100 Fun Facts About Cheers

On which night of the week did NBC air Cheers?

Thursday. When The Cosby Show joined the same night in 1984 it pulled in a huge new audience, and many of those viewers discovered Cheers for the first time.

Cheers was created by James Burrows and which pair of brothers?

Glen and Les Charles wrote and produced Taxi, where Burrows was their regular director. The three then formed their own company and created Cheers together.

Which NBC programming chief championed Cheers and kept it on air through its dismal first-season ratings?

Brandon Tartikoff backed the show while it sat near the bottom of the ratings. It helped that the reviews were glowing and NBC had no hit comedy to put in its place.

Cliff Clavin appears as a contestant on which real game show?

Jeopardy. Cliff had the game locked up, wagered everything on the last clue and blew it, and fans of the real show now call an all-in bet like that a breach of Clavin's Rule.

Before owning the bar, Sam Malone was a relief pitcher for which team?

The Red Sox. Sam was written as a retired football player until the part was cast; the creators decided their new lead was far more believable as a pitcher.

What was Sam Malone's baseball nickname?

Mayday. Sam Malone bought the bar in his drinking days and now tends it as a recovering alcoholic, pouring what he can no longer drink.

In the pilot, Diane Chambers is abandoned at the bar by her fiancé, a professor named what?

Sumner Sloane. He flies off with his ex-wife on the tickets booked for his wedding trip with Diane, leaving her without a job or money until Sam offers her work.

What is the title of the Cheers pilot, in which Diane's fiancé abandons her at the bar?

Give Me a Ring Sometime. He goes to collect a wedding ring from his ex-wife, and by the time Diane phones the airport the two of them have used the honeymoon tickets.

The actor who became Norm first auditioned to play a Cheers customer whose entire part was which single word?

Beer! Before the pilot was filmed the one-word customer had given way to Norm, a regular who never leaves the bar.

What is Cliff Clavin's job?

Postal worker. John Ratzenberger thought he had blown his audition, so on his way out he asked whether the bar had a know-it-all and improvised Cliff on the spot.

What is the name of Norm Peterson's never-seen wife?

Vera. When she finally walks into shot, at a Thanksgiving dinner that has turned into a food fight, a pie hits her square in the face before viewers can see it.

What is Norm Peterson's occasional profession?

Accountant. One of the show's creators based Norm on a regular at a bar where he worked after college, a man who always came for just one and had to be helped out.

Carla names one of her twin sons after which singer, her idol?

Elvis Presley. The twins are Elvis and Jesse, and Carla, who is sentimental about almost nothing else, makes a pilgrimage to Graceland every year.

Which Cheers cast member won four Emmys for the show?

Rhea Perlman. She had been sweet Zena, Louie's girlfriend, on Taxi, the Cheers creators' previous show, before they cast her as the venomous Carla.

Before playing Coach on Cheers, Nicholas Colasanto was a mob boss in which Martin Scorsese film?

Raging Bull. Colasanto was the menacing Tommy Como two years before he became the lovable Coach, and like Sam Malone he was a recovered alcoholic in real life.

Whose portrait from Nicholas Colasanto's dressing room was hung on the Cheers set after the Coach actor died?

Geronimo. The portrait stayed on the bar's back wall for the rest of the run, and in the very last scene of the series Sam walks over and straightens it.

Farm boy Woody Boyd comes to Boston and Cheers from a small town in which state?

Indiana. Woody travels from Hanover to meet his pen pal Coach, learns that he has died, and is hired on the spot to take the old man's place behind the bar.

Why does Sam Malone sell Cheers after Diane leaves him?

To sail the world. Sam sinks his boat instead, and comes home to find a corporate manager running the bar and has to beg her for a bartending job.

For how much was Cheers sold back to Sam in the eighth-season finale?

85 cents. The corporation offered Sam the bar for a dollar as thanks for exposing a tycoon's insider trading; he had no cash on him, so he passed the hat.

Where does Diane abandon Frasier Crane, ending the romance that first brought him to Cheers?

At the altar. Frasier was written as a short-term rival for Sam, but after Diane walks out on their wedding in Europe he stays on as one of the bar's regulars.

Kelsey Grammer was Emmy-nominated as Frasier Crane on Cheers, Frasier and which third sitcom?

Wings. The Nantucket airport comedy came from three Cheers writers, so Frasier dropped in for a 1992 episode, and that one guest spot brought Grammer the nomination.

Frasier's wife Lilith Sternin was played by which actress?

Bebe Neuwirth. Lilith was written for a single scene, one disastrous date with Frasier, but the writers enjoyed her dialogue so much that they kept bringing her back.

Which Cheers star received the Golden Globes' 2025 Carol Burnett Award?

Ted Danson. He was Emmy-nominated as Sam Malone in every one of the show's eleven seasons, and lost seven years running before he finally won in 1990.

Diane leaves Sam and Cheers in the season-five finale to finish what?

Her novel. Diane promises Sam she will be back in six months, and does not walk into the bar again until the very last episode.

After years of chasing millionaires, Rebecca Howe ends Cheers by marrying a man in which trade?

Plumber. Don turns up to fix the taps at the bar, and the woman who had pursued one rich executive after another quits her job to marry him.

Which Cheers actor was Emmy-nominated six years running for the show without ever winning?

George Wendt. Norm lost all six, the last of them in 1989 to Woody Harrelson, the bartender who spent his evenings pouring Norm's drinks.

Judy Hart Angelo co-wrote the Cheers theme "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" with which singer, who performed it?

Gary Portnoy. The producers first wanted a number from a stage musical he and Judy Hart Angelo had written, and only when that fell through did the pair write a new song for the show.

The real Boston pub used for the exterior shots of Cheers was originally called what?

The Bull & Finch, said to be a play on the name of Boston architect Charles Bulfinch. Tourists who knew it from the show flocked there, and in 2002 the owner renamed the pub Cheers.

The pub seen in the Cheers opening stands on which Boston street, facing the Public Garden?

Beacon Street. Only the outside made it to television: the basement pub's interior differs from the studio set, so the owner later added a replica of the TV bar upstairs for visitors.

What is the name of the fancy restaurant upstairs from Cheers, whose owner feuds with Sam?

Melville's. The feud starts when its new owner shows Sam a deed proving that the bar's pool room and toilets belong to the restaurant, and Sam has to pay him rent.

Which rival bar did the Cheers gang wage a running prank war with, almost always losing?

Gary's Olde Towne Tavern. The feud ran for years and ended only when a con man tricked Gary into bulldozing his own bar for a million dollars that did not exist.

Which actress joined Cheers in 1987 as corporate bar manager Rebecca Howe?

Kirstie Alley. Rebecca arrived as an icy executive, but Alley turned out to be a gifted klutz, so the writers remade the character as a self-pitying mess.

What is the title of the final episode of Cheers, first shown in May 1993?

One for the Road. The episode ends with Sam alone in the empty bar, calling to a latecomer knocking at the door, 'Sorry, we're closed.'

Which Monty Python star won an Emmy for a Cheers guest spot as a marriage counsellor pestered by Sam and Diane?

John Cleese. His counsellor tells the couple they are hopelessly mismatched, and they keep turning up at his hotel room until he gives in and says what they want to hear.

After the Cheers finale, NBC aired which late-night show live from the Boston pub that inspired the bar?

The Tonight Show. The cast had been celebrating at the pub for hours, and host Jay Leno later called the live broadcast a mistake because his guests were too drunk to interview.

What was the 1987 Cheers spin-off following Carla's ex-husband Nick to Las Vegas called?

The Tortellis. NBC cancelled it within months, so Nick and his new wife Loretta simply went back to turning up at Cheers to make Carla's life difficult.

In the spin-off Frasier, which premiered in 1993, Frasier Crane moves from Boston to which city?

Seattle. Newly divorced from Lilith, Frasier goes home to host a radio advice show, and finds himself sharing his smart apartment with his retired policeman father.

Which first-season Cheers episode has Sam's former teammate come out as gay?

The Boys in the Bar. Sam stands by his friend in public, and his regulars panic that Cheers will now be taken for a gay bar.

Cheers was filmed before a live audience on Stage 25 at which Hollywood studio?

Paramount. When the bar set came down in 1993, the same stage was handed straight to the spin-off Frasier, which filmed there for the next eleven years.

Which future Night Court star recurred on Cheers as a con man known as 'the Hat'?

Harry Anderson. A touring magician off screen, he played Harry the Hat, a grifter Sam wants thrown out on sight, yet the gang calls him in whenever a bigger crook needs fleecing.

Which elected office does bartender Woody Boyd win in the final season of Cheers?

City councilman. Frasier puts Woody on the ballot purely as an experiment in voter psychology, and is shocked when the bartender goes on to win the seat.

Which sports car is Sam Malone's pride and joy, alongside his hair and his little black book?

Corvette. Sam loves the red sports car so much that selling it, to Lilith of all people, is the sacrifice he makes when he needs money to buy back his bar.

The Cheers finale drew the largest audience for a series farewell since which show ended in 1983?

M*A*S*H. NBC cleared a whole evening for the Cheers farewell and promoted it as a record-breaker, but it fell well short of the audience for the Korean War comedy.

The creators of Cheers modelled Sam and Diane's sparring on which classic Hollywood screen couple?

Tracy and Hepburn. The creators wanted that battle of well-matched opposites, so they put an educated snob to work for an ex-jock and let the two argue for five years.

How does Carla's husband Eddie LeBec, a hockey player turned ice-show penguin, die?

Struck by an ice resurfacer. Eddie dies a hero, saving another member of the ice show, and at his funeral Carla learns that he also had a second wife.

In the final season of Cheers, Lilith leaves Frasier to live with another scientist in what?

An underground eco-pod. Lilith breaks it off and comes back later that season to reconcile with Frasier, though by the time he gets his own show the two have divorced.

The creators considered making Cheers an American version of which British sitcom?

Fawlty Towers. While swapping hotel stories the creators noticed that all the best action happened in the hotel bar, so they dropped the hotel and kept the bar.

Which actor was a finalist to play Sam Malone, first written as a retired football player?

Fred Dryer. The part went to another finalist, but the show found room for Dryer, who turned up in later episodes as an old teammate of Sam's turned sportscaster.

Which Welsh-born actor played the wealthy Robin Colcord, Rebecca's love interest?

Roger Rees. His tycoon is Rebecca's great hope of marrying money, until Sam exposes him for insider trading and he flees the country on his private jet.

Which Top Gun actor played Evan Drake, the boss Rebecca Howe pines for in her first Cheers season?

Tom Skerritt. Rebecca spends a whole year scheming to make her boss notice her, and he moves to Japan without ever working out how she feels.

Where was the leading man of Cheers sent to prepare for playing bar owner Sam Malone?

Bartending school in Burbank taught him to pour, but sport was harder to fake. He had never been to a baseball game and had to learn to sound like a fan.

Which institution turned down the Cheers bar set after the show ended because it was too large?

The Smithsonian passed on the 1,000-square-foot set, which went back into storage for many years. A television museum finally took it in 2014 after a long campaign by the show's director.

Most of the Cheers cast voiced their own characters in a 1994 episode of which animated series?

The Simpsons sent Homer to the Boston bar after Moe banned him from his own. Frasier sits silent in the scene, though the actor who plays him was a Simpsons regular as Sideshow Bob.

In the Cheers pilot, Diane's fiancé leaves her waiting at the bar and flies off on their tickets with whom?

His ex-wife phones the bar with a change of heart, and he goes. Diane finds out when she tries to rebook their flights to Barbados and learns the tickets have already been used.

Which 2015 video game set in a ruined Boston hides a near-exact replica of the Cheers bar?

Fallout 4 calls the place Prost Bar and puts it beside Boston Common. Two bodies still sit at the end of the counter, where the regulars always drank.

Which sitcom spoofed Cheers by having a whole bar shout 'Swarley' at a regular as he walked in?

How I Met Your Mother built the gag on a barista mishearing Barney's name. The episode ends with the Cheers theme playing and the credits set in the older show's typeface.

Which British actress guest-starred on Cheers as Nanny G, a children's singer once married to Frasier Crane?

Emma Thompson played Nanette Guzman, a first wife Frasier had kept quiet about. Lilith ends up attacking her in the middle of little Frederick's second birthday party.

How did the creators of Cheers choose the real Boston pub they used as the model for the bar?

From a phone book came a pub whose owner let them photograph it for a fee of one dollar. Licensing its image and selling memorabilia later made him millions.

The three creators of Cheers had all worked on which earlier sitcom, which also featured the future Carla?

Taxi employed two of them as writers and the third as its main director. The actress later cast as Carla recurred there as the girlfriend of dispatcher Louie De Palma.

The actors who played Norm and Cliff sued over which lookalikes placed in Cheers-themed airport bars?

Animatronic robots propped up the airport bars as stand-ins for the two barflies. The actors sued in 1993, lost twice, won on appeal, and settled out of court in 2001.

Which actress won a lead-acting Emmy as Diane Chambers before leaving Cheers after five seasons?

Shelley Long won the Emmy in 1983 for the show's first season. She came back for the 1993 finale and was nominated all over again.

Carla's second husband on Cheers, Eddie LeBec, is a French-Canadian goalie for which NHL team?

Boston Bruins goalie Eddie starts losing as soon as he and Carla start dating. The superstitious pair take to breaking up before every game and making up afterwards.

Which crime by tycoon Robin Colcord does Sam Malone expose to win back ownership of Cheers?

Insider trading undoes Colcord, who had been romancing Rebecca while eyeing her employer for a takeover. The grateful owners let Sam buy back the bar and fire Rebecca for staying silent.

Diane Chambers turns out to be a ringer at which sport, giving Cheers a rare win over a rival bar?

Bowling tempts Diane off the sidelines only when the rival owner wagers a date with her on the result. Woody, a trophy winner back home, refuses to play after once injuring a man in a freak accident.

Doctors from which hospital drama dropped into Cheers for a drink in a crossover scene with Carla, Norm and Cliff?

St. Elsewhere sent three of its doctors to the bar, where Cliff angles for free medical advice and Carla complains about her stay on their wards. The scene was shot on the sitcom's own soundstage.

Which Boston Celtics star slumps on Cheers after the gang get him obsessed with counting bolts in the arena floor?

Kevin McHale played himself twice. A season earlier the gang had talked him into playing for their bar's basketball team by pretending the game was for charity.

Which future Star Trek star played councilwoman Janet Eldridge, who dates Sam Malone on Cheers?

Kate Mulgrew, later Captain Janeway of Voyager, played her across a three-part season finale. It closes with Sam phoning a marriage proposal to someone the audience cannot identify.

After walking out on Frasier Crane in Italy, where does Diane Chambers retreat before Sam coaxes her back to Cheers?

A convent outside Boston takes her in for a self-imposed penance after a wild spell in Europe. Sam goes out there to offer her old job back, and she turns him down before relenting.

Which vanity secret does Sam Malone reveal to Carla in the final season of Cheers, one the actor shared?

A hairpiece hid the star's own baldness throughout filming, something he first let viewers see at the 1990 Emmys. Sam gives up the secret to console Carla over a regret of her own.

Which lucky charm, kept from the last beer he ever drank, helps Sam Malone stay sober on Cheers?

A bottle cap is all that keeps Sam from a relapse, he admits, after lending it to a slumping ballplayer who loses it. He pours himself a beer, resists it, and adopts the new cap as his charm.

Which actor was the Cheers producers' original choice to play Frasier Crane but turned the role down?

John Lithgow felt television was beneath his dignity at the time. The role was meant to last only a few episodes, until the producers saw what his replacement did with it.

Woody Boyd first comes to Cheers to meet Coach, a friend he knew only from mailing each other what?

Pens were the whole correspondence: the two called themselves pen pals because they posted each other pens, never letters. Woody arrives to learn Coach has died and is hired in his place.

Which future Frasier cast member appeared on Cheers as a hack jingle writer hired by Rebecca?

John Mahoney even shares a brief exchange with Frasier Crane in the episode, before going on to play the man's father for the whole run of the spin-off.

Which new 1984 sitcom led off the NBC night that Cheers anchored, making the line-up a runaway ratings success?

The Cosby Show took the eight o'clock slot from 1984, with Family Ties next and the bar after that. Cheers had finished its first season near the bottom of the ratings table.

Sam secretly enters Diane Chambers in which kind of contest on Cheers, which she wins while planning to denounce it?

A beauty pageant for Boston's bar waitresses strikes Diane as degrading to women, so she plans a protest speech. Then she wins a trip to Bermuda and is too thrilled to give it.

At which campus is Diane Chambers a graduate student when she starts waitressing at Cheers?

Boston University has Diane as a graduate student when her fiancé strands her at the bar. She takes the job because memorising things, like drink orders, is one of her few practical skills.

Which singer-pianist guest-starred on Cheers as Woody Boyd's cousin, who develops a crush on Rebecca?

Harry Connick Jr. sits down at the piano during the episode to play a number from his Grammy-winning album We Are in Love.

Which late-night host's 1990 anniversary special begins with the Cheers regulars going home rather than watch him?

David Letterman had the bar's television stuck on NBC, so the patrons walk out instead of sitting through his show. He reused the scene to start his last Late Night in 1993.

Playing Frasier Crane for twenty years, from Cheers onward, tied a record set by the lead of which Western?

Gunsmoke kept Arness in the saddle as Marshal Matt Dillon from 1955 to 1975. Frasier matched that span across two sitcoms before a television detective outlasted them both.

A 2011 remake of Cheers, set in an Irish pub with the theme tune re-recorded, was made in which country?

Spain's version kept the English title and cast Alberto San Juan as Nico, its answer to Sam Malone. A former pop frontman sang the translated theme.

The Cheers episode Thanksgiving Orphans, set at Carla's house, is famous for ending in which kind of chaos?

A food fight erupts while the turkey refuses to cook, and the scene was only partly choreographed. Diane's stray pumpkin pie lands on Norm's wife just as she finally walks in.

Frasier Crane and Lilith Sternin, who marry during the run of Cheers, both work in which profession?

Psychiatry gives the pair plenty to argue about: their first date, in season four, is a disaster of constant bickering. It takes Diane to nudge them back together the following season.

On Cheers, Frasier Crane says his late father was a scientist; the spin-off revealed him as a retired what?

Policeman Martin Crane, retired after being shot on duty, moves in with his son in the spin-off. Frasier later admits he told the bar his father was dead after the two had argued.

Cheers episodes about the prank feud with a rival bar share which two-word title, a pun on a film saga?

Bar Wars ran to seven instalments between seasons six and eleven, usually one or two a year, as each side's revenge demanded a sequel.

Which real batting champion loses his pants to the Cheers gang, who take him for a rival bar's impostor?

Wade Boggs really had been sent over as a peace offering to sign autographs. The gang learn the truth only from the wallet in the trousers they have just stolen.

Which actor played Nick, Carla's sleazy first husband, in his many return visits to Cheers?

Dan Hedaya kept coming back as Nick, often with his second wife Loretta in tow, to drag Carla into a custody battle or a legal scam left over from their divorce.

Which Speaker of the House ducks into Cheers in a 1983 cameo to escape Diane's political lecturing?

Tip O'Neill, the Massachusetts Democrat then leading the House, takes a stool to get away from Diane, who had pestered him outside about his ideals. He retired four years later.

On Cheers, Coach learns Spanish from Sam's brother for a coaching job in which country, only to lose it?

Venezuela's job goes to someone else, wasting lessons from Derek Malone, the jet-owning brother who outshines Sam in everything and whom viewers hear but never see.

Which part of a Cheers episode was written by the lowest-ranked writers and often unconnected to the plot?

The cold open was treated as a stand-alone joke, a decision made by the show's creators. Some were simply scenes trimmed from other episodes that had run too long.

Which company buys Cheers when Sam Malone sells up, installing Rebecca Howe as its manager?

Lillian Corporation runs the bar as a corporate franchise for three seasons. Sam returns months later to work as a hired bartender in the place he used to own.

Before choosing Boston, the creators of Cheers first discussed setting the bar in which California desert town?

Barstow came up first, followed by Kansas City, Missouri. Only then did the creators look to the East Coast and a neighbourhood pub with a steady stream of new faces.

The 'Est. 1895' on the Cheers sign is a false date that Carla picked using which belief system?

Numerology appealed to the superstitious Carla, so the sign ignores the bar's real founding in 1889. The truth comes out as the bar plans its centennial party in season eight.

Which cost-cutting change was pushed on Cheers during its low-rated first season but dropped after one poor test?

Shooting on videotape was the request from the network and the studio to save money, but a single test taping looked so poor that the show stayed on film.

Which future Sopranos star played Frasier's mother Hester on Cheers and threatened Diane?

Nancy Marchand's Hester Crane warns Diane off her son with a threat of violence. When that fails, she tries to bribe Sam into taking Diane back.

Which actor guest-starred on Cheers as Philip Semenko, a pretentious artist who insists on painting Diane?

Christopher Lloyd's painter insults Sam and enchants Diane, who sits for him in defiance of Sam's warning. The quarrel ends the couple's first romance in the season-two finale.

A replica of the Cheers bar set opened in 2001 in which Boston shopping area, closing in 2020?

Faneuil Hall got a copy of the television bar, since the real pub used for exterior shots looks quite different inside. The replica doubled as a museum of the show until the pandemic shut it.

Four Cheers cast members reunited in 2019 as food-delivery customers on which family sitcom?

The Goldbergs reunited the actors behind Carla, Norm, Cliff and Rebecca in a single episode, as customers of a teenager's short-lived food delivery business.

Which Massachusetts senator made a brief Cheers cameo as himself, only for the credits to misspell his name?

John Kerry, a future presidential nominee, appears before the titles of a season-ten episode. The closing credits list him as Kerrey.

What does a cash-strapped Woody Boyd give heiress Kelly Gaines for her birthday on Cheers, to her confusion?

A song, performed at the piano in front of her wealthy friends, is his answer to their expensive presents. Kelly likes it but keeps waiting for the real gift, and Woody flees in humiliation.

Woody Boyd finds which product disgusting after agreeing to advertise it on Cheers, until Frasier hypnotises him?

A vegetable juice called Veggie Boy is the product. The hypnosis works rather too well: Woody is devastated to learn, while still under, that the drink has been discontinued.