Welcome back to the deep dive. I have I really
been looking forward to this one because we are
doing something a little different today. Yeah,
we definitely are. Usually we take a really broad
topic, you know, a concept or a movement and
tear it apart. But today we are opening a very
specific time capsule. Right. And it's a time
capsule that I think a lot of people think they
know. But once you actually dust it off and look
inside, it's infinitely more complicated than
the memory suggests. Totally. So we are looking
at. A stack of production logs, ratings data,
critical reviews from the mid -80s, and some
really fascinating retrospective interviews.
We are zeroing in on Cheers, but not just the
show in general. We're looking specifically at
season three. Which is the run from 1984 to 1985.
Exactly. And looking at this material you've
pulled, I mean, this feels like the season where
the show is walking a tightrope without a net.
That is the perfect way to describe it. If you
ask a casual fan about Cheers, they just remember
the cozy bar, right? People yelling Norm. The
jokes. The basic comfort TV stuff. Right. But
season three, season three is where the show
almost broke. Wow. It's the defining moment where
the show's long -term DNA was actually written,
but it was written in the middle of an absolute
hurricane. It's wild because on paper, a sitcom
season is just, you know, 20 -something episodes
of jokes. Right. But the stakes here were massive.
You've got the arrival of a character who's never
supposed to be there, Dr. Frasier Crane. Yes.
And you have the departure of a character who
was arguably the soul of the show, Nicholas Colosanto's
coach. It's the highest of highs and the lowest
of lows happening simultaneously. You have the
birth of a franchise -defining character and
the tragic death of a beloved actor. Right. And
somehow in the middle of all that, they had to
be funny every Thursday night. And we aren't
just talking about emotional stakes either. We're
talking logistical nightmares. I was reading
through the notes on the production schedule
and dual pregnancies. Dual pregnancies among
the female leads. Yes, it was a production manager's
worst nightmare. So the mission for this deep
dive is pretty clear. We want to figure out how
a sitcom survives that kind of chaos. Exactly.
How do you balance onscreen comedy with offscreen
tragedy? And how did this specific season solidify
Cheers as part of the best night of television
on television? And to understand that, we can't
just look at the jokes. We have to look at the
pain underneath them. Okay, let's unpack this.
But before we get into the heavy stuff, we need
to set the scene. Let's do it. It's September
1984. Shoulder pads are huge. Synthesizers are
everywhere. What is the TV landscape actually
looking like for NBC? Well, context is everything
here. Today, we think of NBC in the 80s as this
unstoppable juggernaut. Sure. But in early 1984,
they were struggling. Honestly, they were desperate.
For the preceding two years, they had been trying
to build a Thursday night lineup that didn't
just instantly collapse. I remember seeing old
promos for NBC where they were practically begging
people to tune in. They were. They had this branding,
the best night of television on television. Right.
Which, let's be honest, is a very defensive slogan.
It sounds like something you say when you're
trying to convince yourself. Like, no, really,
it's good. Trust us. Exactly. And initially,
the lineup was a mess of critical darlings that
nobody watched. You had Cheers and Hill Street
Blues, which the critics absolutely adjured,
but the ratings were soft. Cheers had actually
survived cancellation by the skin of its teeth
in season one. Wow, I didn't realize it was that
close. Oh, yeah. Season two is better. They got
some Emmys, but they weren't a dynasty yet. They
were still extremely vulnerable. So entering
season three, they... aren't the kings of comedy
yet. Not even close. They were the scrappy underdogs.
Yeah. But then the fall of 1984 hits and the
stars just align. You look at this lineup and
it is staggering. Okay, lay it out for me. 8
.00 p .m. is the premiere of The Cosby Show.
Which became an instant monster hit. Absolute
monster. Then Family Ties moves to 8 .30. Then
Cheers at 9 .00. Night Court at 9 .30. And Hill
Street Blues at 10 .00. That is, I mean, looking
at that list, that's Murderer's Row. Every single
one of those shows is a Hall of Famer. It's arguably
the greatest single night of programming in broadcast
history. But Cheers had a very specific job to
do in that lineup. They had to hold the audience.
From Quasby and Family Ties. Right, because they
were up against Simon and Simon on CBS. Oh man,
I totally forgot about Simon and Simon. A lot
of people have, but at the time it was a ratings
vacuum. It was a very popular, easy to watch
detective show. Right. And ABC had shows like
Glitter, which granted, nobody remembers, but
the competition was real. Cheers had to prove
- It wasn't just a critic's pet. It had to prove
it could dominate the 9 .00 p .m. slot. So the
pressure is really on. They need to lock down
the audience. And naturally, the best way to
do that is to introduce a character that everyone
absolutely hates. Yes. Let's talk about the Fraser
Crane experiment. This is my favorite part of
the Cheers history because it just defies all
logic. I was reading the background notes on
this, and it seems like the creators, Glenn and
Les Charles, Never intended for Frasier to be
a permanent fixture at all. Not at all. He was
just a utility player. You have to remember where
we left off in season two. Sam and Diane. Right.
Sam and Diane had the breakup to end all breakups.
It was ugly. Diane goes off to a sanitarium or
a rest home to recover. So for season three,
the writers had a mechanical problem. They needed
a device to keep Sam and Diane apart. The classic
Ralph Bellamy role. The guy who was just there
to lose the girl. Precisely. They needed an obstacle,
but they didn't just need a jerk. They needed
an intellectual ideal for Diane. Someone who
matches her on paper. Exactly. Someone who checked
all her boxes, but had absolutely zero chance
of actually winning the audience over. Right.
The plan was simple. He comes in, he creates
friction for a few episodes. Sam gets jealous.
Diane dumps him. And we go back to the status
quo. So he's basically a plot device wearing
a cardigan. A plot device with a Harvard degree.
But here's the... What if? That always blows
my mind. Do you know who they originally wanted
for this role? I saw the name in the notes and
I couldn't believe it. They wanted John Lithgow.
They wrote the role with John Lithgow in their
heads. That would have been terrifying. It would
have been incredibly intense. Lithgow is brilliant,
but he has this imposing, slightly manic energy.
Oh, yeah. Think about him in Third Rock from
the Sun or even Dexter later on. If he had been
Frasier, the character might have been more of
a distinct villain or just too weird to integrate
into the bar. Why did he turn it down? He was
a movie star. In 1984, doing TV was still seen
as a huge step down for a serious film actor.
He was doing Terms of Endearment, Footloose.
He didn't want to be tied down to a sitcom guest
arc. So they scramble. They were looking for
their Frasier, and they find Kelsey Grammer.
Yes. But looking at the notes here, Grammer didn't
exactly walk out of the audition thinking he
nailed it. No, he thought he bombed. He felt
he was way too stiff. But that stiffness was
exactly what the producers, particularly James
Burroughs, were looking for. Really? Yeah, they
saw sparks. Specifically, they saw the contrast.
The contrast with Ted Danson. Right. Cheers is
built entirely on class conflict. Sam Malone
is the ex -athlete, recovering alcoholic, street
smart, working class hero. Frasier Crane is the
complete antithesis. Right, he's rich. He's upper
crust. He speaks in complete flowery paragraphs.
He drinks sherry. He's the guy who corrects your
grammar in a bar fight. He's the guy who brings
a chess set to a poker game. But the magic, and
this is why Grammer got the part, was that he
didn't play Frasier as a villain. He played him
with this pompous fragility. This pompous fragility.
I really like that. Watch his early scenes. He
enters the bar like he owns it. But the second
Sam Malone looks at him, you can see the insecurity
ripple across Kelsey Grammer's face. That's such
a subtle acting choice. It is. He knew that for
Frasier to work, he had to be fundamentally intimidated
by Sam. Fraser had been too strong, Sam would
have just looked like a bully. Oh, that makes
total sense. But because Grammar played him as
a bit of a delicate flower, Sam's aggression
just made Sam look jealous. It perfectly balanced
the power dynamic. But even though the producers
saw this magic, the audience hated him. I mean,
really hated him. Oh, it was visceral. You have
to understand the mindset of the 1984 TV viewer.
They didn't have Twitter to vent, so they wrote
actual letters. And the sentiment was unanimous.
Get this guy away from Diane. There is a story
in the source material, and I don't know if I
can say this on air, but we are a deep dive,
so we're going for it. A fan approached Kelsey
Grammer on the street. I know exactly the one
you mean. And asks him, are you that pendick
that plays Frasier? It's brutal. Yeah. But it
shows how effective the writing was. He was designed
to be the creepy boyfriend, the interloper. Gail
Shister, a very prominent critic at the time,
actually used that exact phrase, creepy boyfriend.
Wow. Another reviewer complained about having
a shrink annoying the decent drinking folk. He
was viewed as a total buzzkill. So this is the
puzzle. You have an actor who is doing a great
job, but the character is universally loathed
by the fans. How do you pivot? How do you go
from Pendick to one of those beloved characters
in TV history? The writers did something very
smart. They realized that as long as Frazier
was just Diane's boyfriend, the audience would
hate him because he's fundamentally in the way
of Sam. So they had to separate him from Diane
and attach him to the bar. They had to make him
one of the boys. They had to haze him. Exactly.
And we see that perfectly in the episode, The
Heart is a Lonely Snipe Hunter. I rewatched parts
of this one for the deep dive. It's actually
kind of dark. It really is. The guys, Sam, Norm,
Cliff, they invite Frazier on a hunting trip.
Diane is thrilled because she thinks they are
finally accepting him. But it's a trap. It's
a complete setup. They take him out to the woods
and just abandon him. They leave him there holding
a sack, waiting for a snipe, which doesn't exist.
Classic schoolyard bullying. It is. And in a
lesser show, Frasier would have come back crying
or he would have sued them or Diane would have
scolded everyone and that would be the end of
it. Right. A very special episode kind of ending.
Exactly. But Cheers did something different.
Frasier manages to get back to the bar. He's
disheveled. He's furious. But instead of crying.
He plots revenge. He earns their respect by being
just as petty as they are. He proves he can play
the game. He pranks them back. And in that moment,
the audience shushed it. They realized, oh, this
guy isn't just a snob. He's a petty snob. He
fits in perfectly with these losers. That's brilliant.
That episode completely saved the character.
It's amazing to think about the sliding doors
here. If John Lithgow takes the role, we probably
get four episodes of a weird arc and he's gone.
Right. If the writers don't pivot to include
Frasier in the guys group, he's gone. And if
he's gone, there is no Frasier spinoff in the
90s. No Niles, no Martin. 11 years of future
television history just evaporates. It really
is a massive butterfly effect moment. So they
are wrestling with the Frasier problem. But simultaneously,
the producers get hit with a biological curveball
that you just cannot write your way out of easily.
The Battle of the Bulge, as the crew called it.
Late August 1984. Production is just getting
rolling for the season. And they get the news.
Rhea Perlman, who plays Carla, is pregnant. And
Shelley Long, who plays Diane, is pregnant. Both
due in March 1985. It's a statistical improbability.
And for a show that relies so heavily on physical
comedy and romantic tension, this is a disaster.
It's a logistical nightmare. Today, with CGI,
maybe you could fix it. Or you just do a shorter
season. But in 1984, you had to deliver 25 episodes.
You couldn't just stop. And the way they handled
it for the two actresses was completely different.
which I think speaks volumes about the characters
themselves. It really does. With Rhea Perlman,
it was almost a gift from the sitcom gods. Carla
Tortelli is defined by her fertility and her
completely chaotic family life. Right, she already
has a ton of kids. She already has four kids
she can barely control. So the writers just leaned
right into it. They wrote the pregnancy into
the show. But they didn't take the easy route
of making it her ex -husband Nick's baby. No,
and that's key. If it was Nick's baby, it would
have been a reunion story. Instead, they make
it the child of a guy named Ludlow. Oh yeah,
Ludlow. This nerdy intellectual guy she had a
brief fling with. It added a whole new layer
of comedy to her misery. It fit her arc perfectly.
But with Diane, it's a completely different story.
Diane Chambers is the romantic lead. She is the
pristine intellectual goddess that Sam is pining
after. And she's in a new relationship with Frasier,
but the tension with Sam is the main hook of
the entire series. If Diane gets pregnant, the
show just stops. The audience immediately asks,
whose is it? Exactly. If it's Frasier's, the
Sam and Diane dream is... dead if it's sam's
it becomes a soap opera about custody it completely
ruins the comedy so they chose the hide strategy
the hide strategy and this is where the production
team really earned their paychecks if you watch
season three closely especially the second half
just watch where shilly long is standing she
is basically a floating head for half the season
she is she is always behind the bar which diane
rarely did before because she was a terrible
waitress she is standing behind oversized potted
plants she is carrying massive stacks of towels.
It's so funny when you notice it. There is one
scene where she is holding a tray of drinks that
is positioned suspiciously high right in front
of her stomach. It becomes almost like a game
of where's the baby bump. The cinematographers
had to light her specifically, so shadows would
fall across her midsection. It was a constant,
exhausting dance. And there is one detail that
shows just how much planning went into this.
What's that? The season finale involves a trip
to Europe. Italy. Yes. They knew by the time
they needed to film the finale in the spring,
Shelley Long would be ready to pop. She wouldn't
be able to travel. And hiding the pregnancy would
be completely impossible in location shots. Correct.
So they filmed the finale scenes, the scenes
of her and Frasier leaving months in advance.
They shot the end of the season at the very beginning
of the production block just to beat the biology.
That is incredible foresight. It really shows
that being a showrunner isn't just about being
funny. It's about being a general. It is a military
operation. But even the best generals can't plan
for absolutely everything. And this brings us
to the part of the deep dive that really changes
the tone of the entire season. Yeah. We have
to talk about Nicholas Colasanto. Coach. Coach.
The absolute heart of the bar. The guy who played
the dumb character but had the most emotional
intelligence of anyone in the room. I think for
modern audiences, if they haven't seen the early
seasons, they associate the dumb bartender role
purely with Woody Harrelson. Right. But Coach
was the original. And he was different. He wasn't
just goofy. He was sweet. in a very specific,
grounded way. He was the father figure. Sam was
the cool older brother, but Coach was the dad.
And Nicholas Colasanto, the man, was beloved
by that cast. But he was very sick. He had been
battling heart disease since the mid-'70s. He
was a recovering alcoholic, which, frankly, adds
a deep layer of poignancy to him playing a bartender
for his final years. And looking at the timeline
of season three... His health wasn't just a background
issue anymore. It was deteriorating rapidly on
set. It was highly visible. If you look at the
episodes from late 1984, he has lost a significant
amount of weight. Ted Danson later mentioned
in interviews that Colasanto was having a lot
of trouble remembering his lines. He would write
them on the scenery, on the bar slats, anywhere
he could. That's heartbreaking. He was just trying
to hold on. He wanted to work. Being there with
that family kept him going. But shortly after
Christmas 1984, he was hospitalized with water
in his lungs. His doctor basically said, you
cannot go back to work. So his last full episode
was actually filmed in November 1984. Cheerio,
cheers. That's the last time he walked onto that
set. He died on February 12th, 1985. Now here
is the ethical and creative dilemma for the creators.
The show is still in production. You have episodes
to write, film and air. You have a character
who is gone, but you haven't written him out
yet because you were hoping he'd come back. How
did they handle the coach sized hole in the show?
Honestly, awkwardly. And I don't blame them at
all, but it's really rough to watch in retrospect.
The writers had to invent excuses for why Coach
wasn't there. The visiting the sister excuse.
Right. Coach is in Duluth visiting his sister.
Coach is in Vermont getting his driver's license.
Coach is at a family reunion. There is one joke
where they say he's at a family reunion, but
for the wrong family. Which is a classic Coach
joke. It's very funny in isolation. But knowing
that the actor was literally dying or already
dead when that line aired, it feels very different
now. Yeah, it changes the whole context. And
critics at the time, and especially retrospective
reviewers from places like DVD Verdict, have
pointed this out. They felt these explanations
were really forced. They felt unnatural to the
viewer. It robbed the audience of the chance
to mourn, didn't it? It did. Because the character
was just away, the other characters couldn't
be sad. They had to be annoyed or completely
indifferent. to his absence so you have this
ghostly disconnect where the audience knows something
is terribly wrong but the show is pretending
everything is totally fine. But they made a very
specific decision regarding the future of the
role. They decided not to recast him. And that
I think is the most important decision in the
history of the show. In the 60s on a show like
Bewitched or My Three Sons if an actor got sick
or left they'd just swap in a new guy Meet the
new coach, same as the old coach. Put a Red Sox
cap on a different old guy and just hope nobody
notices. Exactly. But the Cheers team knew that
coach was Nicholas Colosanto. You couldn't replicate
that warmth. They realized they had to retire
the character entirely. They didn't do it formally
until the season four premiere, which addresses
the death directly, but the decision was made
in season three. Yeah. We are not replacing Nick.
There is one detail about the season three finale,
Rescue Me, that gives me absolute chills every
time I read about it. Coach appears in the cold
open. It is one of the most haunting moments
in sitcom history. Nicholas Colasanto had already
passed away when that finale aired. Yeah. The
producers were editing the episode and they found
a piece of discarded footage, an outtake essentially
from an earlier episode where Coach is just polishing
a glass or saying a very quick line. And they
put it in. They inserted it as the very first
thing you see. It has absolutely nothing to do
with the plot of the finale. It's just, Coach,
one last time. It was a silent tribute. A way
for the creators to say goodbye and to let Coach
say goodbye. even if the character didn't know
it was the end. That is incredibly heavy. But
it also speaks to the profound love they had
for him. It wasn't just a business to them. No,
and I think that grief, that backstage reality,
seeped into the tone of the show. Season 3 is
funny, yes, but it is also much darker. It deals
with loss and addiction in a way that feels very
mature. Well, let's transition to that narrative
arc. We've talked about the behind -the -scenes
tragedy, but on screen, the story of Sam and
Diane was taking a pretty dark turn, too. Season
three doesn't start with a joke. It starts with
a relapse. The premiere is titled Rebound, and
it is genuinely startling. We find out that after
the breakup with Diane, Sam fell completely off
the wagon. He's drinking again. He's drinking,
and he's engaging in this frantic, self -destructive
womanizing. The bar has gone through a carousel
of waitresses. It's absolute chaos. Why did the
writers choose to go there? Usually sitcoms just
hit the reset button. Sam is the cool bartender.
You don't want him to be a sloppy drunk. Because
Cheers actually respected its character's flaws.
Sam's alcoholism wasn't just a backstory gimmick.
It was his central ongoing struggle. By showing
him relapse, they raised the stakes. It proved
that without Diane, or at least without the stability
she represented, he spirals. And Diane isn't
doing much better. I mean, she's in a sanitarium.
Exactly. She's institutionalized herself because
she's so intensely neurotic about the breakup.
So you have these two fundamentally broken people.
And this is where Coach, again, the heart of
the show, plays such a pivotal role in the premiere.
Right. He goes to Diane and tells her, you have
to come back. Sam is drinking. But didn't he?
tells Sam something completely different. He
tells Sam you have to hire her back. She's losing
her mind. He lies to both of them. It's the wisdom
of the fool. He manipulates them into saving
each other. It establishes the theme of the entire
season, which is codependency. They drive each
other crazy, but they keep each other sane. So
Diane returns to the bar, but now we have the
triangle. She's with Frazier. And the season
becomes this torture chamber of near misses.
It's agonizingly good TV. The episode I call
Your Name is the absolute peak of this. Oh man,
this one is painful. Frazier comes to Sam, his
bartender, his ostensible friend, for professional
slash personal advice. He says, I have this patient.
She's troubled. She keeps calling out an ex -lover's
name in bed. And Sam being the total narcissist
that he is. He cracks the code instantly. He
realizes the patient is Diane and the name she's
screaming is Sam. The look on Ted Danson's face
when he realizes that. It's pure, unadulterated
victory. It is. It feeds his massive ego. But
it also confirms to the audience that the flame
isn't out. Diane is physically with Frazier,
but subconsciously she's still fully with Sam.
Yeah. But when Sam confronts her about it, does
she admit it? No, she doubles down. She clings
to Frasier even harder because Frasier represents
health and Sam represents sickness. Which leads
us directly to the grand finale, the European
cliffhanger. The stakes get raised immensely.
Frasier gets an offer to go to the University
of Bologna in Italy. He asks Diane to marry him
and come along. And she says yes. She says yes.
And this sets up the massive climax in Rescue
Me. Sam hears the news. And we get this incredible
sequence where Sam daydreams. It's the classic
Hollywood ending, right? Basically the graduate.
Sam runs to the church, bursts through the doors,
yells, stop the wedding. He sweeps her off her
feet. It's exactly what the audience wants to
happen. But then, snap, we're right back in the
bar. Reality crashes in. He hasn't moved an inch.
But he realizes, oh my God, I actually want to
do that. So he rushes to the airport. He buys
a ticket to Italy. He is going to stop her. And
here's the twist. The gift of the Magi twist
that just hurts so good. Diane calls the bar.
She is in Italy with Frasier, but she is having
massive second thoughts. She calls Sam. She wants
him to tell her to come home. She wants him to
stop her. But Sam isn't there. He's on a plane
to find her. So she gets the answering machine.
She hears his voice saying, I'm not here right
now, and she hangs up. And she stays with Frasier.
They cross in the night. It is a brutal, brilliant
piece of writing. If they had connected, if Sam
had actually picked up the phone, the show might
have ended right there. Or they would have been
a stable couple in season four. Right. But that
missed connection kept the engine running. It
preserved the romantic tension for another entire
year. It's masterclass writing. But, you know,
we've focused so much on the big three, Sam,
Diane, Frasier. and Coach. But season three is
also where the supporting cast really stopped
being background decoration and started becoming
main characters in their own right. Absolutely.
The B plots in season three are essential because
with Coach dying and the main trio locked in
this intense drama, the show needed other outlets
for comedy and humanity. Let's talk about Cliff
Clavin. Up until this season, Cliff is mostly
just the annoying guy at the end of the bar.
He's a trivia machine. But in Fairy Tales Can
Come True, we see something totally different.
This is the costume party episode. Cliff dresses
up as Ponce de Leon. Which is such a perfectly
Cliff choice. It's obscure, it's historical,
and absolutely nobody gets it. But he meets a
woman at the party dressed as Tinkerbell. And
because he's wearing a mask, and because she
is. He drops the whole Cliff Clavin act. He stops
spouting facts. He becomes charming. He's vulnerable.
He's terrified that once the mask comes off,
she won't like the real him. It's a classic Cyrano
story. But it humanized Cliff. It showed that
his bluster, his annoying know -it -all attitude,
is just a shield. Yeah. He's a deeply lonely
guy who uses trivia facts to keep people at a
safe distance. When he finally reveals himself
and she likes him anyway, it's a huge win for
the character. It made the audience actually
root for him, not just laugh at him. And then
there is Norm. We usually think of Norm as the
happiest guy in the bar. He has his beer. He
has his spot. But season three digs into his
darker side, too. The executive's executioner
is a great episode for this. Norm gets a promotion
at his accounting firm. But the promotion is
to be the corporate hatchet man. He has to fire
people. Right. And the joke is that he's so genuinely
nice, people end up thanking him for firing them.
He kills them with kindness. But the guilt eats
him alive. It explores the soul crushing nature
of corporate life. Cheers was always very good
at satirizing the white collar world that Norm
and Cliff were desperately trying to survive
in. And that connects to the episode Peterson
Crusoe. Yes. This one feels almost prophetic
given the atmosphere on set. Norm gets a chest
x -ray and they find a spot. He thinks he's dying.
The mortality theme again? Exactly. The fear
of death makes him decide to ditch his entire
life and go to Bora Bora. He's going to live
like an islander. Screw the accounting firm.
Screw the beer. I'm going to actually live. But
he doesn't make it to the airport. He makes it
to the bar's back office. He hides there with
his suitcase. That is such a profound summary
of the show. He wants to escape, but the bar
is the absolute only place he feels safe. It
reinforces the central thesis of cheers. It's
a sanctuary for people who can't handle the outside
world. Whether you are a pompous psychiatrist,
a neurotic waitress, or a scared accountant,
you go to the place where everybody knows your
name because the real world is just too scary.
We also get a very significant introduction in
the episode, Diane Meets Mom. Ah, yes. The mother
-in -law from hell, Hester Crane. played by Nancy
Marchand, who most people probably know as Livia
Soprano from The Sopranos. And if you watch this
episode, you see the direct seeds of Livia Soprano.
She is absolutely terrifying. She comes to town,
meets Diane, and instantly decides she is not
good enough for Frasier. She threatens to kill
Diane. She literally pulls a gun. It's startlingly
aggressive for a sitcom, but it explains so much
about Frasier's psyche. Why is he so anxious?
Why is he so desperate for approval? Because
he was raised by that woman. It's interesting.
The notes mention that Hester Crane appears in
the spinoff Rager, but she's played by Rita Wilson
in flashbacks and is much softer. Frasier the
show retconned her a bit to make her more sympathetic,
treating her as a scientist, a visionary. But
in Shears season three, she is a straight up
monster. It's a great example of how characters
organically evolve over decades. So we've looked
at the creative struggles, the casting pivots,
the tragedies and the character arcs. But ultimately.
Television is a business. Did all of this work?
Did the best night of television actually deliver
the numbers? It delivered in a way that changed
the entire industry. Cheers finished the season
tied for number 12 in the Nielsen ratings. They
had an average rating of about 19 .7. For you
listening at home, a 19 .7 rating is astronomical.
Today, a massive hit show gets a 2 .0 or a 3
.0. A 19 .7 means almost 20 % of all television
households in the country were tuned in. It's
basically Super Bowl numbers by modern standards.
And it completely anchored NBC. It destroyed
the competition. Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers,
Night Court. NBC essentially owned Thursday nights
for the next two decades directly because of
the foundation built in this specific season.
And the industry rewarded them. The awards started
piling up. Shelley Long won the Golden Globe
for Best Actress. Rhea Perlman won the Emmy for
Supporting Actress. The Sound Crew won an Emmy
for the Executive's Executioner. The writing
was heavily recognized. But there is one award
that I think matters the most. The award for
Coach. Yes. An organization called Viewers for
Quality Television, which was a very influential
fan group at the time, gave a posthumous Best
Supporting Actor award to Nicholas Colasanto.
That gets me. It was a beautiful recognition
that even though he didn't finish the season,
his spirit defined it. He was the MVP. So let's
zoom out. We've spent this time dissecting this
incredible year. What is the big takeaway? Why
does season three of Cheers actually matter?
I think season three proves that a sitcom can
be more than just a joke delivery system. This
season proved that Cheers was incredibly resilient.
Losing a core cast member like Coach could have
killed a lesser show. Introducing a universally
hated character like Frasier could have killed
a lesser show. But instead of folding, they leaned
into it. They pivoted, they evolved, they allowed
the show to grow up. It became a show about a
dysfunctional family dealing with real things.
Addiction, death, class, rejection. but finding
a way to laugh about it. It's the season where
cheers truly became cheers. Exactly. And just
think about the what -ifs. If John Lithgow had
said, yes, we don't get the Frasier we know,
if the producers had decided to recast Coach
the Lookalike, we never get Woody Boyd in season
four, the naive farm boy who brings a totally
new energy to the bar. It's a season of sliding
doors. Every disaster turned into an opportunity.
And that is the true definition of creativity.
It's not about having a perfect plan. It's about
what you do when the plan blows up in your face,
when your actress gets pregnant, when your actor
gets sick, when your audience hates your new
character. Cheers took all those blows and turned
them into gold. So here's a provocative thought
to leave you with. We live in the era of the
sadcom, shows like The Bear or Succession or
Fleabag that mix intense drama with comedy. We
think we invented that tone. We definitely think
we're the first generation to be sophisticated
about genre blending. But look at Cheers, season
three in 1985. You have a main character relapsing
into serious alcoholism. You have a beloved father
figure dying. You have intense psychological
games, class warfare, and heartbreak. And it
was all done with a laugh track on a soundstage
in front of a live audience. It makes you wonder,
maybe we haven't evolved past the multi -camera
sitcom at all. Maybe we just forgot how good
it can be when it's brave enough to break your
heart. That is a great place to leave it. Thank
you for taking this deep dive with us.