I think her leaving saved the show and reinvigorated it because when Kirstie Alley came in, she brought a different dynamic. The first season with Alley did try to recreate the 2 leads dynamic so a lot of it has Sam chasing after Rebecca but then they realized Sam and Diane could never be recreated, so they turned CHEERS into an ensemble, everybody got their due, and that made the show even more popular than it already was.

Shelley Long made the right decision, she had a fairly successful career in movies though not as big as she might have expected. And by Season 5, Diane had pretty much turned one note. How many times is she gonna threaten to leave or dump Sam to then have him back?

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yankran t1_iucyjoe wrote on October 30, 2022 at 11:47 AM

Her leaving Cheers was the best thing ever for Cheers. They got a reboot. In my opinion; Cheers was two different shows : (1) 5 yrs of will they or won't they with Sam & Diane & (2) six years of more of an ensemble show.

1Land_1Keep t1_iuebf5e wrote on October 30, 2022 at 6:02 PM

MASH is like this too. The show with Trapper and Henry and the show after them are totally different. And then again when Frank left.

methodwriter85 t1_iug81gv wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:06 AM

I've found that any show that goes beyond a 5th/6th season tends to change in tone wildly, especially because that's usually when the core cast members start to leave.

LittleRudiger t1_iuggrgz wrote on October 31, 2022 at 3:18 AM

That and just like .. at that many years, you start to get into larger stylistic shifts in television.

E.R. comes to mind, eventually you run so long that you can see the shift from early-90's to 00's in tone, lighting, *feel*, and the original cast is so long gone that you sort of forget why the show was as big as it was in the first place.

methodwriter85 t1_iugyu1k wrote on October 31, 2022 at 6:56 AM

The Facts of Life is a pretty good example. The show evolved from the late 70's and really changed by 1985-86 season when filming and color palettes were just completely different from what they were in 1979-80.

Latter_Feeling2656 t1_iuda5ou wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:40 PM

I've often thought that they could have syndicated it as two different shows.

brk1 t1_iudbb8r wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:49 PM

I like to refer to the two different iterations of cheers as w/P and wo/P. (with Paul and without Paul)

ElectricPeterTork t1_iuddhom wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:06 PM

It would not have went 11 years had she stayed.

The writers have said since that their idea for the show would have been to follow Sam and Diane's married life, focus less on the bar, and add in BAAAAYYYYYBBBBBEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

Sounds like they would've been lucky to make it to season 8.

m0rris0n_hotel t1_iucxud2 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 11:38 AM

She left because her five years were up and she decided to focus on her family and shifting into movies. Which she did. The need for her on the series had been mostly explored. And fortunately the writers and producers had such a deep bench of talent on and off the screen to just pick up and carry on.

I’ve been rewatching Cheers recently. Currently up to season three. She’s great in it but the series was definitely able to have solid episodes without the Sam/Diane tension. And yet use their history to move stories along. Some of my favorite episodes from that time barely feature her. But she’s also a huge part of many classic moments. They used the cast very well throughout the series.

CableCoShow t1_iugmrg9 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:16 AM

I don't have proof, just circumstantial evidence, but the reason I believe she left was because she was the only cast member who did any work. She came to rehearsals and took her character's reactions and delivery seriously, while everyone else screwed around. The only person who supported her was Nicholas Colasanto, whom she had a good relationship with. Everyone else called her "difficult."

If you watch the show, watch Shelly Long when she's not talking. Her facial expressions constantly change to react to whoever is talking. In 6 seconds she'll literally go from smiling, to concerned, to angry, as a reaction to something Sam says. It's amazing.

In other scenes, Sam and Norm will be the focus of the scene on the far-right, front part of the bar where Norm sits. Shelly Long will be sitting on the far-left, back of the bar, barely in frame and out of focus on a stool reading a book and still give a goddamn reaction to what they are saying. It's amazing.

Everyone else mostly stands around waiting to deliver their lines.

No one worked as hard. Then they called her difficult. It was hell for her. You'd think they would have learned after she won an Emmy in season one for a show that ranked toward the bottom of the ratings, but I suspect that just made their reactions toward her worse.

NoirPochette t1_iud0x4d wrote on October 30, 2022 at 12:13 PM

She left for family and other opportunities. I don't think it would have lasted as long because there's only so much you could do with Sam and Diane to keep it fresh

Latter_Feeling2656 t1_iuczqle wrote on October 30, 2022 at 12:00 PM

We have enough copycats of Cheers now to know that the successful ones can run pretty much indefinitely. Friends shook things up by shifting attention to Monica and Chandler, and by doing stunt casting. The Big Bang Theory just married the guys off and turned into a domestic sitcom. I think that Cheers could have just married Sam and Diane off and had Diane raise kids at home while Sam bounced back and forth between home and work. Same basic formula as worked for a lot of popular shows, including Mary Tyler Moore, Home Improvement, and Frasier.

Delicious-Tachyons t1_iufwvk3 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 12:40 AM

> The Big Bang Theory just married the guys off and turned into a domestic sitcom.

even though it was never good, i liked it a lot more before it became this

thewidowgorey t1_iueuo1y wrote on October 30, 2022 at 8:08 PM

My intro to the show was the Rebecca episodes including Woody's wedding two-parter. Imagine my surprise when I tried watching the Diane episodes and I was bored out of my mind. It had its moments but the show was so much more interesting with Rebecca.

methodwriter85 t1_iug7bcc wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:01 AM

Kirstie Alley, as nutty as she is, is actually a solid comedienne. Shelley Long can be funny (see: The Brady Bunch movie) but I think Kirstie was in general a better comedian.

wednesdayware t1_iuioxf6 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 5:00 PM

Diane was often the "straight man" though, while Rebecca was played for laughs from the start.

kjhwkejhkhdsfkjhsdkf t1_iuexbf1 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 8:25 PM

Yeah, I had a similar experience. I was still a little kid when Cheers started and didn't really start watching it until the Rebecca years, and I greatly enjoyed the show. I then started watching the older reruns with Diane and I didn't find it quite as good as the later one.

anasui1 t1_iufainc wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:54 PM

I think show would have continued, yes. Loved her and her character, so cute and played to perfection

coldcynic t1_iudsda8 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 3:53 PM

It's an interesting what-if because the way Diane was in the last few seasons was the result of Long's telling the producers well in advance she was going to quit, so the writers scrambled to make her less organic to the show and less likeable. Notice how much less she interacts with people apart from Sam compared to the first couple of seasons, and how irrational she gets. Cheers managed to thrive after she left (even though I prefer the Diane years, the overall quality is just higher), and Long, sadly, got the short end of the stick.

GLSCinephile OP t1_iudw0ya wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:19 PM

Yes, Shelley Long was vocal about how she was leaving after her 5 year contract was done. At the time, Shelley Long was the break-out star of CHEERS, she was the one who was getting the movie deals, and apparently never got along with the cast.

Years later, Ted Danson paid tribute to Long and said that she was the reason CHEERS survived its first year. Originally, CHEERS was going to get cancelled because Season 1 had bad ratings but Emmy night made the Network give it a second chance.

coldcynic t1_iudzfe8 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:42 PM

Exactly. On paper, Long ticked all the boxes for a lasting career (Emmys, Golden Globes, name recognition), and it didn't really happen. No such thing as a sure thing, I guess.

ChroSomnium t1_iugb8mt wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:32 AM

My first few watch throughs I preferred Dianne to Rebecca. In terms of characters only, I still do. But the moment I realized that the Rebecca era was better than the Dianne era was when in one episode (Sorry I don't recall which one) Dianne had something like 8 minutes of just her talking. It wasn't even interesting or connected to anything else. There are far too many good characters in this show to waste 1/3 the run time on just one of them like that. It is the interaction between these characters that made Cheers a classic. Making room for that was absolutely the right decision.

[deleted] t1_iucwdqe wrote on October 30, 2022 at 11:21 AM

[deleted]

WheresPaul1981 t1_iug0tp4 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:10 AM

I’m not a fan of “will they/won’t they” so I liked the Rebecca episodes a lot more.

Affectionate_Air7373 t1_iugb2k6 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:30 AM

Rebecca was the biggest dumbass.

rhymes_with_candy t1_iujp2n5 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 9:02 PM

Cheers had one of my favorite fourth wall breaking jokes in it. After Shelly Long left there's an episode where they all go to a drive in for a Godzilla movie marathon.

One of the characters (I think Cliff) explains to Woody that one of the actors from the Godzilla movies quit and left the franchise. Woody responds with something like "Why would an actor quit in the middle of a succesful franchise? That's just crazy!"

It took me a second to realize they were making a joke about Shelly Long leaving the show but when I did I couldn't stop laughing.

Portage-2491 t1_iuk5o3k wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:09 PM

I stopped watching after she left. Kirsty Alley and that story line just never did it for me.

jogoso2014 t1_iud5yz2 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:03 PM

Wasn’t it on for over ten years?

talkinpractice t1_iudjshy wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:53 PM

Personally, the addition of Alley really ruined the show for me. She's annoying and whiny and everyone treats her like she's a 10, but she's really not attractive at all. And she's a Trump fan, ew (even in the 80s/90s). And she was sooooooo prevalent in the show. I seriously hated her character.

Regardless, Diane had probably run her course on the show.

v1akvark t1_iue6xlg wrote on October 30, 2022 at 5:33 PM

Trump wasn't a politician in the 80s/90s. I don't understand your she was a trump fan comment?

talkinpractice t1_iue7iep wrote on October 30, 2022 at 5:37 PM

He was a disgusting rich person in the 80s/90s. He didn't start being a bad person in 2016.

throwawaythrow0000 t1_iuf33nf wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:04 PM

He did a lot of shitty things starting in the 1970's and was actually sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination regarding housing. The fact that people don't know this is mind boggling. That man never should have been anywhere near the highest office in the land.