cheers" has found their leads, Sam and Diane.

James Burrows and the Charles brothers

can't deny the chemistry between Ted Danson and Shelley Long,

and the gamble pays off.

Ted and Shelley had a great chemistry

that really brought out the best in each other.

They both also were incredibly gifted physical comedians.

Ted Danson was just so charming.

We would do scenes between the two of them,

even the fight scenes, and they would just be magic.

You could sense the sexual tension

between the two of them.

You could also sense the fact that they both

enjoyed the bantering.

One of the things that we always tried to do

with that relationship was have it be a power struggle.

It was constantly

Sam and Diane trying to top each other,

and that made it fun and made it interesting.

Ted Danson.

From the minute he enters the show in the pilot

and you see him walking down that hall

and just running his hand along the rail,

you can tell he loves this place, he loves being here.

He makes it home,

and he makes it a really comfortable,

good, easy home to live in.

I think it's like, uh, he's intelligent,

and yet he'd prefer not to show it,

'cause he thinks that's kind of beside the point.

He was on the road a long time as a baseball player,

so, uh, his, uh, exposure to women is more along

the groupie line.

Shelley Long played the toughest character ever

on a situation comedy.

It would be so easy to hate Diane,

and Shelley Long somehow managed to walk that tightrope

every single episode where she was condescending,

she was true to the character, she was kind of haughty.

She was also vulnerable, she was also lovable.

She also had insecurities.

Shelley Long and Diane have a lot in common,

striving perfectionists who have a very strong sense

of what they want and what they need

in the world to succeed.

I think Shelley Long very early on showed us that

she was kind of this wonderful spider

who could pull Sam into her web.

That was always how they conceived that character,

that she was the intellectual.

She had a life of knowledge that was far beyond Sam,

and so in many ways, she looked down on him,

but Sam also could poke at who she was,

and there was a wonderful repartee there.

With Sam and Diane,

you never knew whether they were going to be, like,

totally turned on or totally turned off,

and it was the fun of having that constant surprise.

It was so much fun to write for those two characters.

We would write some very funny scenes

that had no jokes in them.

It was just the attitudes that we had set up.

With Sam and Diane in place,

the network focuses on the supporting cast.

James Burrows and the Charles brothers

had worked with Rhea Perlman before on "Taxi".

They kind of wrote the part for her

they knew that they wanted her for it,

and she was pre-approved by the studio.

Like, she didn't have to audition.

It was, they love her, let's use her,

let's bring her on.

Carla represents the embittered working class,

and there's a lot of harshness to Carla.

She's been kind of broken down by her family situation

with a deadbeat husband and an ex-husband,

and then, you know, multiple relationships,

and Rhea Perlman, in performing Carla,

keeps that abrasive edge, but then will occasionally

give us just enough glimpse to the hurt that she's feeling.

Rhea would insist that Carla's not mean,

she's just honest, and we the writers would go,

"Nah-uh, she's mean!"

But it was that honesty underneath it.

It was that quality of no filter,

saying the thing that we all know is true,

but nobody else will say.

Coach is a fantastic character because

he exists in a world where there is no subtext,

there is only text.

What everyone says to him, he believes wholeheartedly.

So much of the heart of the series in the initial years

was Nicholas Colasanto 'cause he's also, like Sam,

this kind of meathead stereotype, this dumb guy,

but the sweetest darn dumb guy there was,

and the funniest darn dumb guy there was.

Norm is the anchor of the bar.

He's there at the end, and the bar feels a little odd

when he's not there.

But he's an interesting character in that

I think he functions best

as almost like an alcoholic Greek chorus

that is commenting on the action around him,

but he never needs his own story line.

He doesn't really need to carry a plot.

One of the most famous things about Norm is his entrance,

where he walks into the bar and everyone yells, "Norm,"

and someone says a setup line and he hits a slam dunk closer

that just always gets a laugh.

- Afternoon, everybody. - Norm!

Norman!

Hey, what's happening, Norm?

It's a dog-eat-dog world,

Sammy, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear.

George Wendt did not get

all of those Emmy nominations

as Norm Peterson for being so good at sitting in a stool

and drinking beer.

He got them because he elevated those two things

to high art.

After auditioning for another role,

John Ratzenberger turns to the casting team with an idea.

In a Hail Mary pitch,

he said, "You guys have a bar know-it-all?

"My local bar has a know-it-all,"

and he did a improv bit of what Cliff could be,

and they ended up loving it and ultimately cast him.

Cliff Clavin is a blowhard know-it-all

who's wearing a mailman costume with high socks and short shorts

and he has his mustache, and John Ratzenberger's voice

is perfect for this kind of comedic character.

Everybody at "Cheers" has the thing they're not finding

in the rest of their life that they find at the counter

of this bar.

When you have an ensemble,

then you have actors who you really have to service,

and one of the things we always said to our cast was,

you know, there may be episodes where you're light,

but when you look at the entire season,

we will devote at least one episode to your character.

"Cheers" took a group of misfits

and put them together into one perfect show,

and it goes to show you that there are more people

out there who don't fit in than are perfect,

and that was the success of "Cheers".

The show is about this dysfunctional group of people

who, for whatever reason, because they work in the bar

or they hang in the bar, their home isn't at home.

Their home is here,

and it's always there for us to join them in their home.

We know where they sit, we know what they do.

They're our gang.

While shooting, director Jim Burrows

masters the set

in his own unique style.

When you look at that set, it's very large,

and can be very unwieldy.

He brought you right inside and he did things

that were rather unorthodox.

An example, he would have extras cross in front

of the actors.

Now, you never saw that.

It just created a depth and a feeling that

you were really in that bar.

The "Cheers" pilot

airs on September 30th, 1982 on NBC.

Hello?

Sam?

Are you Sam?

Yes, he's here. Someone named Vicky.

No, no, no, no, no, no!

We had, like, a fast-food network,

and all of a sudden, we were serving a gourmet meal,

and so, the audience, they weren't watching

sophisticated adult comedy on NBC.

Why would they? They didn't know about it.

We didn't have a lot of circulation,

and so it was kind of a dud.

For all the assembled talent on screen

and behind the scenes, not only does the premiere

rate last in its time slot, but the entire first season

ranks as one of the lowest-rated network shows of the year.

Would it already be last call for the gang at "Cheers"?

On September 30th, 1982, NBC airs the very first

episode of "Cheers", hoping to set a new standard

for network comedies and to breathe life into

their otherwise lackluster lineup in prime time.

Unfortunately, very few people watched it.

People weren't used to that kind of viewing,

and they also had other shows that they already liked

that they were sticking with.

They weren't going to give "Cheers" a chance.

It's a disappointing first season,

but NBC executives see few options.

Grant Tinker, who was then the chairman of NBC,

popped his head in Brandon's office,

said, "Wait, what are you talking about?"

I said, "Well, you know, talking about 'Cheers',

"we have to make a decision pretty soon

"on whether that's a show we can bring back."

"Cheers" was going to be the lowest-rated network show

on any network for that first season,

and Grant said, "Well, do you have anything better?"

And we said, "Dear god, no."

And he said, "Well, I think you made your decision."

When the network airs reruns of

"Cheers" that summer,

the show climbs to 9th place in the ratings.

Once people had a chance to come to "Cheers",

all of a sudden, it was like, wow.

As the "will they or won't they" battle of wits

between Sam and Diane rages on, audiences are riveted.

I'll tell you, go for it!

Are you okay?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I'm fine, I'm fine.

At the end of season one, we decided to have Sam and Diane

finally kiss and finally admit their attraction to each other.

Great episode written by the Charles brothers.

And that night, when we did that scene,

and Sam and Diane finally kiss,

the audience went absolutely crazy.

It was huge.

You disgust me. I hate you.

- Are you as turned on as I am? - More!

Bet me.

I've never heard such a roar and such applause

from an audience,

and I remember turning to my writing partner David Isaacs

at the time and I said, "We peaked.

"There's nothing we can do with these two characters

"that will ever match the impact of this,

"whether they sleep together, whether they get married,

"whether they break up."

Whatever it is, it's not gonna have

the impact that this moment had.

Then the Emmy nominations came around,

and they really echoed our enthusiasm

and the critics' enthusiasm.

In its first season,

"Cheers" receives 13 Emmy nominations

and wins for Outstanding Comedy Series,

Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing.

To be honest, we went into the night

expecting to lose,

because it was the final season of "MASH",

and the final episode of "MASH" was seen by 121 million people,

and our show was seen by seven.

And then they say,

"And the Best Comedy is 'Cheers'."

And we went nuts.

And then I started hearing our music,

and it was like, "Oh my god, we won!"

Shelley Long also takes home a statue

for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy.

"Cheers" wins, and Shelley, and so, writing and directing,

it's a big, wonderful commercial for what we're doing.

"Cheers" is the only show I've ever worked on

where you had network executives saying,

"You guys will figure it out,"

and I think that's part of the reason

it's as good as it is consistently

is because everybody trusted everybody to do their jobs.

Meanwhile, writers worked to keep

the Sam and Diane dynamic fresh.

In season two, the creators break the couple up.

That relationship,

that on-again, off-again Sam and Diane dynamic,

had been fully explored,

and in order to go further with it,

we're gonna have to probably get them together together.

Although there had been shows that had tried that,

like "Moonlighting,"

and it hadn't worked out very well.

Nobody knew quite what was going to happen

after we got Sam and Diane together.

Then they fell in love, and then there

was a proposal, and then there was a rejection.

What the Charles brothers and Jimmy felt they needed

was they needed another romantic interest for Diane.

The choice was to go against the grain.

You don't want to step on what you've established

with Sam,

so they went for another intellectual,

and there were a number of actors that auditioned,

and then there was Kelsey, and for the boys,

it was like, "That's our guy, Kelsey Grammer."

In season three, Grammer joins the cast

as pretentious psychiatrist Frasier Crane,

a new love interest for Diane.

Kelsey Grammer was brought on as a foil to Sam Malone.

The key to Frasier is I think he actually really cares,

but he doesn't have all the equipment to express it.

Frasier was only supposed to be in, like, three episodes,

but Kelsey Grammer was so good,

and the Charles brothers recognized that

they might have lightning in a bottle,

and so they kept it going, and it became a triangle.

If you're an actor and you want to get more material

just nail what you've been given,

and, wow, did Kelsey understand how to do that.

And even when his romantic relationship

burnt out with Diane,

it was still clear that this was a character and a voice

that everyone wanted in that bar.

With Kelsey Grammer signed on,

Shelley Long delivers some personal news.

What came to us is, she's pregnant.

We're gonna hide it.

It's not gonna be a part of the narrative,

and we left that up to the magic of what Jimmy Burrows does.

Both Shelley Long and Rhea Perlman

were pregnant that year, and so the storyline had

Shelley Long going to Europe with Frasier Crane,

and so they had her in a lot of coats

and a lot of long jackets going through Europe

where her pregnancy would not show.

Rhea Perlman stayed in the bar and always crossed stage

holding a big tray in front of her belly,

and I believe she had, like,

three children during the run of "Cheers".

Blessings for the "Cheers" family,

but in 1985, tragedy strikes when Nicholas Colasanto

dies from a heart attack in his home.

Nick Colasanto, we loved him.

That was such a beautiful father-son relationship

that Sam had with Coach.

But Nick had a heart attack and he was gone.

Losing the Coach was a huge loss for the show.

To replace him, the Charles brothers

always wanted to go a different way,

and not just bring in somebody who is kind of like the Coach.

So they thought, well, let's go younger.

They wrote the character of Woody Boyd.

They wanted him to be just 21,

like just old enough to work in a bar,

and that's when we put out the casting call,

and we were able to cast it with Woody Harrelson,

who was amazing,

and he changed the show because he brought a youthfulness

into the show and his dating life,

he was living in Boston, he was from, I believe, Indiana,

and he just added new energy to the show

that was really valuable.

After he got the part,

he came into my office and asked to use my phone,

and I said, "Of course."

And he called his mother and he said,

"Mom, I got the 'Cheers' role.

"I want you to quit your job."

And I was, like, knocked out by that,

and it was with such affection and such love for his mom,

who had raised three boys by herself,

and he didn't want her to have to work so hard anymore.

He could send her money now, he had a real job.

That ushered in a delightful,

crazy dumb guy

into our world.

It was a new voice, a new dimension.

"Cheers" did such a good job of reloading

over the years, especially for such a simple show.

They brought in people so well.

The replacements that they created

were great replacements.

"Cheers" is a show about the chemistry of its cast

and stunningly how they could replace elements of that cast

and still maintain that chemistry.

Also joining the gang at "Cheers",

Dr. Lilith Sternin,

played by Broadway actress Bebe Neuwirth.

Bebe came in to do just a little one-off,

and she did one scene, and we all looked at each other

in the editing room and went, oh, we have to bring her back.

I'll get the script at home one night

and I'll read through it and laugh out loud

alone in my apartment, and then go into the reading,

and it is even, you know, 80 times as funny.

When you have new characters introduced,

then you also have a different chemistry.

You have new storylines that you can do,

and if the character works, it can keep the show going

for another two, three, in the case of "Cheers",

six more years.

I think change really ended up being good for the show.

"Cheers" enjoys a cast of colorful characters,

but by the fifth season,

Long announces she's leaving the show.

Shelley made the decision midway through season five.

She was contractually obligated through five seasons,

and she fulfilled her obligation.

She had a burgeoning movie career.

By this time, Long had appeared in

"Outrageous Fortune",

"The Money Pit", "Irreconcilable Differences",

and "Night Shift".

I think part of it too is

because the Sam and Diane relationship

over five years had kind of gone through twists and turns,

and it was sputtering a little bit.

When she announced she was leaving,

I personally, I panicked.

We had perfection, don't mess with it.

We were losing what was the comic engine of the show,

the central romantic comedy relationship,

and that's not easy to duplicate or replace.

That was scary.

And then came Kirstie.

It is 1987, and "Cheers" is at the top

of its game, five years in and still a hit in the ratings,

winning awards and securing a top spot on NBC's "Must-See TV"

Thursday night lineup.

But then, after five seasons, Shelley Long leaves the show.

There was grave concern

that the show would not be able to survive.

So the answer to

"What are you gonna do without Shelley Long,"

the answer became Rebecca Howe.

The idea was to give Sam an adversarial attraction,

not with somebody who's intellectual,

but somebody who is entrepreneurial.

We were going to bring in somebody who would be

Sam's new boss, the woman he has to answer to.

The part goes to Kirstie Alley.

We all loved her at NBC as soon as

the first episode was shot.

We all knew that we lucked out yet again on "Cheers"

and had the perfect actress for the perfect role.

Kirstie walked on that stage

and she didn't suffer from any ghosts of Shelley Long.

I mean, she owned it, and she was immediately kind of

one of the boys in that "Cheers" mens' bar club,

and the cast loved her.

She had swagger, she was strong.

She was tough in a very different way

than the strength of Diane.

Tell you what, why don't you

put that back where you found.

That way, we'll know where it is when we need it.

When Hell freezes over.

I remember the first night

we filmed that first episode with Kirstie,

I was like, "Oh my god, this is gonna work."

And I raced off the stage, I got to a phone.

Didn't have cell phones then.

I called Brandon at home, and I said, "It's gonna work."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "She's fantastic."

And it's a new dynamic.

Sam is like rocked back from her punch,

and it's a very different punch than what Shelley had.

After one particular scene,

the writing team taps into Rebecca's more emotional side.

We were having trouble in those early episodes with her

finding the funny in that character,

and then in an episode, she's upset and she cries.

Is there something wrong?

Hey, well, yes, I understand, of course.

Here, here, have a seat, here.

We all looked at each other on the stage and went,

"Oh, oh, that's where the funny is."

It's not that she is the,

you know, the biggest, toughest, ballsiest woman in the bar.

It's that she's the biggest loser in the bar!

And once we set on that, we tried to find ways

to make her cry every single week.

It's like a light bulb went off over all of our heads.

If Rebecca is a mess, she's really funny,

so let's do whatever we can to upend her professional life

and her personal life, her sex life,

whatever we can do to just keep her a mess.

And once we made that switch, then we were off to the races.

The show, in a sense, got a shot of adrenaline

because it went in a different direction.

They had a different kind of chemistry,

but it was equally wonderful.

As audiences embraced Kirstie Alley's

Rebecca Howe, the cast and creative team

worked together on storylines,

at the time a rare treat in Hollywood.

Sometimes when you go down to the set,

you'll see that there is a real animosity

between the writers and the actors,

and that was never the case with "Cheers".

There was a tremendous collaboration between

the writers and the actors.

But as popularity continues to grow

and more characters are added to the cast,

the writers face new challenges.

You've got a cast of 12 beloved regulars that

we're trying to squeeze into 26 minutes of airtime,

so that was challenging.

We as a writer's room always felt obliged to top

the last best thing we did,

so it was not without its challenges.

It was fun but hard.

But in 1992, Ted Danson announces season 11

will be his last.

Teddy was right.

It was time.

We were struggling a little bit to come up with new stories.

That just seems like time to move on.

Last call for "Cheers",

but the cast and crew gear up for the send-off of a lifetime.

After 11 seasons, Ted Danson announces

he is leaving "Cheers" after the 1992-93 season

with the show still on top of the ratings.

After briefly considering "Cheers" without Sam Malone,

the creators and NBC agree to bring the hit show to an end.

Make no mistake, Ted Danson was our rudder.

You know, he was the center so that we could navigate

from half of the run of the show,

the first five years with Shelley Long brilliantly,

and then Kirstie Alley. So all you say after

Ted saying, "It's time for me" is "Thank you."

NBC heavily promotes the finale,

calling it the television event of a lifetime.

"Cheers" is one of the greatest comedies

of all time, and the audience had spent

11 years with that show.

For the audience, there harbored this kind of,

"Wow. Wow, how will it end?"

The problems with a series finale,

number one, the expectations of the audience,

and number two,

networks wanting to expand the show

because they're gonna get Super Bowl-type ratings.

They want Super Bowl-type commercials,

so they want that kind of revenue.

"Cheers" had one advantage,

and that was they could bring back Diane.

So there was something that was still unresolved

that could be resolved by the series finale.

In the last show, Sam first leaves the bar behind

for a new life with Diane,

but Danson's character returns to Cheers without her,

realizing Sam and Diane can never be together.

There were a lot of people that just wished that

Sam and Diane had gotten together

and gone off into the sunset,

but the feeling was,

they're never gonna live happily ever after.

I mean, they just aren't.

And ultimately,

I loved the honesty of the choice,

and I think it's incredibly satisfying

as we're left with Sam and his bar,

and he says goodbye.

The last episode airs on May 20th, 1993 on NBC,

and ends with the Cheers gang hanging out one last time

just before Sam closes the bar.

Sorry, we're closed.

Sam says, "Sorry, we're closed."

I cried.

I loved it. Poetic.

I think if you had to take one scene to define

Glen and Les Charles, for me, it would be that scene.

Most of the "Cheers" family

watches the finale together in Boston

while a crowd of thousands watched outside.

We're hearing laughs like 10 seconds delayed

from Boston Common from 20,000 people.

When it was over, the cast went to the window

waving to the adoring crowd.

It was so emotional.

We were all hugging and crying.

That night, the cast joins Jay Leno

on "The Tonight Show" for a memorable appearance in Boston.

Live from the Bull and Finch in Boston,

the very bar and location that was kind of the birthplace.

It was a night of celebration, of laughter, of love.

But the Leno appearance quickly goes

off the rails.

We all arrived at the bar at seven.

We've been drinking now for four and a half hours.

They were hammered.

The cast was so drunk by the time "The Tonight Show"

live portion was going out.

They were very emotional, and so they just got silly.

You know, you'd like to say something to Kirstie?

All right, Kirstie? - Wait, wait.

Kirstie, you are my best friend,

but we all need to say this to you.

- Yes. - You're stupid!

It was a frat party that went bad.

11 years of our lives was just suddenly over.

The series finale of "Cheers"

is still one of the most-watched episodes of all time.

Every once in a while, magic happens in a sitcom

where everything comes together,

and the writing was just amazing,

the casting was amazing,

direction, just the idea that they all met in this bar

where everybody knows your name.

A Sam and Diane relationship is now so core

to so many sitcoms, you know.

The spinoff "Frasier" has the Niles and Daphne dynamic.

"The Office" has Jim and Pam.

"Friends" has Ross and Rachel,

and that all goes back to "Cheers".

And as Littlefield had hoped, after 11 years,

"Cheers" changes the programming landscape for NBC.

There was no sophisticated adult comedy

on NBC until "Cheers".

A very slow start, but once they realized that

they had found a good friend in "Cheers",

that really became a signal for us

of what we were capable of doing.

When "Cheers" came to a natural end,

Kelsey Grammer was ready to do "Frasier,"

and the writers were the writers from "Cheers"

and it was directed by Jimmy Burrows,

and it was another amazing show.

So many people have gone back to season one

and watched every one of the 11 seasons.

That's an amazing feeling to know that those ideas

that you've bounced off each other

in a wild writer's room in the '80s are still resonating.

Watching an episode of "Cheers" is like therapy.

You know the jokes, and yet, it's so comfortable

to be with those friends again.

I continue to laugh at the jokes

that I laughed at nearly 40 years ago.

I fall in love with those characters again

every time that I watch.

I think it goes back to that sense of family.

It felt like a family,

and it felt like a family that you'd want to be part of.

People relate to workplace comedies because,

at their best, they're a family,

and workplace comedies allow that

'cause it allows different people

from different backgrounds to become your family.

If you are lucky enough to land on a show

where you can be as smart as you can

and as heartful and as feeling and as dumb as you can be

because you have this brilliant ensemble of characters

and cast of actors who can play all those different notes,

um [sighing] run with it as hard and as long and as fast

and as fun as you can.

I've worked on a lot of sitcoms in my career,

and I just believe sometimes magic happens,

and everything comes together: the writing, the directing,

the casting, and that's what happened with "Cheers".

We wanted the audience to laugh,

but more importantly, we wanted the audience to care,

and that was our, really, guiding star.