September 30, 1982: "Cheers" Premieres

Left to right: Nick Colasanto, Ted Danson, Shelley Long,

John Ratzenberger, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt

September 30, 1982: The situation comedy Cheers premieres on NBC. It was about Sam Malone (played by Ted Danson), a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, who ruined his career by excessive drinking, and now ran a bar in Boston.

This would seem to have been a bad idea, given his affliction, but he was good at it. The show was also about the bar itself, and the characters who were regular visitors.

A photograph of a Sox pitcher hangs on a post at the bar, purported to be Sam. It's actually an earlier Sox pitcher, Jim Lonborg, the American League Cy Young Award winner when the Sox won their "Impossible Dream" Pennant in 1967. This establishes Sam's uniform number as being the same as Gentleman Jim's, 16. In reality, on the Pennant-winning Sox of 1975, 16 was worn by outfielder Rick Miller.

Cheers is the 1980s in a nutshell. Here are the Top 10 Reasons:

1. Sam represents the excesses of the time, managing to skate through everything -- until he can't anymore. He wasn't quite "Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll" personified, but he was a womanizer, a substance abuser (in his case, alcohol), and a lover of fast cars (to the end of the show, he drove a cherry-red 1964 Chrevolet Corvette).

After almost, but not quite, going through with his marriage ceremony to Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), he sees Diane accept a job across the country, and she says she'll be back in 6 months. Sam doesn't buy it, and he turns out to be right. He sells the bar, and buys a boat, which he handles badly, and it sinks on its maiden voyage. That was his "Crash of '87," although the story happened to him before it happened to Wall Street.

He goes back to work at the bar, but he's just a bartender, no longer the owner, and tries to scheme his way back into ownership. At first, it doesn't work. This represents the Eighties' "bill coming due" after the Wall Street Crash of '87, although, in real life, the economy didn't fall all at once. The Savings & Loan Scandal of 1989 had more to do with the recession of 1990-93 than the Crash did. Sam did get the bar back, but it took 3 years.

2. Diane represents mental illness, and President Ronald Reagan letting so many mentally ill people out on the street. She did annoy everyone, but she was clearly impaired. And she was not properly treated. The character of Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was introduced at the start of Season 3 as her therapist, but before his introductory episode was out, we found out he was also sleeping with her, which was a massive violation of medical ethics. The relationship didn't last much longer, since she went back to Sam after he went back on the wagon.

3. Coach represents the old ways that have seemingly been lost. Emblematic of this is that, aside from the Red Sox, the only time we find out which team once employed Ernie Pantusso, a.k.a. "Coach" (Nicolas Colasanto), was when he said he played for the St. Louis Browns' organization. The Browns moved to become the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, after winning just 1 Pennant and no World Series in more than half a century. So, by this point, any mention of them was as a hopeless relic.

4. Cliff represents Reagan Era paranoia. Mail carrier Cliff Clavin was a dedicated employee of the U.S. Postal Service. He was also a self-styled know-it-all, whose bluster wouldn't have lasted two minutes in the Internet era, when his "little known facts" would have been quickly exposed.

He was also one of the most politically conservative characters on TV, saying after George H.W. Bush became President in 1989, "Ever since Reagan left office, this country's gone to heck in a handcart." He was played by John Ratzenberger, and, as Cliff, he wasn't acting: He's like that in real life.

5. Norm represents the working class, who were told they would have it better now, but they really don't. On September 23, 1982, 7 days before the show premiered, Billy Joel released his album The Nylon Curtain, including the working man's lament "Allentown." On September 30, hours before the show premiered, Bruce Springsteen released his album Nebraska, including "Atlantic City." The American Dream wasn't coming true anymore, and keeping a job -- and, if not, getting a new one -- proved hard, even for a white-collar man like accountant Norm Peterson (George Wendt).

"Bars can be sad places," Norm once said. "Some people spend their whole lives in a bar. Yesterday, some guy came in, and sat down next to me for 11 hours." Cheers was his refuge from an uncaring world. Cheers was where people still cared about him. Like the theme song, written and sung by Gary Portnoy, said: "Sometimes, you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came."

6. Frasier represents the ruling class, suddenly realizing that they don't rule as much as they thought they did. Like a similarly stuffy and bald medical man from Boston, Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers on M*A*S*H), Frasier frequently reminded people that he graduated from Harvard University.

The fact that the spinoff series Frasier retconned him as actually being from Seattle doesn't change the perception that he fit in better in Boston. That show also changed his background: While his mother was a brilliant scientist, his father was a working-class cop. But viewers wouldn't know that until 1993, and watched Cheers thinking that Frasier was a Boston Brahmin like Charles.

7. Carla represents women, trying to have it every which way, and facing the consequences more than the men do. Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) started the series with a nasty, cheating, no-good 1st husband and 5 kids. She ended it with one cheating ex-husband alive, another dead (not killed by her, although she was certainly capable of it), and 8 kids (1 with neither of them). No one on the show struggled more than Carla. Why? Was it because she was a woman?

Maybe not: Diane struggled less, and so did Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), who managed the bar from Seasons 6 to 9, and then was assistant manager under Sam the rest of the way.) But Carla was the show's only married woman. (Despite a close call in the Season 5 finale, and another when she returned for the series finale, Diane and Sam never did marry each other.)

8. Woody represents the Rubes out in the Hinterlands, who just like having Reagan tell them all those nice stories about how wonderful things were, could be again, and eventually were again, except they were only words. Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) was brought in as a bartender after Colasanto died of cancer during Season 3. There he was in the big city, telling everybody how great life was on the farm in Indiana.

But this was no Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H: Unlike the Iowa-tied company clerk, Woody was even dumber than Coach. How dumb was he? Dumb enough to fall for a lot of Cliff's "little known facts." At least he meant well.

9. Rebecca represents all the good white people who bought into Reagan's myth, and were gradually betrayed by it. She went after one rich boss, played by Tom Skerritt; then another who bought him out, played by Roger Rees. Skerritt's character wouldn't even think about romancing her, while Rees' character did, but only when he could gain advantage from it.

She resisted all of Sam's smarmy advances... until after Sam bought the bar back (for 87 cents). Then, she went all in for the handsome, athletic guy with the great hair. (Of course, Reagan wasn't an alcoholic. His father and his brother were, though.)

10. The show ended in 1993, four months into Bill Clinton's first term, when we finally began to clean up the mess of the Reagan Years. The last scene shows Norm telling Sam he knew he wouldn't go off with Diane, because, "You always come back to your one true love." In Sam's case, for all his fooling around, his one true love wasn't a woman. It was the bar. Where he could be in charge, but he never lorded it over his friends. People like Carla, Norm, Cliff, Woody, even Frasier (at least until he moved back to Seattle).

In his Inaugural Address, Clinton said, "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America." Sam figured out the bar was where he could balance freedom and responsibility, duty and friendship. He had found his calling. It wasn't baseball, or drinking, or fast cars, or women, and it certainly wasn't either Diane or Rebecca. It was being first among equals, in the place where everybody knew his name.

Despite the sign saying that Cheers was established in 1895, and the eventual revelation that it actually opened in 1889, the real-life bar it was based on, the Bull & Finch Pub, only opened in 1969, at 84 Beacon Street, across from Boston Common. On the show, the address was said to be 112 1/2 Beacon Street. The restaurant upstairs, Melville's, was based on the one upstairs at 84 Beacon, the Hampshire House.

In 2002, as part of a deal with NBC, the Bull & Finch's founding owner, Thomas Kershaw, renamed both the Bull & Finch and Hampshire House "Cheers Beacon Hill," allowing him to sell a lot more merchandise.

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September 30, 1982 was a Thursday. Actors Lacey Chabert and Kieran Culkin were born. And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-5 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the top of the 9th to come from behind to win, making Mike Morgan a winning pitcher in relief of Shane Rawley. Dave Winfield went 0-for-2 with 3 walks.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Shea Stadium. Gary Rajsich and future manager Bruce Bochy each got 3 hits for the Mets, but it wasn't enough.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-4. Robin Yount and Paul Molitor each went 2-for-5, and Molitor also had 2 RBIs.

On October 14, 1982, in only its 3rd episode, "The Tortelli Tort," Cheers aired an installment that started with the Yankees beating the Red Sox 5-0 at Fenway in a game watched at the bar. The last batter was the 43-year-old Yastrzemski, and Carla said, "Our prayers are answered!" But he popped up, and Carla yelled, "You old fossil!" She got up on top of the bar, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention? I have an announcement to make: As of right now... " And the entire bar yells along with her, "Carla Tortelli is no longer a Red Sox fan! No, no, really, I mean it this time!" Because she had said that before.

The game shown on the TV at the bar was clearly at Fenway, with first Tommy John, then George Frazier pitching for the Yankees. John did pitch against the Red Sox at Fenway in 1982, and Frazier did relieve him in that game. But it was on June 9, the Sox won 3-2, and Frazier did not pitch to Yaz in the game, let alone get him to pop up for the final out. So the clips shown on the show had to be from different games.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 5-4 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Garry Maddox singled Manny Trillo home in the bottom of the 9th inning to win it. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-4 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. The Twins finished 60-102 that season, and rookie 1st baseman and local hero Kent Hrbek had been put on the cover of Sports Illustrated, calling him "BEST OF THE WORST."

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell did not play. Three days later, he played his last game.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-5 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Orioles trailed the Brewers in the American League Eastern Division by 4 games with 5 to play, with the last 3 being between them at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. They won 4 straight to make the finale the title decider, but the Brewers won it, for their 1st Division title.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 11-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 1-for-3 with 2 walks. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 6-4 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Johnny Bench did not play. Rookie Tony Gwynn singled as a pinch-hitter.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 10-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Houston Astros, 7-6 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the California Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers were not scheduled.