bluetoast

One of my favorites is the the one where Sam gets pranked and then he pranked everybody back. It’s sort of a two parter but the second one happens many episodes later so it’s a random surprise.

Count Dooku

Just struck me this morning that another thing Burrows said on Conan's podcast was that they wanted John Lithgow to play Frasier, but Lithgow didn't want to do a TV sitcom. They cast Kelsey Grammer and liked him so much they made Frasier a regular character going forward.

But Frasier Crane was only supposed to be a four episode character, so if Lithgow had taken the part with the understanding that it was just a few episodes, then they would not have been able to keep Frasier on the show. So no Frasier or Lillith on Cheers and there never would have been a Frasier spin-off.

GuessWho

That's how I saw it too -- much in the way Valerie/Valerie's Family/The Hogan Family was all the same

Paff

Wasn't the rumor that Shelley Long disliked Kelsey Grammer so much, they kept him on the show just to annoy her?

And the other, more positive rumor (and probably more likely), they deliberately wrote un-funny lines for Frasier, to see if Kelsey Grammer could make them funny, and 9/10 times he did. (Seriously, how does Kelsey Grammer do that? Even when Krusty the Klown ordered a pie job for "Lord Autumnbottom", the way Bob just said "Oh dear" was hilarious. Krusty knew it. We all did.)

While we're discussing favorite Cheers moments and episodes, can I mention my least favorite? It was the 3-4 episode story arc where Lilith went to live in the "eco pod" and divorces Frasier. I don't even think the Frasier spinoff was greenlit at that point, so it totally didn't make sense. Bebe Neuwirth was such a great addition to the show, it sucks that her character went out that way.

ETA:

cultshock

Yep, that's another example that I was thinking of. In both cases they were more of a retitle necessitated by the departure of one of the most important cast members (especially in the case of Valerie, where the departing character was the title of the show). I suppose another example of that would be the Roseanne reboot morphing into The Connors.

story

I was inspired by this thread to start up a poll and find out if we want to watch Cheers or another vintage show as a viewing club together.

milo bloom

Starting up, this is some damn sharp writing.

And there’s a person in a wheelchair in the first episode with no indication of how she got down there.

Decker

Making her way down there took everything she had.

leacha

I have to go back and watch that now. There was a back entrance that may be ADA compliant.

Count Dooku

The Americans With Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, so unless the state of Massachusetts had such a law, the Cheers bar of the 1980s was not legally required to provide wheelchair access (ramps and widened doorways) to its business.

But the ADA also contains provisions and exceptions for existing small businesses that would have to incur "significant difficulty or expense" to come into compliance in the 1990s.

So, I think we can all imagine that based on the two visible entrances to Cheers, that unless the never seen back entrance was made ADA compliant, it would be significantly difficult and extremely expensive to alter the two visible stairways, and so might not ever be done.

milo bloom

I watched part of the second episode, paying attention to where people were coming from. Most are from the front stairs, but there were numerous people coming out of the back hallway that goes to the pool room. Looking down that hall, on the left is the payphone then the two bathrooms, but I have yet to see the right side of that hallway.

Considering that there's no way their supplier would bring kegs of beer and cases of liquors down the stairs, there must be an elevator on the right side of that hall.

I'll keep watching and report back.

bluetoast

I don't remember if they ever show an entrance/loading zone there despite there probably being one there, but if you're in the hallway facing the pool room, they later reveal that there's a parking lot out the window on the left side (where Sam parks). I think it's revealed in the episode where Norm gets stuck there.

Both bathrooms are also enormous relative to the the minimal door space they occupy in the hallway, and then there's Sam's office which was brought in for when it was needed, otherwise it would not fit with everything else.

Ken Levine also said that they would populate the bar with way more extras than you might think, like 30-40 people in a normal, non-crowded situation, 500 when it needed to be packed. It doesn't look like there are that many but with a set that size, they needed to keep it from looking completely empty.

Edit - someone on Reddit posted a floorplan, which shows the back entrance.

Paff

Not only down the main stairs, but there was yet another level down, where presumably the kegs were kept. But there's also the possibility of an elevator or dumb waiter accessed from the sidewalk, very common in major cities like Boston

Cardsfan111

That floor plan is fantastic! Perhaps similar ones have been shown on the forum, but I don't recall. I looked up the artist and found many others along with an article describing his work several years ago:

Meet the man who makes a living modeling TV apartments (nypost.com)

Decker

Count Dooku

I don't know but it looks to me like Sam just opened a door and set the empty keg down, and then was instantly able to produce a new keg already on a dolly, without going down any stairs or really any effort at all. I think there may be some shenanigans going on.

movieguru

Wasn't there some kind of access level below the bar; a basement or something? I seem to recall an episode where Dianne is underneath the bar floor and you can see her face through a vent of some kind and then the old man bends down and looks at her.

Count Dooku

So Sam went down the stairs to the basement, put a new keg on a dolly, and brought it back up the stairs in 4 seconds? . . . and all without showing the slightest sign of having exerting himself? I call shenanigans, sir!

movieguru

In that seen, he clearly didn't go downstairs. Maybe they leave an extra one up on the landing or that is some sort of closet. I feel like they mention a basement of some sort in one episode, but it may have been a Halloween episode/ dream.

I guess the other question is, did they only have one generic brand of beer at the bar? You always hear people ordering a beer and they always just say "beer" with no mention of brand name or if it's light beer, etc. You can see he has a few different taps for beer but no one ever specifies which brand they want. For the regulars, the bartenders would know their customers preferred brand, but for any new customers, they are never asked a brand. There's no markings on the kegs he exchanges in this scene either.

GoldenJCJ

That’s a cool floor plan. I never realized there was a storage room/utility area behind the stairs (at the top of the floor plan). And based on that “beer ceremony” clip Decker posted, it’s where they store extra kegs of beer.

I always assumed there was a dumbwaiter or something they used to get deliveries to them. When I was a kid, there was a local store that had a conveyor belt type contraption to get cases of alcohol from the street to the shelves. I can imagine Cheers having something like that too.

T-bone22

The basement is referred to in various episodes, but it is shown in Diane’s Nightmare when people keep going down there and not returning.

movieguru

So, in this diagram it appears there is indeed another exit in the pool room that leads to what looks like a dumpster and a trashcan. Was this ever shown in an episode, or was it conjecture on the part of the artist?

bluetoast

I don't remember if that outside area was explicitly seen, but there was an episode when the owner of Melville's (the restaurant upstairs) had a spat with Sam over ownership of the dumpsters, so it could have been shown in that episode, or another one.

The only thing I notice missing from the diagram is a TV located in the bottom right corner of the main bar (where the fourth wall would be). It's not wall-mounted like modern TVs, but you know the type, when it's on a stand and hanging up in the corner. This was seen in the series finale when they were watching Diane on TV, and possibly in other episodes.

Decker

Where on that floor plan does Sam go to produce the keg? It looks like he opens a door on the opposite side of the stairs, and that's not even shown in that floor plan.

GoldenJCJ

It’s on the top left corner or the floor plan on the other side of the stairs. In the floor plan, the door is shown swinging open.

In the clip you posted, you can see the Cheers entrance over Sam’s right shoulder as he’s guiding the dolly down the steps.