Category - Entertainment
10 Amazing Facts About the 'Cheers' Cast to Help You Win at Bar Trivia
The immortal sitcom Cheers still feels relevant and compelling 32 years after it aired its finale episode, and 43 years after it debuted in the first place. Part of what makes the show so great is not just the coziness of the bar where everybody knows your name, but the people in it. The cast of Cheers created characters that are unforgettable, nuanced and, most importantly, very different from each other.
Starting with the very first episode, Cheers was a collision of different cultures and norms. The owner of the titular bar was Sam Malone (Ted Danson) a former baseball hero, who was also a recovering alcoholic. His patrons ranged from salesmen to postmen to psychologists. In Cheers, the tension came from a bartender who couldn't drink and customers who didn't all think alike because, usually, they came from totally different worlds. All of this enabled the conflicts in Cheers to be full of specific commentary about class, and what it means to have friends.
But, the people behind the characters were, arguably, just as interesting. Here are 10 facts about the cast of Cheers that will help you win the next round of bar trivia.
10. Cliff Was in Star Wars

Lucasfilm
As postman Cliff Claven, John Ratzenberger was the king of useless trivia in Cheers. But, in 1980, on the Rebel Base on the ice planet Hoth, Ratzenberger is the one who delivers the bad news to Princess Leia that "the shield doors must be closed." His character was named Major Bren Derlin.
Want to know something even weirder? The character of Major Derlin is supposed to be one of the dudes in Han Solo's commando squad in Return of the Jedi (1983). But, at that point, the character wasn't played by Ratzenberger, but instead, by an uncredited extra. Maybe Cliff was too comfy at the bar to keep fighting the Empire.
9. Carla's Dad Was a Regular at the Bar

NBC
In several of the later seasons of Cheers, one background barfly was played by Philip Perlman, who was the real-life dad of Rhea Perlman, who famously played Carla. Philip Perlman's character was sometimes just called "Phil" in the credits.
8. Norm Only Had One Word in the First Script

CBS/Getty
Although George Wendt's famous bar regular "Norm" was eventually renowned for his famous entrances in which everyone shouts his name, the character in the first pilot script, written by Les Charles, had named the character "George" and only given him one line. At the time, Norm and Cliff were not separate characters, and Norm would have uttered only one word to Diane (Shelley Long), and that word was "beer."
That said, in the actual filmed pilot episode, Norm says quite a lot. He talks to Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) about sports, and when Sam (Ted Danson) asks him "Whaddya know?" Norm replies hilariously, "Not enough."
7. Kirstie Alley's Big Hollywood Break Wasn't Cheers

Paramount Pictures
Although Kirstie Alley famously replaced Shelley Long's Diane Chambers and took the show in a new direction as Rebecca Howe, her first major breakout role wasn't in comedy at all. To be clear, the late actress is best known for Cheers, which is impressive considering she joined the series midway through Season 6. But her first big role was somewhat surprising, unless of course you're a hardcore Star Trek person.
In 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Kirstie Alley was cast as a young Vulcan named Saavik who's the protégé of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and has aspirations to become a starship captain. Cast by director Nicholas Meyer, Alley's youthful energy set the tone for that classic Star Trek film, and helped establish the themes of the film: a study on aging and usefulness, and how the young can face the loss of the next generation. In short, Kirstie Alley was hilarious in Cheers, but she was equally dramatic and introspective in Star Trek II.
6. Ted Danson's Hair Was Fake

CBS via Getty Images
Yes, it's true. At least part of the time while filming Cheers, beloved actor Ted Danson wore a hairpiece to augment that iconic Sam Malone look. This isn't to say all of Danson's hair is fake. Mostly, he had a bald spot that he was trying to hide with the hairpiece. In the '60s, '70s, and '80s, this was very common for leading male actors to do.
5. Shelley Long Almost Wasn't in the Show

Getty/CBS
Although the pilot episode "Give Me a Ring Sometime" firmly established Shelley Long's Diane Chambers as the point-of-view character, who's learning about the eccentricities of the bar, she almost didn't get the lead role in the famous sitcom. According to some sources, including renowned entertainment journalist Ed Gross, Long almost lost the part to Julia Duffy.
4. Michael Richards, of Seinfeld Fame, Appeared on Cheers First

NBC/CBS
We all remember Michael Richards as Kramer in Seinfeld—but well before that, he guest starred on a very pivotal episode of Cheers called "Bar Bet." This was episode 18 in Cheers Season 3, and it involves Sam dealing with Eddie (Richards) who's trying to collect on an old bet he made with Sam a long, long time ago. Essentially, Michael Richards is the villain of this episode, which, thinking about his later fame as Kramer is super weird to watch now.
3. Ted Danson Said Working With Shelley Long Was "Heaven" Despite Their Many Disagreements

NBC/CBS
Although Cheers lore claims that the majority of the cast disliked Shelley Long, Ted Danson has spoken out in defense of Long while admitting they had a strained working relationship. In 1987, speaking to People, Danson said, "I ain’t gonna say anything bad about my partner." And, more recently, in 2012, while speaking to GQ, (and reported by The New York Post in 2024) he made it clear that while they had their personal differences, much of the tension went into creating fantastic performances. As he put it then: "I had trouble hanging around her until we stood onstage together, and then I was in heaven."
2. Frasier Crane Actually Appeared in Three Different TV Shows (Before the Frasier reboot!)

Paramount+
While psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) didn't appear until Season 3 of Cheers in 1984, he quickly became a huge staple of the show. Like all great aspects of Cheers, Frasier represented a different side to the culture of people who like to get a beer at a cozy bar. Frasier was an intellectual, in somewhat opposition to Norm and Sam. And, of course, his brief relationship with Diane caused much-needed class-war conflict and one of TV's best love triangles.
But, of course, Frasier is probably better known today as the star of his own spinoff series, Frasier which began in 1993, when Cheers ended. In that series, Frasier left Boston for Seattle and became a radio show shrink, which was different from his even stuffier persona in Cheers. That said, Kelsey Grammer also appeared as Frasier in a 1992 episode of the sitcom Wings called "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes." This means that before the 2023 Frasier reboot on Paramount+, the character had already appeared in three different shows, making the Cheers universe much bigger than you probably remembered.
1. The Cast Tried to Beat Woody Harrelson —at Everything

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When actor Nicholas Colasanto passed away slightly before the beginning of Cheers Season 4, a new character was created to fill the void. Whereas Coach had been an old guy saying kooky things for comic effect, Woody Harrelson's new character Woody Boyd would accomplish much the same thing, only be much younger.
But, last year, co-star Ted Danson revealed that the rest of the cast had a hard time with Harrelson at first. "We wanted to kick his ass," Danson said in 2024. "Well, we were 37 when he showed up, and he was 24." And then, went on to explain that much of the cast tried to beat Harrelson at various sports, including basketball, only to learn that Harrelson was fantastic at basketball. This went on with arm-wrestling competitions, and then, an attempt to break Harrelson down mentally. But, "[He] killed us at chess. This is all in the first week! Really," Danson said.
In the end, the cast, of course, loved Woody Harrelson, even if he was not-so-secretly great at everything.
Where to Stream Cheers
All eleven seasons of Cheers are streaming on Paramount+, and for free on PlutoTV.