Cheers facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cheers
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Glen and Les Charles James Burrows
Starring	Ted Danson Shelley Long Nicholas Colasanto Rhea Perlman George Wendt John Ratzenberger Kelsey Grammer Woody Harrelson Kirstie Alley Bebe Neuwirth
Theme music composer	Gary Portnoy Judy Hart Angelo
Opening theme	"Where Everybody Knows Your Name" by Gary Portnoy
Composer(s)	Craig Safan
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	11
No. of episodes	275 (including three double-length episodes and a triple-length finale) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	James Burrows Glen and Les Charles Bill and Cheri Steinkellner Phoef Sutton (season 9–10) Tom Anderson (season 11) Dan O'Shannon (season 11)
Cinematography	John Finger Kenneth Peach (first three episodes)
Camera setup	Film; Multi-camera
Running time	21–25 minutes
Production company(s)	Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions Paramount Network Television
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	NTSC
Audio format	Stereo (1982–1987) Dolby Surround (1988–1993)
Original release	September 30, 1982 (1982-09-30) – May 20, 1993 (1993-05-20)
Chronology
Followed by	Frasier
Related shows	The Tortellis Wings Cheers (Spanish version)

Cheers is an American sitcom television series that ran on NBC from September 30, 1982, to May 20, 1993, with a total of 275 half-hour episodes across 11 seasons. The show was produced by Charles/Burrows Productions in association with Paramount Network Television, and was created by the team of James Burrows and Glen and Les Charles. The show is set in a real-life bar and namesake Cheers in Boston, where a group of locals meet to drink, relax and socialize.

At the center of the show was the bar's owner and head bartender, Sam Malone, who was a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. The show's ensemble cast introduced in the pilot episode were waitresses Diane Chambers and Carla Tortelli, second bartender Coach Ernie Pantusso, and regular customers Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. Later main characters of the show also included Frasier Crane, Woody Boyd, Lilith Sternin and Rebecca Howe.

After premiering in 1982, it was nearly canceled during its first season when it ranked almost last in ratings for its premiere (74th out of 77 shows). However, Cheers eventually became a Nielsen ratings juggernaut in the United States, earning a top-ten rating during eight of its 11 seasons, including one season at number one (season 9). The show spent most of its run on NBC's Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup. Its widely watched series finale was broadcast in 1993 to become the most watched single episode of the 1990s, and the show's 275 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide. Nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for all 11 of its seasons on the air, it earned 28 Primetime Emmy Awards from a record of 117 nominations.

During its run, Cheers became one of the most popular series in history and received critical acclaim from its start to its end. In 1997, the episodes "Thanksgiving Orphans" and "Home Is the Sailor", aired originally in 1987, were respectively ranked No. 7 and No. 45 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. Its series finale was watched by an estimated 93 million viewers, almost 40% of the US population at the time. In 2002, Cheers was ranked No. 18 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the eighth-best-written TV series and TV Guide ranked it No. 11 on their list of the 60 greatest shows.

Characters

Before the Cheers pilot "Give Me a Ring Sometime" was completed and aired in 1982, the series consisted of four employees in the first script. Neither Norm Peterson nor Cliff Clavin, regular customers of Cheers, were featured; later revisions added them as among the regular characters of the series.

In later years, Woody Boyd replaced Coach, after the character died off-screen in season three (1984–85), following actor Nicholas Colasanto's death. Frasier Crane started as a recurring character and became a permanent one. In season six (1987–88), new character Rebecca Howe was added, having been written into the show after the finale of the previous season (1986–87). Lilith Sternin started as a one-time character in an episode of season four, "Second Time Around" (1985). After her second season five appearance, she became a recurring character and was later featured as a permanent one during season 10 (1991–92).

Original main characters

Cast of seasons one through three, left to right: (top) Shelley Long, Ted Danson; (middle) Rhea Perlman, Nicholas Colasanto; (bottom) George Wendt, John Ratzenberger

• Ted Danson as Sam Malone:
  A bartender and proprietor of Cheers, Sam is also a lothario. Before the series began, he was a baseball relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox nicknamed "Mayday Malone". He has an on-again, off-again relationship with Diane Chambers, his class opposite, in the first five seasons (1982–1987). During their off-times, Sam has flings with many not-so-bright women, yet fails to pursue a meaningful relationship. After Diane is written out of the series, he tries to pursue Rebecca Howe, with varying results. At the end of the series, he is still unmarried.
• Shelley Long as Diane Chambers:
  An academic, sophisticated graduate student attending Boston University. In the pilot, Diane is abandoned by her fiancé, leaving her without a job or money. Realizing that one of her few practical skills is memorization, which comes in handy when dealing with drink orders, she reluctantly becomes a barmaid. Later, she becomes a close friend of Coach and has an on-and-off relationship with bartender Sam Malone, her class opposite. During their off-relationship times, Diane dates men who fit her upper-class ideals, such as Frasier Crane. In 1987, she leaves Boston behind for a writing career and to live in Los Angeles, California. Diane's biggest enemy is Carla, who frequently insults her, but Diane's lack of retaliation serves to annoy Carla even more.
• Nicholas Colasanto as Coach Ernie Pantusso:
  A "borderline senile" co-bartender, widower, and retired baseball coach. Coach is also a friend of Sam and a close friend of Diane. He has a daughter, Lisa (Allyce Beasley). Coach listens to people's problems and solves them. However, other people also help resolve his own problems. In 1985, Coach died without explicit explanation, as Colasanto died of a heart attack.
• Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli:
  A "wisecracking, cynical" cocktail waitress, who treats customers badly. When the series premieres, she is the mother of five children by her ex-husband Nick Tortelli (Dan Hedaya). Over the course of the series, she bears three more. All of her children are ill behaved, except Ludlow, whose father is a prominent academic. Later she marries Eddie LeBec, an ice hockey player, who later becomes a penguin mascot for ice shows.
• George Wendt as Norm Peterson:
  A bar regular and occasionally-employed accountant. A recurrent joke on the show, especially in the earlier seasons, was that the character was such a popular and constant fixture at the bar that anytime he entered through the front door everyone present would yell out his name ("NORM!") in greeting; usually this cry would be followed by one of the present bartenders asking Norm how he was, usually receiving a sardonic response and a request for a beer. ("It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear.") He has infrequent accounting jobs and a troubled marriage with (but is still in love with and married to) Vera, an unseen character, though she is occasionally heard. Later in the series, he becomes a house painter and an interior decorator. Even later in the series, Norm secures his dream job, tasting beer at a brewery. The character was not originally intended to be a main cast role; Wendt auditioned for a minor role of George for the pilot episode. The role was only to be Diane Chambers' first customer and had only one word: "Beer!" After he was cast in a more permanent role, the character was renamed Norm.
• John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin:
  A know-it-all bar regular and mail carrier. He lives with his mother Esther Clavin (Frances Sternhagen) in first the family house and later an apartment. In the bar, Cliff continuously spouts nonsensical and annoying trivia, making him an object of derision to the bar patrons. Ratzenberger auditioned for the role of a minor character George, but it went to Wendt, evolving the role into Norm Peterson. The producers decided they wanted a resident bar know-it-all, so the security guard Cliff Clavin was added for the pilot. The producers changed his occupation into a mail carrier as they thought such a man would have wider knowledge than a guard.

Subsequent main characters

Cast of Cheers since season six. (left to right): (top) Perlman, Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth; (bottom) Wendt, Kirstie Alley, Danson, Ratzenberger

• Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane:
  A psychiatrist and bar regular. Frasier started out as Diane Chambers' love interest in the third season (1984–85). In the fourth season (1985–86), after Diane jilts him at the altar in Europe, Frasier starts to frequent Cheers and becomes a regular. He later marries Lilith Sternin and has a son, Frederick. After the series ends, the character becomes the focus of the spin-off Frasier, in which he is divorced from Lilith and living in Seattle.
• Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd:
  A not-so-bright bartender. He arrives from his Midwest hometown of Hanover, Indiana to Boston, to see Coach, his "pen pal" (as referring to exchanging "pens", not letters). When Sam tells Woody that Coach died, Sam hires Woody in Coach's place. Later, he marries his girlfriend Kelly Gaines (Jackie Swanson), also not-so-bright but raised in a rich family. In the final season, he runs for city council and, surprisingly, wins.
• Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith Sternin:
  A psychiatrist and bar regular. She is often teased by bar patrons about her uptight personality and appearance. In "Second Time Around" (1986), her first episode, also her only one of the fourth season, her date with Frasier does not go well because they constantly argue. In the fifth season, with help from Diane, Lilith and Frasier begin a relationship. Eventually, they marry and have a son, Frederick. In the eleventh and final season, she leaves Frasier to live with another man in an experimental underground environment called the "Eco-pod." She returns later in the season and reconciles with Frasier. However, in the spinoff Frasier, the couple have divorced, with Lilith maintaining custody of Frederick.
• Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe:
  She starts out as a strong independent woman, manager of the bar for the corporation that bought Cheers from Sam after his on-off relationship with Diane ended. Eventually, when Sam regains ownership, she begs him to let her remain, first as cocktail waitress and later as manager. She repeatedly has romantic failures with mainly rich men and becomes more and more "neurotic and insecure". In the series finale, after failed relationships with rich men, Rebecca marries a plumber and quits working for the bar. In the Frasier episode "The Show Where Sam Shows Up", she is revealed to be divorced and back at the bar. When Frasier asks whether this means that she is working there again, Sam says "no, she's just back at the bar."

In season 11, Bebe Neuwirth is given "starring" credit only when she appears.

Character table

Theme song

The original version of one of the images used in the opening title sequence.

Before "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, became the show's theme song, Cheers' producers rejected two of Portnoy's and Hart Angelo's songs. The songwriters had collaborated to provide music for Preppies, an unsuccessful Broadway musical. When told they could not appropriate "People Like Us", Preppies' opening song, the pair wrote another song "My Kind of People", which resembled "People Like Us" and intended to satirize "the lifestyle of old decadent old-money WASPs," but, to meet producers' demands, they rewrote the lyrics to be about "likeable losers" in a Boston bar. The show's producers rejected this song, as well. After they read the script of the series pilot, they created another song "Another Day". When Portnoy and Hart Angelo heard that NBC had commissioned thirteen episodes, they created an official theme song "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" and rewrote the lyrics. On syndicated airings of Cheers, the theme song was shortened to make room for additional commercials.

Remake

In September 2011, Plural Entertainment debuted a remake of the series on Spanish television, also titled Cheers. Set at an Irish pub, it starred Alberto San Juan as Nicolás "Nico" Arnedo, the equivalent of Sam Malone in the original series. It also used the original theme song, rerecorded in Spanish by Dani Martín, under the title "Dónde la gente se divierte."

In December 2012, The Irish Film and Television Network announced that casting was underway on an Irish-language version of Cheers produced by production company Sideline. The new show, tentatively titled Teach Seán, would air on Ireland's TG4 and features a main character who, like Sam Malone, is a bar owner, a retired athlete. However, because of being set in Ireland, the barman is a "former hurling star" rather than an ex-baseball player. As of August 2019, the Irish remake has not occurred.

Cheers: Live on Stage

On September 9, 2016, a stage adaptation called Cheers: Live on Stage opened at the Shubert Theatre in Boston. Comprising pieces of the original TV series, the play was adapted by Erik Forrest Jackson. It was produced by Troika/Stageworks. The director was Matt Lenz. It starred Grayson Powell as Sam Malone, Jillian Louis as Diane Chambers, Barry Pearl as Ernie 'Coach' Pantusso, Sarah Sirotta as Carla Tortelli, Paul Vogt as Norm Peterson, and Buzz Roddy as Cliff Clavin. The production was scheduled to tour through 2017, but was cancelled in 2016.

See also

In Spanish: Cheers para niños