Okay, so I want you to close your eyes for just
a second. Imagine it is September 1987. Right,
okay. You are sitting on a velvet couch. Maybe
you have got some neon lighting going on in the
room and you turn on the TV to NBC. The biggest
sitcom on the planet is about to start. But there's
a problem. A massive existential, potentially
show -killing problem. We are talking about Cheers.
It really was a do or die moment right there.
Yeah. I don't think people realize looking back
just how close the show came to complete collapse
right at that exact moment. See, that is exactly
what I want to unpack today for our deep dive.
Because for five seasons, Cheers was defined
by exactly one thing. It wasn't the beer. It
wasn't the bar itself. It was the will they,
won't they tension between Sam Malone and Diane
Chambers. It was the core of the show. Right.
It was the engine. It was the DNA. And then the
unthinkable happens. Shelley Long, who played
Diane, quits. She is just gone. And you really
have to remember the context of the television
landscape back in 1987. This wasn't just a popular
character leaving a show. This was half of the
core equation. The entire premise of the show,
which was arguably the most famous romantic arc
in television history up to that point, was suddenly
severed, just cut right down the middle. Right.
So the big question on everyone's mind, the critics,
the fans, the network executives, was really
simple. Can a show built on that very specific
romantic chemistry survive when you take away
one of the main ingredients? It feels like trying
to keep a car running after you have completely
removed the transmission. Exactly. And the industry
wisdom at the time was just no. You do not survive
this. The creators were terrified. In fact, James
Burroughs, one of the co -creators, famously
noted later that they were in an absolute panic.
I mean, I would be too. But interestingly, he
also said that if they had kept the Sam and Diane
couple together, it actually might have diminished
the relevance of the bar setting. They felt the
show might have stagnated if she stayed. But
losing her, that was a massive gamble. It is
the classic jump the shark moment, potentially.
So our mission for this deep dive is to explore
exactly how they pulled this off. Spoiler alert,
they didn't just survive, they thrived. We are
going to look at Cheers Season 6, which I think
is a masterclass in the soft reboot. It is the
gold standard for sure. We are going to break
down the introduction of Rebecca Howe, the total
flip of the power dynamic, the rise of the ensemble
cast, which I honestly think is the secret weapon
here, and some truly bizarre behind -the -scenes
drama involving a, um... A lost season finale
that was so dark it was never aired? That is
a story that still completely blows my mind.
So let's set the stage here. It is September
1987. Shelley Long is out. The writers are sitting
in a room staring at a blank page. What is the
very first move? Well, the first move is realizing
what you absolutely cannot do. You cannot simply
cast a Diane 2 .0. If you bring in another blonde
intellectual to spar with Sam, the audience will
reject it immediately as a cheap copy. Right.
It's the Cousin Oliver syndrome from the Brady
Bunch. You can't just plug a hole with a similar
peg and hope nobody notices. Precisely. So the
creators, the Charles Brothers and Burroughs,
they established a very strict set of criteria
for the new female lead. They specifically looked
for an unknown. or at least someone not strongly
associated with a major TV role, who was not
blonde, and someone who did not resemble Shelley
Long in any way, shape, or form. They wanted
a hard visual reset for the viewer. A completely
clean break. And it leads us to the casting process.
They saw a lot of people. But one name popped
up early. Kirstie Alley. Now, Kirstie Alley wasn't
a total nobody. She was Savick in Star Trek II,
The Wrath of Khan. The Wrath of Khan, exactly.
And she had done the miniseries North and South.
But she wasn't a comedian. She wasn't known for
being funny at all. She was known for being intense.
Which is wild, because when I think of Kirstie
Alley now, I think of her as this chaotic ball
of comedic energy. But back then, she was a dramatic
actress. She was. She was actually one of the
first to audition. And the producers, being diligent,
they continue to audition dozens of other actresses
just to be sure. They wanted to turn over every
single rock. But they kept coming back to Ali.
They said no one improved on what she brought
to the table. But here's where it gets really
interesting for me. And this is the big aha moment
regarding the writing. The character of Rebecca
Howe that we ended up seeing on screen. That
wasn't what was on the page initially, was it?
No, not at all. And this is where the genius
of the Cheers writing room really comes in. Originally,
the concept for Rebecca was that of a martinet.
A martinet. A strict disciplinarian. Ah. A bitch,
to use the blunt term the writers used in their
own interviews. She was supposed to be a hard
-nosed, cold, highly competent executive businesswoman.
The idea was to have a boss who simply wouldn't
put up with Sam's nonsense. An ice queen. Okay,
so imagine that show for a second. Sam alone,
the fun -loving bartender, versus a cold, unfeeling
corporate boss who just yells at him to get back
to work. That sounds... It sounds terrible. Yeah,
it sounds exhausting. And unfunny. And that is
exactly what the writers realized. If she is
just the boss, the audience is going to hate
her. She becomes the villain of the piece. So
what changed their minds? Kirstie Alley happened.
When they met her, they saw real vulnerability.
James Burroughs mentioned that despite her look,
which was very striking, very commanding, she
had this underlying neurotic energy. She could
play flushed. She could play panicked. So they
made a massive pivot. They decided that Rebecca
Howe wants to be the cold corporate executioner.
But she is actually a complete disaster. She
is the neurotic woman of the 1980s. Exactly.
She is trying to project this pristine image
of. 80s corporate success with the shoulder pads,
the big hair, big business. But inside, she is
just crumbling. She is sneaking cigarettes in
the office. She is crying over men constantly.
She is terrified of her corporate superiors.
Which makes her relatable to you as a viewer.
If she was perfect, we would hate her. But because
she is a mess, we laugh with her, at least at
her in a way that isn't mean -spirited at all.
It levels the playing field completely. And that
brings us to the most important structural change
of season six. The power flip. Yes. Let's definitely
talk about Sam because for five years, Sam Malone
is the king of Boston. It is his bar. He is the
host. He is the guy in control. Season six starts
and he is a nobody. It is a total deconstruction
of your classic sitcom protagonist. Think about
the setup in the premiere. Home is the sailor.
At the end of season five, Sam sold the bar to
the Lillian Corporation to sail around the world.
He was going to live the dream. We come back
in season six. And his boat sank. Six months.
He lasted exactly six months out there. And he
didn't just lose the boat. He lost all the money.
He returns to Boston completely broke. He walks
into Cheers, his sanctuary, and it's been completely
corporatized. The employees are wearing uniforms.
Which is such a great visual gag, by the way.
Seeing Carla Tortelli in a polite little uniform
is just inherently wrong on every level. It is
super jarring. It signals to the audience that
everything you know is wrong now. And there is
a new boss, Rebecca. And there is a new bartender,
Wayne. Oh, I hate him. You are supposed to hate
Wayne. He is competent, he is smug, and he has
Sam's job. So Sam actually has to beg. He literally
has to beg for a job at the bar he used to own.
And this sets up one of my favorite scenes in
the entire series. Sam has to fight for his job.
He challenges Wayne to a cocktail -making contest.
They have to make a screaming Viking. Now, I
have looked this up in every single bartending
guide I can find. What exactly is a screaming
Viking? It doesn't exist. That is the whole joke.
It is a completely made -up drink that only the
cheers regulars know about. It is an inside job.
Wayne is freaking out behind the bar. trying
to figure out if the cucumber goes in bruised
or sliced. And Sam steps up. He does this whole
elaborate performance. He tosses the cucumber
over his shoulder. He slams the glass down. It
is pure, unadulterated confidence. It's psychological
warfare is what it is. Sam wins, not because
he's a better mixologist, but because he knows
the bar. He knows the people in it. Wayne quits
in pure frustration, and Sam gets his spot back.
And I think this is key. He is an employee now.
He is not the owner anymore. Right. And Rebecca
makes it very clear. cleared him right away.
He's on a tight leash. If he tries any of his
old tricks, he is fired. This flips the romantic
dynamic too. With Diane, it was a meeting of
minds. There were intellectual equals fighting
it out. With Rebecca, it is a chase. Sam is the
subordinate trying to seduce the boss. And the
boss is, initially anyway, having absolutely
none of it. Les Charles, the writer, made a really
interesting point about this shift when he was
interviewed. He said that with Diane gone, Sam
essentially stopped being the straight man. Yes.
In the Diane years, Sam was the grounded one
reacting to Diane's craziness or her pretension.
With Rebecca being the neurotic mess, Sam gets
to be the goof off. He gets to be more carefree.
It really unleashed Ted Danson, I think. He got
to be looser physically. He wasn't constantly
defending his lifestyle choices. He was just
trying to survive the corporate structure and
have a good time. And that looseness infected
the rest of the cast. And this is the second
pillar of why season six works so well. The ensemble.
We talk about ensemble comedies a lot now, like
The Office or Parks and Rec. But Cheers. really
transition into a true ensemble in season six.
Before, it was really the Sam and Diane show
with some funny people in the background. Now,
everyone had to step up to the plate. They absolutely
had to fill the void. You have 22 minutes to
fill every week. If you don't have 10 minutes
of Sam and Diane fighting in the back office,
who gets that screen time? Carla Tortelli gets
that screen time. And wow, does she have a big
year. A massive year. And again, Reality dictated
the script here. Rhea Perlman was pregnant in
real life during the filming of this season.
Which is always a huge challenge for sitcoms.
Do you hide it behind a laundry basket? Do you
have her sit behind the bar for 20 episodes holding
a giant menu? Exactly. But Cheers leaned into
it. They wrote it right into the show. Carly
is pregnant with twins, and this accelerates
her relationship with Eddie Lebec. Eddie Lebec,
the retired hockey goalie turned ice show performer.
Who performs dressed as a penguin. It is so ridiculous,
yet so incredibly sweet. The episode Lil' Cara,
Happy at Last, is the peak of this arc. It is
a two -parter dealing entirely with their wedding.
And it leans heavily into Carla's intense superstitions.
Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. It is
a total comedy of errors. They see each other
before the wedding, which is bad luck. Carla
finds out she's having twins, which is more stress.
Eddie's mother meets Carla and immediately hates
her guts. It is a disaster. Eddie literally cancels
the wedding. He runs off. But this is where the
ensemble shines. It isn't just Sam saving the
day like in the old seasons. It is the whole
gang rallying around her. They eventually get
married at a clergy house because the church
canceled on them. It is chaotic, messy, and perfectly
fits Carla's life. And then just to twist the
knife a little more, Carla's son Anthony and
his wife Annie move in with them. So she is pregnant
with twins, she has a brand new husband, and
her adult son and daughter -in -law are crashing
on the couch. It really fleshed out Carla as
a real person and not just the mean waitress
who slings insults. Let's pivot to the other
end of the bar, Frasier and Lilith. Ah, yes,
the crane power couple. You know, looking back,
I almost feel like Frasier and Lilith became
the new Sam and Diane. Not romantically, obviously,
but functionally within the script. That is a
brilliant observation, actually. Think about
it. Sam and Diane provided the high -status verbal
comedy, the big SAT words, the references to
art and literature, the snobbery. When Diane
left, all of that evaporated. Sam couldn't do
that humor alone. So they just outsourced the
intelligence to the psychiatrists. Exactly. Frasier
and Lilith took over the role of the intellectual
sparring partners. They fight, but they fight
with an advanced vocabulary. Season six is really
where Lilith, played by Baby Newworth, becomes
completely indispensable to the show. She does.
They start the season engaged, but it is super
rocky. There is the episode The Crane Mutiny.
Fraser is so desperate to get out of the relationship
that he just lies. He tells Lilith he has feelings
for Rebecca. Which was a total fabrication. It
was a trick played on him by Norman Cliff, leading
him to believe Rebecca was interested in him.
He blows up his engagement for a phantom romance.
It is classic sitcom farce. But then we get the
reconciliation. And we get bidding on the boys.
This might honestly be my favorite Lilith episode
of all time. There is a bachelor auction at the
bar. And Lilith buys Sam. For $2 ,000. Which
in 1987 is a lot of money. It is an absolute
fortune. But she does it purely to spite Frasier
because they are arguing about a prenuptial agreement.
She drags Sam to this romantic inn, not to sleep
with him, but just to sit there and make Frasier
crazy with jealousy. It shows that Lilith is
just as petty and bizarre as anyone else in the
bar. She isn't just a robot. She is a jealous,
vindictive, hilarious human being. And that is
why she fits in perfectly. We also see that dynamic
play out in the episode to All the Girls I've
Loved Before, which gives us Fraser's bachelor
party and Lilith's bachelorette party. The contrast
there is just amazing ensemble work. It really
is. We can't forget the guys at the end of the
bar, though. Cliff and Norm. They had their own
subplots really ramping up, too. Cliff Clavin
has a surprisingly emotional arc this season.
Masked in comedy, of course. The episode The
Last Angry Mailman. The Clavin family home, where
he still lives with his mother, is sold to a
developer to be demolished. Cliff handcuffing
himself to the porch pole is such a defining
image for his character. He is the little man
fighting the big machine. I shall not be moved.
And how does it end? Norm showing up with a literal
chainsaw. Norm tries to cut the handcuffs to
save Cliff. slips, cuts the support beam instead,
and the entire house just collapses. It is basically
a cartoon. It is Looney Tunes logic. It is. And
it shows that the show was willing to go much
broader with the physical comedy. Without the
heavy grounding reality of the Sam and Diane
romance, they could get a little wackier. Norm
also has this great running gag of trying to
find work. Yes, he works as a painter for Rebecca
in Paint Your Office. This is actually a really
sweet subplot because it is one of the first
times Rebecca bonds with one of the regulars.
Norm sees her crying. He comforts her. It humanizes
her to the gang. And he also worked as a mall
Santa in Christmas Cheers. Drinking with the
other Santas. It is a very cynical, funny look
at the holidays that fits Norm perfectly. I want
to make sure we talk about bar wars. Because
this is the season where the rivalry with Gary's
Old Town Tavern really goes nuclear. Yes. It
started earlier in the series. Yeah. But season
six gives us the episode explicitly titled Bar
Wars. This formalizes the feud forever. And the
pranks are just constantly escalating. The bowling
trophy is stolen. It comes back broken. They
send a spy over. But the absolute pinnacle of
this arc, maybe the pinnacle of the whole season's
absurdity, is the Wade Boggs cameo. The real
Wade Boggs, Hall of Fame baseball player. He
agrees to come to Cheers to sign autographs as
a peace offering from Gary. But the Cheers gang
is so paranoid, so convinced that Gary is messing
with them, that they think he is an imposter.
So they jump him. They physically tackle a Major
League Baseball player, and they steal his pants.
I just, I can't get over the image of Wade Boggs
standing in the middle of a bar in his boxers
while Norm and Cliff run off with his trousers.
And then they check his wallet and realize, oh
no, this is actually Wade Boggs. Do they apologize?
Do they give the pants back? No. They decide
to cut the pants and claim victory anyway. It
is this twisted tribal logic that defines the
bar. They would rather win the prank war than
be decent human beings. It is brilliant. And
speaking of stepping out of the bar, this season
really pushed Sam and Woody into new territory
too. Let's talk about Sam in the corporate world.
The episode The Sam in the Gray Flannel Suit.
Right. Sam actually gets promoted to a sales
executive position by the Lillian Corporation.
Which seems completely out of character until
you realize the twist. They only hired him as
a ringer for the corporate softball team. They
didn't care about his business acumen at all.
Which leads to a really great resolution where
Sam realizes he would much rather just be a bartender
than pretend to be a corporate executive. It
reestablishes his love for his actual job. And
Woody had some fantastic development, too. He
steps up a lot. Yeah. In Puddenhead Boyd, Woody
acts as Mark Twain in a community theater production.
And on sports, he tries to be a sportscaster
and just completely fails at it. But my favorite
is, and God created Woodman. He accidentally
breaks a super valuable vase at a boss's party.
But instead of hiding it, he takes the blame
and ends up weirdly impressing the boss with
his honesty. It is pure Woody. He is the innocent
heart of the show. So we have talked about the
fun stuff. But we need to address the elephant
in the room for season six, or rather, the elephant
that wasn't in the room. The production drama.
Yeah, season six wasn't just smooth sailing.
There was the writers' guild strike of 1988,
which we know disrupted everything across television.
But there was also a planned season finale that
was written, rehearsed, and then just thrown
straight in the trash. The lost finale. This
is a piece of TV history that completely fascinates
me. Walk us through this. What was the original
plan? OK, so we are in 1988. The AIDS crisis
is at its absolute peak. It is terrifying. It
is on the news every single night. But it is
very rarely discussed in sitcoms, certainly not
in a direct personal way. Right. It was the era
of the very special episode. But usually that
was reserved for family shows like Growing Pains
or Mr. Belvedere, not a workplace comedy like
Cheers. Exactly. Yeah. But the writers decided
they wanted to tackle it. The original script
for the season six finale was going to have Sam
Malone find out that an old girlfriend of his,
someone from his very promiscuous past, had tested
positive for HIV. Whoa. So the implication is
Sam might have it. Yes. The entire episode was
going to be Sam waiting for his test results,
dealing with the intense fear that his lifestyle
had finally caught up with him. That is just,
that is heavy. That is incredibly dark for a
show where guys steal Wade Boggs' pants. It is,
and that was exactly the problem. They got into
rehearsals, they were reading the lines around
the table, and Les Charles said later that the
air just went completely out of the room. He
said the plot was so serious that it took all
the humor out of the episode. I can imagine.
How do you cut from Sam contemplating his own
mortality to Cliff Clavin making a dumb mailman
joke? You just can't. It creates a tonal whiplash
that the audience probably wouldn't have forgiven.
If they had aired that, Cheers effectively becomes
a drama for a week. It breaks the unwritten contract
with the viewer. So they pulled the plug on it.
Right in the middle of rehearsals. They scrapped
the entire script. So what did they do? They
have a network deadline. They need a finale.
They scrambled hard. They grabbed a script that
was supposed to air later, or had been kept in
reserve, titled... Backseat Becky, up front.
This was the one filmed out of sequence. Yes.
And honestly, it was the far better choice for
the long -term health of the show. The plot is
much more contrant. Cheers. Rebecca has been
pining for her corporate boss, Evan Drake, all
season long. In this episode, Drake announces
he is moving to Japan. So her dream guy is leaving
the continent. She is completely devastated.
She is a wreck. And there's a scene in the car,
hence backseat Becky, where she is crying, she's
incredibly vulnerable, and she is alone with
Sam. Now, old Sam season one Sam would have seen
this as a green light. Vulnerable woman. Check.
Emotional. Check. He would have made him move
right then and there. Precisely. The setup is
entirely there for him to exploit her vulnerability.
But season six Sam, he doesn't do it. He holds
back. He comforts her. He acts as a genuine friend.
And at the very end of the episode, she looks
at him and says, You're my best friend. That
is the big pivot point for the whole series.
It is. It cemented that their relationship wasn't
just going to be a rehash of the sexual tension
with Diane. It was built on a real foundation
of friendship and mutual support. It told the
audience this is different. This is sustainable.
It effectively saved the dynamic between them.
If he had slept with her then, it would have
been cheap. It would have ruined the tension
completely. By making them friends first, it
gave the writers five more years of runaway to
play with. So despite the panic, despite the
writer's strike, despite the scrapped AIDS episode,
how did the season actually land with the public?
What were the numbers like? Stratospheric. The
season premiere ranked number three overall for
the entire week. And we are talking 1987 broadcast
numbers. 21 million households tuned in. 21 million
households. That is like Super Bowl numbers today.
It proved definitively that the audience was
loyal to the bar itself and the ensemble, not
just the central couple. But critics are always
cranky. What did they say at the time? They were
mixed initially. Change is hard for critics.
The Pittsburgh Post -Gazette wrote a review calling
the season lacking energy and spark. They specifically
hated the Carla wedding episodes, calling them
poorly written. Ouch. History has definitely
not agreed with that take. No, not at all. Retrospective
reviews are glowing. DVD Talk gave the season
four out of five stars. DVD Verdict called it
laugh -out -loud funny. When you watch it now,
without the immediate cultural baggage of where
is Shelley Long, it is just a really, really
funny season of television. And the industry
recognized it too, right? Yes, they did. Andy
Ackerman won an Emmy for editing the episode
The Big Kiss Off. The show got nominated for
Best Comedy Series, writing for Home as a Sailor,
and directing. And almost the entire cast got
acting nominations. Except they'd be in New Earth.
Surprisingly, yes, she was nominated that year,
which feels like a crime given how much she brought
to the table as Lilith. But Ted Danson, Kirstie
Alley, Rhea Perlman, Woody Harrelson, George
Wendt, they were all recognized by the Academy.
So let's zoom out for a second. What is the ultimate
legacy of season six? The legacy is that it proved
a sitcom could be bigger than its initial premise.
It successfully transitioned from a romantic
comedy about a bartender and a waitress to a
true ensemble workplace comedy. It really created
the template for the second half of the show's
life. I mean, the Rebecca years are actually
longer than the Diane years. They are. And many
fans argue they are the consistently funnier
years. I want to leave the listeners with a final
provocative thought. We talked about that cancel
AIDS storyline. Yes. I want you to really imagine
if they had filmed and aired that episode in
September 1988. Sam Malone facing an HIV test.
It is the ultimate television what if. Would
it have been applauded for bravery? Or would
it have killed the comedy forever? Would Cheers
have been cancelled in season 7 because it just
got way too dark? I think it might have sunk
the show. It would have been incredibly brave,
yes. But people tuned into Cheers to forget their
problems, to go to a place where everybody knows
your name. If you bring the grim reality of the
AIDS epidemic into that sanctuary, you kind of
destroy the sanctuary. And finally, the debate
that never ends. Sam and Rebecca versus Sam and
Diane. The intellectual combat versus the neurotic
chase. Which one actually served the longevity
of the show better? I really think Diane was
necessary to build the legend of the show early
on, but Rebecca was necessary to sustain the
life of it. You just can't do Will They, Won't
They for 11 straight years. You just can't. You
would kill each other. Exactly. Rebecca allowed
the show to breathe and evolve. Well, that is
a wrap on our deep dive into Cheers Season 6,
a season of panic, complete reinvention, and
Wade Boggs' missing pants. RIP to those pants.
Thanks for listening. We will see you on the
next deep dive.