This popular situation comedy is often cited for successfully blending elements of romance and soap opera into the sitcom format. Fans of the show enjoyed its witty dialogue and comic situations but also followed the twists and turns in the lives of the main characters. Would Sam and Diane get together? Would Rebecca marry Robin? These sorts of plot questions strung together episodes and whole seasons, which often ended with summer cliff-hangers—at the time, a rare device for television comedy.

The show was set at Cheers, the Boston bar “where everybody knows your name.” Bar owner Sam Malone (Ted Danson), a former pitcher for the baseball team the Boston Red Sox and an irascible womanizer, served up beers and traded one-liners with regular customers Cliff (John Ratzenberger) and Norm (George Wendt). Carla (Rhea Perlman), a feisty waitress with a weakness for hockey players, kept the men in check with her acerbic comments. Bartender “Coach” (Nicholas Colasanto) was the slow-witted and ironically funny straight man of the ensemble cast. When Colasanto passed away in 1985, Woody Harrelson joined the cast as Woody, a young bartender who took slow-wittedness to new heights.

Sam’s on-again, off-again romance with cocktail waitress Diane (Shelly Long) exemplified the show’s serial-comedy mix. In the first season, Diane despised Sam and constantly rejected his come-ons. In the second season, she started a torrid affair with him. They broke it off in the third season, and Diane took up with a neurotic psychiatrist, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer). Diane almost went back to Sam after the fourth season but then rejected his marriage proposal. The ongoing romantic tension allowed Sam and Diane to develop as characters. Flashbacks and references to past episodes gave the show a sense of continuous history, like an evening soap. Over the years, other characters developed their own plotlines. Rebecca (Kirstie Alley), who replaced Diane when actress Shelly Long left the show in 1987, pursued a futile romance with Robin Colcord (Roger Rees), a corporate raider who briefly owned the bar. Woody dated Kelly (Jackie Swanson), a wealthy socialite who matched him in naiveté. Frasier married Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth), an ice-cold psychiatrist who matched him in neurosis. Only Cliff and Norm remained essentially static, holding down the bar with their mutual put-downs.

The creators of Cheers, Glen Charles, James Burrows, and Les Charles, previously worked on various MTM Productions sitcoms, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis, and The Bob Newhart Show. Like Taxi, another of their creations, Cheers inherited the MTM emphasis on character development. Upscale audiences appreciated this emphasis—and advertisers appreciated the upscale audiences. Cheers was not politically correct: the main character was a womanizer; Rebecca pretended to be a career woman but really just wanted a rich husband; and the collegial atmosphere centered around drinking. Though several of the characters were working class, the show completely avoided social issues. Indeed, Cheers never preached to its audience on any subjects whatsoever. Even the poignant moments of personal drama that quieted the set from time to time were quickly counter-balanced by sardonic one-liners before any serious message could take hold.

In 1993 Paramount announced that Cheers would go off the air. The show was still highly rated, but production costs had soared to record numbers—$65 million for the 1991–92 season. Star Ted Danson, who reportedly participated in making the decision to cancel the program, was earning $450,000 per episode. The network orchestrated a rousing finale, which garnered a 45.5 rating and a 64 audience share. On the evening of the finale, many local newscasts aired segments from bars, where fans saluted Cheers from an appropriate setting. In 1994, Kelsey Grammer launched a spin-off, the long-running and highly rated Frasier (in which many Cheers characters have made appearances). George Wendt and Rhea Perlman have also starred in sitcoms, though to less success than Grammer. Woody Harrelson has landed numerous leading roles in Hollywood, following in the footsteps of his Cheers costars Alley and Danson. Both of them returned to television after Cheers, with Alley starring in the NBC sitcom Veronica’s Closet and Danson playing the lead in two CBS sitcoms, the short-lived Ink and the more successful comedy Becker.

Over the years Cheers received 26 Emmy Awards and a record 111 Emmy nominations. Since the mid-1990s, it has been a major hit in syndication. As an inheritor of the MTM character-comedy tradition, Cheers pushed the “serialization” of sitcoms to new levels and was one of the most successful shows from the 1980s.