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The NBC comedy Cheers ran for 11 seasons and spun off Frasier. But, if it weren’t for a summer miracle, Cheers would’ve been cancelled before season 2. In a recent interview, Cheers Co-Creator James Burrows told the story of the summer that saved the show.  

'Cheers': Coach, Sam, Diane and Norm huddle around the pool table
L-R: Nicholas Colasanto, Ted Danson, Shelley Long, and George Wendt | Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank

Burrows was a guest on Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast on June 13, promoting his book, Directed by James Burrows. Burrows has been a television director since The Mary Tyler Moore Show all the way through Friends and the Will & Grace revival. Cheers he also helped create and directed 237 episodes of it. 

Nobody knew anyone’s name on ‘Cheers’

The theme song for Cheers talked about a place “where everybody knows your name.” Now, the cast boasts A-list names like Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer and Kirstie Alley. But, when the show began with Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman and Nicolas Colasanto, they were all unknowns. So was Alda when he began MASH.

“Both MASH and Cheers, there was absolutely no reason to watch them,” Burrows said on Clear + Vivid. “Nobody was a star in your show and nobody was a star in Cheers. You had a movie going for you. We didn’t have that. And back then, in television, there was no internet, it took a while for shows to catch on because people who watched the show had to be shopping at a supermarket and saying, ‘Hey Louis, I saw this show last night. Maybe you should tune it in.’”

Word of mouth wasn’t spreading in Cheers Season 1. It seemed like Cheers would be cancelled.

“So as with MASH and Cheers, there was no reason to watch,” Burrows said. “We were slotted after Taxi at 9 o’clock on Thursday night. Taxi was a fading show then and there was no reason to watch us. We were opposite Simon & Simon which was a very popular show that followed Magnum P.I. Tommy Selleck back then was a huge star on television so there was no reason to watch the show.”

The summer of 1983 saved ‘Cheers’ from being cancelled

In the ‘80s, there was no DVR and certainly no streaming. There were only three networks, so once you watched all year, the only thing to watch over the summer was re-runs. That’s when people discovered Cheers.

“Then in the summer reruns, people had already seen Magnum P.I. and Simon & Simon so they’d try other shows,” Burrows said. “We finished 9th one week in the summer. And we started to gain a little traction.”

Once people started watching Cheers, they felt they’d discovered something special. Burrows noted a similar phenomenon with shows like Friends and Will & Grace, though both were hits right away.

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“I have made my career on shows like that where there’s nobody in it you know because when people tune in, discover the characters and then make them famous, the audience feels a proprietary interest in creating that hit show,” Burrow said. “Because they tuned in and came en masse to watch the show and made the show a success so there’s a proprietary interest in it. That’s why I think 98% of the shows I’ve ever done have never really had any big stars in them.”

NBC execs kept the show on until the summer 

These days, shows that don’t perform are pulled off the air. In 1982, NBC executives Grant Tinker and Brandon Tartikoff kept the show on. Lesser execs might have cancelled Cheers but their faith paid off.

“Literally on Thanksgiving of that year we were 77th out of 77 shows,” Burrows said. “First of all, we had two big fans, actually three. The press. The press loved cheers. Grant Tinker was at MTM then and Grant Tinker gave myself and the Charles brothers, my partners on Cheers, both our shots in getting into the business. And Brandon Tartikoff was at NBC and they were big fans of the show. Plus they’ll tell you they had nothing else. So they kept us on.”

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