Cheers: After Diane

Imagine you're the showrunner of Cheers and it's 1986. One of your principal cast (Nicholas Colasanto) has died, and one of your leads (Shelley Long) has left the show. Which also means, the defining feature of the show (Sam and Diane) is no longer viable.

The success of the show has made rich celebrities of the rest of your cast. They're being cast in films, doing guest spots in other shows, doing commercials, driving faster cars, partying harder, buying houses and boats and restaurants, and they're rehearsing less. Says Ted Danson:

"The first few years, the adrenaline pump is: Can I do this? Will I be good? Will they love us? Did we rehearse enough? (Eventually) that adrenaline pump is gone, but you need adrenaline to perform or you’re fucked. So the way people at Cheers got pumped was to rehearse less and less, to be less certain.

As the years went on, it got crazier and crazier: “Where’s Woody?” “Oh, he called this morning; he’s in Berlin because the Wall’s coming down.” Well, that would piss off John (Ratzenberger) who would then fly to Seattle to harvest his apples—literally."

George Wendt agrees: "People used to admire the loosey-goosey quality we brought to it. We used to chuckle to ourselves and say, That’s because we just learned it five minutes ago."

And beyond all that is just the reality of taking a sitcom into its later years. Says Cheri Steinkellner (from the same article:) "You had all of this history. Everything had been done. And the cast was growing: You kept adding great characters that you wanted to service, and it was really hard to pack everybody in. And all of the regular cast was so loved, you had to give everybody significant moments in every episode and tell a story. So that working the puzzle became really challenging in the later years."

What do you do? Re-casting Diane is not an option. Neither's cracking down on the cast or adding a funny Martian that only Sam can see. How do you maintain this juggernaut while juggling all of these factors?

If you thought about it long enough, you might have come to the decision the actual showrunners and producers came to: keep it funny but make everything broader. The established show was still there, but it was as if it was told to pack for a trip and had to leave the more comprehensive version of itself behind. The characters didn't exactly change, but they lost something, became more soundbite-y versions of themselves.

I didn't like the transition at the time, but over the years I've come to appreciate the A.D. era more and more. I admire the way it juggled all of the above and still maintained a solid product. If it lost a bit of its altitude, it never was in any danger of crashing; more importantly, it kept the brand alive and preserved the fun of the show.

Which brings us to Rebecca Howe:

She was initially conceived as a sort of Joan Collins-type character - the "gorgeous woman who's the boss, who everyone tries to foul up," according to Glen Charles - but as she was integrated into the cast more and more, "they started writing Rebecca more like I am" (says Kirstie Alley) "—a little klutzy and self-deprecating. That’s why it worked; I fit in with the rest of the losers."

Sam and Rebecca were never intended to be Sam and Diane. (Thankfully.) As someone puts it in that GQ piece, "Rebecca became more like Sam's hot sister." I don't 100% agree, myself, but am I going to second-guess the show's own writers? (Probably.) Anyway, it's close enough. Once they established Rebecca's insecurities and hunger for status, everything fell into place. 

I originally intended to cover all the Cheers A.D. years in this post, but I'll save the final season for next time. It stands apart from Seasons 6 through 10 and is better addressed as its own separate thing.

Here then, in order of how they aired, are 10 (well, 12) of my favorite episodes of the After Diane era.

Season 6, Episode 2. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Ken Levine and David Isaacs.

Plot: Sam's friend Dave (Fred Dwyer, originally cast as Sam Malone, incidentally - did I mention that last time? Can't recall.) asks Sam to replace him as sportcaster on the local news for a week. Sam does, with unfortunate results.

Opening Bit: Rebecca tells Sam, Woody and Carla to take extra care of their much-loathed uniforms; naturally, they sabotage them immediately.

Notes: I'm not sure exactly why "I" is italicized in that title. But that's how it appears everywhere else, so that's how it appears here.

Here is only the 2nd After Diane episode, and Sam is pretty strongly repositioned. Previous storylines played on Sam's getting older, his faded celebrity, his perhaps not being as suave as his patrons thought, etc. but starting with this episode and re-enforced going forward, Sam tends towards the ridiculous. Even when he's scoring heavy with the babes. Without Diane, there's no one to pull him in any other direction. This was intentional on the part of the writers, partly to reflect the inherent ridiculousness of the aging lothario but also as part of a general streamlining-of-ridiculousness for everyone in the cast. It's easier to do ridiculous - not effortwise, it's probably even more work for the writers et al. - but given the factors mentioned above about dealing with a successful cast, it's easier. They're all "one of the losers" and continuity isn't as fluid as it used to be. As I've mentioned before, this used to bother me a lot. But if you can shrug that off, it's all still a lot of fun, and no one is exactly twisted beyond recognition.

This bit right here is a good example:

On one hand, its humor is derived from an exaggeration of Sam's stupidity. In many ways, it's a jump the shark moment for the character we saw saying "Wow" to the Simenko painting back in Season 2. On the other, it's within the realm of reason, and it might have been the greatest thing on TV on Oct. 1, 1987. Who cares? (Woody's bopping along with that never fails to crack me up.) The reaction shots throughout this episode are all quite funny.

Incidentally, the actress above (Catherine MacNeal) can be seen in other episodes as one of the newscasters on the bar television. It's a nice touch that the Cheers gang prefers a certain news team and channel; regulars are very particular about such things.

Fun Line: "Thank you, Joanne. I'd just like to say, you look better live than in person." (Sam, trying to be slick.)

Season 6, Episode 21. Directed by Andy Ackerman. Written by Sue Herring.

Plot: Cheers raffles off a Caribbean vacation, and Frasier buys Lilith an expensive abstract painting that everyone but him sees as a depiction of "two dogs, getting rea-al familiar"  (Woody's words.)

Opening Bit: Cliff "postal raps" with a fellow USPS employee. Norm mentions how he once almost asked Cliff to translate, but he didn't when it occurred to him, "he might tell me."

Notes: This episode has aged pretty well. In particular everything surrounding the painting:

and some great use of Al Rosen. When Woody can't tell if the winning raffle number is 66 or 99, Sam tries to dissuade one of the winners from the Caribbean vacation by grabbing Al and introducing him as last year's winner. "Do you have any idea what the sun does to your skin down there?" Though surprised, Al doesn't miss a beat.

I fell asleep at the beach. It's hard to transcribe how perfect his line delivery is, but keep an ear out - there are a dozen ways he could have said this, and this is the right approach.

Season 7, Episode 2. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Tom Reeder.

Plot: Sam makes a rash promise to God that he'll remain celibate if only someone else is the father of an old girl friend's baby.

Opening Bit: Woody is auditioning for the part of Moses in his theater company. (Woody's attempts to establish himself as an actor are a repeated motif of the A.D. era.)

Notes: Sam's attempts to circumvent his "oath-keeping" and his imagined epiphany at finding a Gideon's Bible just before he's about to get laid ("Can you imagine that? A Bible in a hotel room?") are great. As is Frasier's story about how he sublimated his own uncontrollable urges as an adolescent. (By building a fully-functional submarine in his parents basement.) 

Watching Cheers in 2014 is like opening a time capsule of frequent female guest stars from all 80s (and some 90s) television, preserved for all eternity in their big-haired, big-belted, shoulder-padded glory. (Nothing against any of them - just styles have changed so much since then.)

In this episode alone, you had Shanna Reed:

Perhaps best known in later years for Major Dad.

and the future Mrs. Robert Ulrich (Kim Johnston:)

Elsewhere in these early years of the A.D. era, you had Marcia Cross:

Dorothy Parke:

and Madolyn Smith Osborne.

So many others, but you get the idea. Not that it was only the A.D. era to showcase such 80s-TV-bridesmaids. Season 1 had both Angela Aames and Deborah Shelton.

If you don't recognize any of the above by name or image, chances are you were likely not an adolescent heterosexual boy during the time Cheers was on the air. (Or anywhere near Cinemax on any weekend night of the 80s or early 90s.) In later seasons, luminaries such as Dana Delaney and Emma Thompson had memorable guest turns. The times, they were a'changing.

This is also the first appearance of this priest dude (vet of stage and screen, Eric Christmas) who shows up a few more times in the seasons to come.

Fun Line: "Hello in there, Cliff. Tell me... what color is the sky in your world?" (Frasier, to Cliff, obviously.)

Season 7, Episode 7. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Phoef Sutton.

Plot: Cliff drastically alters his personality after no one from the bar comes to visit him during his hospital stay with appendicitis. Sam gives Lilith driving lessons.

Opening Bit: Woody is tempted by a late-night ad for a sex-talk hotline. He calls and ends up being connected to Cliff.

Notes: The central gag of this episode is that Cliff has had a buzzer of some kind inserted into himself that delivers an electric jolt (as administered by a nearby doctor) when he says anything too abrasive. When he wrestles the buzzer away from the doctor and tries to turn the tables ("Let's see how you like it!") he of course only succeeds in jolting himself further. Some fine physical comedy from John Ratzenberger. (Though difficult to screencap.)

It all sets up yet another of my favorite Al Rosen moments:

"Dance, mailman!"

Season 7, Episode 13. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Cheri Eichen and Bill Steinkellner.

Plot: While bartending at a high society gala, Woody is humiliated by a rich snob. He goes out on a date with the snob's girlfriend, Kelly, to get revenge, but she and Woody end up hitting it off.

Opening Bit: The gang tries to help Cliff pick out a birthday gift for his mom while staying under $2.

Notes: This is the episode that introduced Kelly, Woody's eventual wife and a long-running guest star.

To that peculiar subset of folks to which I belong, it's impossible to mention her without lapsing into "Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly K-E-L-L-Y. Why? Because you're Kelly Kelly Kelly..."

Cheers did good work with its recurring characters. I think the only substantial one not covered in any of these write-ups is Rebecca's love interest for several seasons:

Roger Rees as Robin Colcord.

Season 8, Episode 7. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Ken Levine and David Isaacs.

Plot: Carla learns that Eddie led a secret life when a second widow shows up at his funeral.

Opening Bit: Norm reveals to Rebecca that the reason the Cheers phone bill is so high is because he and other patrons routinely use it for their long-distance calls.

Notes: Another recurring character was Jay Thomas as Eddie Lebec, a Boston Bruin who marries Carla. He doesn't appear in person in "Death Takes a Holiday on Ice," just his unseen corpse.

The story around his departure from the show is disputed. Ken Levine maintains that Thomas (a radio personality in Los Angeles) joked that kissing Rhea Perlman should entail him to combat pay. Perlman heard this, got furious, and demanded he get fired. (She denies this; Thomas does not, though he's quick to point out he meant his character having to kiss meant Carla, not he-the-actor having to kiss Rhea.) Regardless, in this and a few other episodes, Eddie Lebec probably provided more comedy for the show dead than alive. In addition to the fight that breaks out at Eddie's "hockey funeral:"

there's this memorable guest appearance from Thomas Haden Church (not yet a household name:)

whose every line is gold, but they don't transcribe well. ("Knew him? He saved my life. Yeah, I knew him." See?)

Season 8, Episode 14. Directed by Andy Ackerman. Written by Dan O'Shannon and Tom Anderson.

Plot: Cliff appears on Jeopardy, and Sam tries to find out who lifted his little black book of girlfriend's names.

Opening Bit: A customer walks into the bar who hasn't been there for decades. While pointing out things that have changed, he uses Norm as a reference. (Which raises an interesting question as to exactly how old Norm is / when he first started coming to Cheers.)

Notes: I've tried many times to come up with a specific-to-me version of Cliff's dream board of categories ("Civil Servants," "Stamps from Around the World," "Mothers and Sons," "Beer," "Bar Trivia," and "Celibacy.") It's a fun car ride game. Feel free to leave yours in the comments.

The other plot - Sam's attempts to recover his famed little black book - led me to realize two things on this re-watch: 1) the entire idea of a little black book requires footnoting these days; I wouldn't be at all surprised if a contemporary audience would understand what such a thing is. I tried to figure out when/how I ever learned what one was, and it had to be a combination of Sam Malone on Cheers and maybe Mad magazine. And 2) this kid:

reminds me so much of a two-years-older version of this meme:

Great Line: "I can turn over letters you've never seen before..."

(Carla hitting on Alex Trebek after establishing he doesn't know Vanna White.)

Season 9, Episode 23. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Dan Staley and Rob Long.

Plot: Cheers once again hosts the Boston Barmaid Contest, which this time (much to Sam's chagrin) promises to reward excellent service and not just boobs. 

The dip is for the year Diane won. Nice touch. Here's as good a place to mention as any: they mentioned Diane just the right amount of times (and usually in unexpected ways) in the A.D. years.

Cliff convinces Carla that he is one of the judges, prompting her to go out of her way to be nice to him. (Up to and including giving him a foot massage.)

Opening Bit: Rebecca hires Norm to paint the office. He wants to be paid in beers. (And he pushes the color of paint that he has stockpiled in the garage.)

Notes: Not too much to say about this one. It's a nice callback to Season 1 ("No Contest") with the Boston Barmaid contest, and it moves along nicely. Sam's anger throughout about the focus on actual barmaid skills is amusingly silly, as is his wrong-headed glee at the end when the bimbo ends up winning.  

And not to overplay this hand, but watching it back to back with "No Contest" is illuminating re: the differences between the 2 eras.

Season 9, Episode 24. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Dan O'Shannon and Tom Anderson.

Plot: Sam is invited to pitch to an old nemesis, Dutch Kincaid, at Yankee Stadium.

Opening Bit: Cliff brings in a lost puppy he discovered on his route and suggests he become a mascot for the bar. Sam is at first reluctant, then embraces the idea once two attractive female patrons start cooing over the puppy.

Notes: There's a nice callback to Coach in this episode. (When Sam and Carla are in the dugout before Sam takes the field. "Only one thing missing.") But mainly, this is all Dutch Kincaid.

Michael Fairman's spirited performance anchors the episode.

As with so many aspects of Cheers, the humor he brings to things doesn't screencap/ transcribe quite so well. But I crack up everytime. Particularly when he does his trademark dance, which everyone else tried and failed to do at the episode's beginning.

Firefly fans might recognize him as Adelai Niska (From "The Train Job" and "War Stories.")

While his nephew is played by Zachary Benjamin, Troi's cosmic offspring in TNG's s2 ep "The Child."

Great Line: "Did you have a trademark, Sam?" "Shut up and leave me alone." "That's not really a trademark, Sam, it's more of a motto."

Season 10, Episode 8. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Ken Levine and David Isaacs.

Plot: The gang feels responsible when the Celtics' Kevin McHale goes into a slump after becoming obsessed with the number of bolts in the floor of Boston Garden.

Opening Bit: Cliff and Norm mess with Frasier as he tries to remotely lock his car. (At the time, remote starters/ locks were a new thing.)

Notes: Kevin McHale returns for another unexpectedly fun go-round with the Cheers gang. This time, as a favor to Sam, he drops by the bar to give Norm a team jacket. But he gets drawn into their bar trivia concerning the floorboards, and everything goes to Hell. Fantastic stuff. Kevin's wife Lynn even gets a cameo / line.

Great Line: "You guys are like vampires. Big-butted, do-nothing vampires." (Carla)

Season 10, Episode 17. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Dan O'Shannon and Tom Anderson.

Plot: Woody's cousin (Harry Connick, Jr.) develops a crush on Rebecca, and Cliff is very unhappy with the new postal uniforms.

Opening Bit: Woody buys himself a golf trophy.

Notes: As with the previous episode, a lot of the humor from this one comes not just from seeing a familiar face (Harry Connick) in a different setting but with the way he's used. Woody's cousin is a relentlessly cheerful obsessive, and he plays the part to the hilt. When Rebecca slams the door on his affections, he simply moves along to...

Also, Twitchell:

I love this guy.

Great Line: Tough to choose just one. But I'll go with: (Russell) "Boy, I've heard this speech before. Just just pipe down and put some clothes on or we'll call Amtrak security, right? Is that it? Is that the one?" (Based solely on this episode, I hope Harry Connick gets around to doing more comedy one of these days. He's a natural.)

Season 10, Episode 24. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Ken Levine and David Isaacs.

Plot: Cliff purchases tickets to see The Tonight Show after believing the joke he sent to the writers was accepted and will appear on-air. Meanwhile, Sam waxes philosophical with Woody while attempting to install a satellite dish.

Opening Bit: Norm purchases new sneakers to better sit around on the barstool all day.

Notes: This one has a fun road-trip montage that ends with the European Vacation gag where they ask a stranger to film them and he ends up running off with their camera.

Ken Levine has a fun post about this episode. Understandable. Johnny Carson was a legend - I daresay getting him to do this episode was bigger than their getting Tip O'Neil, Kevin McHale, or just about anyone. He voiced himself on The Simpsons and appeared on Night Court and Newhart, but that was about it.

R.I.P., Johnny. We'll probably never see your like again.

Let me turn this over to Ken, as he writes it better than I can recap it:

"We wrote the script, sent it to Carson, who approved it. We arranged to film it right after a Tonight Show taping. (...) The crew and I arrived at the studio (and) I introduced myself to Mr. Carson and said I'd be happy to make any adjustments he would like. He said, no, he thought the script was great. He'd do it just as written. I almost fainted.

We had hoped to also get Ed McMahon but he wasn't interested in sticking around (a whole half hour) so we wrote him out. Guess he had to get to that Budweiser."

Doc was game, though.

"Now the filming began. Four film cameras were positioned on the stage. I was standing next to one, essentially between the curtain and the band. Jimmy calls action, the band (right behind me) struck up the familiar theme and Johnny Carson steps through the curtains. He's maybe five feet from me. He begins delivering our monologue. This was maybe a month before his final Tonight Show so I knew this was a precious experience that would never come again.

We tried to write jokes that would get solid laughs so that when Johnny got to Cliff's it would be noticeably bad. Much to my sheer delight, our jokes worked. The King of Late Night was getting laughs doing our material. (...) Johnny was the ultimate professional. Happy to do re-takes, whatever we needed. So often legends and idols disappoint if and when you actually meet them but the reverse was true here. I wound up even more in awe of Johnny Carson.

After we wrapped I got a picture sitting at Johnny's desk interviewing John Ratzenberger."

"Now get the hell out of here before I call Security."

Great fun. Also: that subplot with Woody and Sam on the roof is a lot of fun, as well.

Great Line(s): Everything that happens at the Tonight Show. But I love this exchange where Sam thinks he's explaining to Woody how a satellite dish works:

"Hey, do you have any idea how a satellite dish works?" 

"Well, you've got a satellite up there -"

"How far up there?" 

"Oh, about 72 million miles, give or take a few light years. And it's got a gizmo up there so when you send your TV stuff up there it shoots it right back down here to this baby."
"Boy, you sure know a lot about the world, Sam."
"Well, Woody, I'm an avid reader."

It's either a level of ironic self-parody we've never seen from Sam or a genuine bit of stoney distraction on his part. Either way, it works. Also, Woody's last line, which closes out this bit: "When you look up there at all those stars and all those galaxies you realize just how big this satellite dish really is."

~

NEXT: Cheers - The Final Season