Nearly all of Cheers took place in the front room of the bar, but they often went into the rear pool room or the bar's office. Cheers did not show any action outside the bar until the first episode of the second season, which took place in Diane's apartment.
Cheers had several running gags, such as Norm arriving in the bar greeted by a loud "Norm!" Early episodes generally followed Sam's antics with his various women, following a variety of romantic comedy clichés to get out of whatever relationship troubles he was in during each episode. As the show progressed and Sam got into more serious relationships, the general tone switched to a comedic take on Sam settling into a monogamous lifestyle. Throughout the series, larger story arcs began to develop that spanned multiple episodes or seasons, interspersed with smaller themes and one-off episodes.
In one episode, he had his little black book stolen by a youth who wanted a date but lacked the courage to ask them out. In it he panicked when he realized one by one all of his girlfriends were dumping him.
Romance
The show's main theme in its early seasons was the romance between the intellectual waitress Diane Chambers and bar owner Sam Malone, a former major league baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a recovering alcoholic. After Shelley Long left the show, the focus shifted to Sam's new relationship with neurotic corporate ladder climber Rebecca. Both relationships featured sexual tension that spanned many episodes, which drew viewers to tune in during following weeks to see the results.
Social issues
Many
Cheers scripts centered or touched upon a variety of social issues, albeit humorously. As
Toasting Cheers puts it, "The script was further strengthened by the writers' boldness in successfully tackling controversial issues such as alcoholism, homosexuality, and adultery."
Social class was a subtext of the show. The "upper class" - represented by characters like Diane Chambers, Frasier Crane, Lilith Sternin and Rebecca Howe - rubbed shoulders with middle and working class characters — Sam Malone, Carla Tortelli, Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. An extreme example of this was the relationship between Woody Boyd and a millionaire's daughter Kelly Gaines. Many viewers enjoyed Cheers in part because of this focus on character development in addition to plot development.
Feminism and the role of women were also recurring themes throughout the show, with some seeing each of the major female characters as a flawed feminist in her own way. Diane was a vocal feminist, and Sam was the epitome of everything she hated: a womanizer and a male chauvinist. Their relationship led Diane to several diatribes on Sam's promiscuity. Carla insulted people, but was respected because of her tough attitude, wit, and power, while Diane was often ignored as she commanded little respect in any successful way. Rebecca was a stereotypical ambitious businesswoman and gold-digger, seeking relationships with her superiors at the Lillian Corporation, most notably Evan Drake, to gain promotions or raises. She encountered a glass ceiling, however, and ended the show by marrying a plumber rather than a rich businessman. It was later revealed on Frasier that her husband struck it rich and left her, after which Rebecca returned to Cheers as a patron. Lilith was a high profile psychiatrist with many degrees and awards, and commanded respect with her strong and rather stern demeanor. Like Rebecca, she was an executive woman of the 1980s who put much emphasis on her professional life. She was often shown to have the upper hand in her and Frasier's relationship, and was portrayed as an ice queen, but proved to have a fiery libido and a maternal nature.
Homosexuality was dealt with from the very first season, a rare move for American network television in the early 1980s. In the first season episode "The Boys In The Bar" a friend and former teammate of Sam's comes out in his autobiography. Some of the male regulars pressure Sam to take action to ensure that Cheers does not become a gay bar. The episode won a GLAAD Media Award, and the script's writers, Ken Levine and David Isaacs, were nominated for an Emmy Award for their writing. Harvey Fierstein later appeared in the 1990s as "Mark Newberger", Rebecca's old high school sweetheart who is gay. Finally, the final episode included a gay man who gets into trouble with his boyfriend, played by Anthony Heald, after agreeing to pose as Diane's husband.
Addiction also plays a role in Cheers, almost exclusively through Sam. Sam was a recovering alcoholic who had bought a bar during his drinking days. After he achieved sobriety, he decided to continue to own and operate the bar for "sentimental reasons." Frasier also has a notable bout of drinking in the fourth season episode "The Triangle", while Woody develops a gambling problem in the seventh season's "Call Me Irresponsible". Some critics believe Sam was a generally addictive personality who had largely conquered his alcoholism but was still a sexual addict, shown through his womanizing, for which he eventually got help.
Cheers owners
Cheers obviously had several owners before Sam, as the bar was opened in 1889. The "Est. 1895" on the bar's sign is a made-up date chosen by Carla for numerological purposes, revealed in the 8th season episode "The Stork Brings a Crane". In the second episode, "Sam's Women", Coach tells a customer looking for Gus, the owner of Cheers, that Gus was dead and Sam now owned the bar. In a later episode, Gus O'Mally, however, comes back from Arizona for one night and helps run the bar.
The biggest storyline surrounding the ownership of Cheers begins in the fifth season finale, "I Do, Adieu", when Sam and Diane part ways, due to Shelley Long leaving the regular cast. In addition, Sam leaves in an attempt to circumnavigate the Earth. Before he leaves, however, Sam sells Cheers to the Lillian Corporation. He then returns in the sixth season premiere, "Home is the Sailor", having sunk his boat, to find the bar under the new management of Rebecca Howe. He begs for his job back and is hired by Rebecca as a bartender. In the seventh season premiere, "How to Recede in Business", Rebecca is fired and Sam is promoted to manager. Rebecca is allowed to keep a job at Lillian vaguely similar to what she had before, but only after Sam had Rebecca "agree" to a long list of demands that the corporation had for her.
From there Sam occasionally attempted to buy the bar back with schemes that usually involved wealthy executive Robin Colcord. Cheers did eventually end up back in Sam's hands in the eighth season finale, when it was sold back to him for eighty-five cents by the Lillian Corporation after he alerted the company to Colcord's insider trading. Fired by the corporation because of her silence on the issue, Rebecca earns back a hostess/office manager job from Sam.
Other recurring themes
In addition to extended story lines,
Cheers had recurring themes. There was a heated rivalry between Cheers and a rival bar, Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, starting with the fourth season episode "From Beer to Eternity". Beginning in the sixth season, one episode of each season depicted some wager between Sam and Gary, which resulted in either a sports competition or a battle of wits that devolved into complex practical jokes. Aside from the very first and very last "Bar Wars" episodes, the Cheers gang almost always lost to Gary's superior ingenuity, though they managed to trick him into missing the annual Bloody Mary contest in one episode. One episode had Sam collaborating with Gary's to get revenge on his co-workers on a prior practical joke. Another episode involved a pickup basketball game, in which Gary tricked the people of Cheers that a minor injury sustained by basketball great Kevin McHale was actually a season-ending injury.
Sam also had a long-running feud with the upscale restaurant above the bar, Melville's Fine Sea Food. The restaurant's management disliked the bar's patrons, while Sam regarded the restaurant as snobbish . This conflict escalated after Melville's came under the ownership of John Allen Hill , as Sam did not technically own the bar's poolroom and bathrooms. Sam was subsequently forced to pay rent for them and often found himself at the mercy of Hill's tyranny. Rebecca eventually helped Sam buy the back section from Hill.
In another recurring theme, Norm Peterson continually searched for gainful employment as an accountant, but spent most of the series unemployed, thereby explaining his constant presence in Cheers at the same stool, though he was not above leaving work early when he was employed. Norm doesn't actually pay for his beer, using any excuse to get a free refill. On one episode Rebecca reveals his tab as being nearly $300. The face of his wife, Vera, was never fully seen onscreen, despite a few fleeting appearances and vocal cameos. She first appeared briefly in the fifth season episode "Thanksgiving Orphans" with her face covered in pumpkin-pie filling, portrayed by Bernadette Birkett, the wife of George Wendt.
Cliff Clavin seemed unable to shake the constant presence of his mother, Esther Clavin . He often referred to her, usually as an emotional burden and/or a smothering parent. Her first onscreen appearance was in the fifth season.
Finally, Carla Tortelli carried a reputation of being both highly fertile and matrimonially inept. Her last husband, Eddie LeBec, was a washed-up ice hockey goaltender who eventually died in an ice show accident involving a zamboni, an apparent homage to Chuckles the clown being "unshelled by a rogue elephant" in the acclaimed Mary Tyler Moore Show episode, "Chuckles Bites the Dust" written by David Lloyd. Carla later discovered that Eddie had cheated on her, marrying another woman after impregnating her. Carla's sleazy first husband, Nick Tortelli , also made appearances, mostly to torment Carla with a new custody battle or legal scam that grew out of their divorce. Carla's eight children, four of whom were "born" during the show's run, were notoriously ill-behaved, except for Lud, who was sired by a prominent academician.
