Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Glen and Les Charles

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson are paying homage to the co-creators of Cheers, Glen and Les Charles! The Charles brothers talk with Ted and Woody about how they went from working on shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi to creating Cheers, how they cast the series regulars, and what Shelley Long’s departure meant for the show. Bonus: Ted asks the brothers to confirm that he in fact vouched for Woody. To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

as close to a flawless cast as I've seen. All right, name names. Why did you say close to? Who are you thinking of when you say close to? Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. Today Woody and I are talking with two guys who if they had never been born,

you wouldn't know either of our names. You certainly wouldn't be listening to this podcast. I'm talking about Glenn and Les Charles, the screenwriters and producers who co-created Cheers along with Jimmy Burroughs. Beyond Cheers, the Charles brothers wrote for so many shows that taught America how to laugh together. Think Taxi, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the Bob Newhart Show.

I'm so glad Woody was able to join us from London via Zoom for this special conversation. These two mean so much to us. Here they are, our friends Glenn and Les Charles. So the whole reason why we did this was to be able to reminisce about those amazing 11 years. So this opportunity to come and sit down with you guys 30 years later and say thank you you, is, you know.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. You guys are, without the two of you, it wouldn't have been a chairs. Without Woody, we'd have gone five years and out, well, three years. Three years and out.

And then done, you know. He saved our asses. Well, let's jump. Yeah, you'd have, that's kind of you, but you'd have kept going regardless. That show's just too good. It's too genius. The writing, extraordinary. Tell me about the casting of Woody. How you first met Woody. What your impressions were and all of the above.

Well, the interesting thing is we had cast... We had actually named the character Woody. Woody, before we even read an actor, we named him Woody. Before we'd ever heard of Woody. The character, yeah. In fact, nobody had ever heard of Woody at that point. Anyway, we said we want kind of a country bumpkin kind of guy, somebody from Iowa, Ohio, farm boy, and here's the big city

of Boston, so he has, he's a little naive, he needs to learn things, and we, so we read a guy that was right on the money, and I can't remember even remember his name. So his name was John. It was like John, John Piltz, John something. I think I have a start with a P. And he was elated. And then our casting director, Steve Kozak said, I know you think you've got your man, but I just saw something. I think there's somebody you might wanna look at,

if not for this, for something else. So he said, sure, we'll do that. Meantime this John had gone out and bought a car and rendered it. Got married. And he's now listening, he's listening 40 years later. He might, he might. He's in AA now. Right.

So we looked, we read Woody and we said we should, we were very interested and we had you come in. For the second read or was that the first read? It was the first, right after we read Woody ourselves we said have Ted come in. We always wanted to do that whenever we could on chairs, as you know, read, audition actors together to see the chemistry, not just how good they are by themselves, but how they interrelate. And I think it's good for Woody to hear that I was

all in favor, if you could say that so he could hear it. You were relaxed. Oh, crying out loud. Fought like hell. No F- no way. No, he's too young. He's too cool. Get him out of my sight.

I remember very well. You said, I know you think you've got your guy, but this guy's more interesting. And I said, okay, okay. So we brought a little something more to the, to the park. Yeah. A lot more.

And the other guys I said was kind of right on the money. Uh, but, uh, Woody was not exactly, he was the part everything we wanted in the part, but a little more and, uh, just. He's a dangerous motherfucker. There was element of danger. Yeah, there is something crazy as hell. You know, it's interesting. Between the lines.

Yes. We lost three major characters on Shears. Three major characters. We lost Nick Colesano, Coach. We replaced him with Woody, step in the right direction. We lost Shelly and got Kirsty. Yeah.

And who was the other one? I don't know. You're out. I was thinking too. But hold it. So tell me about, because that seemed to me almost insurmountable when Shelley was leaving after. I'd been there two years. It was the fifth year. She did the fifth year and then she was leaving. And tell me what your mindset was like. year and then she was leaving and tell me what your mindset was like. Well, we have no, we, we, uh, there were some critics that said when Shelley walks out the door, that's the end of cheers. And we had to sort of live with that because that was this element of the show.

A main element of the show was the Sam Diane courtship and, um, and battle. And, uh, but we only, you know, she only just signed on for five years anyway. Her contract was up. It didn't like she said, I'm out of here. She did say I'm out of here, but she was allowed to do that. She was having a certain amount of success in film and thought she had a career in film. So we can't fight that. But with one thing we decided to do, let's not just try and fill in Sam's life with another lady. Let's make it maybe, if there was a way to make it, get a woman that they had a, he was at odds with, like a superior, like somebody who works for the company that owns chairs. So Sam has to kind of report to her and she needs to be attractive and everything.

And so we read a couple of later, but Kirstie was right, we went and saw Kevin Hutton Ruff at the Almond Theater and Kirsty was in that and wow, interesting as hell but I don't know how funny she can be. But that's when we decided, well, she doesn't have to be that funny because all the other characters around her are funny. So she can, and she's an actress, she's a very good actress and there's something,

she's obviously very sexy and interesting to watch. But it came around that she could be funny too. I forget, she was a really good drunk. And also a woman who could play desperation on the verge of a nervous breakdown and still, and be moving and still be funny. In fact, a nervous breakdown, not the verge, she would go all the way. Yes. Wails. She was a great friend.

You know, I watched the other day, Lauren Michael sent me this clip from, you know, there was that one Cheers where we all, or not Cheers, SNL where we all showed up and surprised her. Maybe she already knew I and, but anyway, when she was talking about cheers and missing everybody, the emotional depth and range, this is an SNL monologue. I was, I was so astounded by her ability. You know, I mean, I had not astounded it just, I

hadn't seen her in a while and it just was like, Oh my God, I forgot how well she can go there. Wow. How deep she can go. God, I would love to see that, that SNL. It is so good. I'm glad we're talking about Kirstie because it's just, I mean, it's been a while since she passed away, but it was so out of the blue

She passed away, but it was so out of the blue and so startling and to lose somebody who you spent so much time laughing and giggling and admiring and hanging and so, you know, three cheers to curse the alley. Yeah, she said, one of the things she brought to the show too, above and beyond her performance, was just, she was a great person to have around. She was just like, she was a great broad.

She was just hung with the guys and got drunk and carried on. It was a real shulker of energy to her. I can't remember who said that she was like a biker chick from hell was. But remember she would have all of us over, the entire crew and cast and writer, everybody, everybody to her house for either Easter or something. And there'd be animals all over her property and kids loved going out and hanging with her. Some of those animals, I still don't know what those were.

Illegal. And for good reason. I still got a rash from one of them. Can we back up? Cause while we're on the subject of ladies and we'll get to Rhea in a minute, but curse the, uh, Shelly Long. Um, I've said it, you all, I know I've said it in print, but Shelley really gave the first year or two or three the boost that Shears needed because she landed into her part feet first on the pilot and was astounding and unlike any other character we've seen since

maybe, you know, I love Lucy or something. Yeah, we said often that we're not sure that Chiris would have survived without Shelley in that first season because she was so strong and so confident and knew exactly who the character was and who she was. And I think all of the rest of you were finding your way a little bit. Kiss my ass, you know? That's so rude.

Well, you had to learn how to throw a baseball, Ted. I had to learn so much, but this is pre-Woody. Woody came in full-fledged too. But yeah, I was, I was, yeah, Woody came. Yeah. It was pretty honest. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't remember. Did you leap over the bar in the first episode? Was that. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Remember Jimmy asked, you think you could jump over?

And I said, yeah, I think so. Uh, but that was gonna, I wanted to, I just feel like we've gotten a little ahead of the game here because I wanted to get back to when you guys were working on taxi together, right? And obviously Jimmy was there and just how things came about, you know, like how it all, how the first idea came and everything. For Cheers. Yeah. And how you and Jimmy Burroughs hooked up together. We were working with Jimmy going back to the MTM days. So by the time we got to Cheers, we'd had six or seven years together.

We were not a partnership at MTM, but we did happen to work on a lot of shows together. He was doing a lot of shows at MTM, hopping around a little bit and we were on Phyllis and then the Bob Newhart show. And yeah, we just hooked up and we hit it off right away. We were, we, we came into the business about the same time.

So we kind of, uh, were the new kids in the organization and, um, uh, and it kind of grew up together, the three of us. And then somebody gave you a deal to develop something and that. And that became, uh, and it kind of grew up together, the three of us. And then somebody gave you a deal to develop something and that, and that became, became tears. Yeah. We went to taxi. They brought us over from MTM to do, uh, to do

taxi and we were producing and he was directing. We did all the, all of those shows for four years together. So, you know, we had it worked out, worked out with the partnership. We got along and, uh, we know, we had it worked out. Worked out the partnership. We got along and we were united. We had an executive producer that was very talented, but not all that easy to deal with. And so that kind of bonded us. Was his name Ed or Jim?

Yes. So we were united and we had the same agent and we were, we got, we won Emmys for writing and the shuttle course won Emmys. And so we, our agent said, why don't you form a partnership? And we said, okay. And we formed a partnership and announced

that we were leaving and that we were on show. And of course they tried to talk us out of it, but they understood, they understood that we would never be the runners, the ultimate voices on taxi. We wanted our own show. And so we learned a lot from taxi, besides learning how to deal with people.

All sorts of people. So we don't wanna be in a with nothing like a garage because the garage was dirty and smoky and you don't want to be there. You don't want to be in a garage. So where do you want to be? Where do we want to be in a bar? And, um, so we've got bar, uh, New York, uh, had been used as a location city by everybody.

Um, God, San Francisco, Eastern's better. So somebody brought up Boston. I, at that point, had been to Boston and when my first one saw it, I thought, oh God, yes, this is the bellest place. So, um, actually we wrote the first script before we did in Boston.

With this presumptuous. Yes. And before we'd ever been in a bar too. So we were just using our imaginations. So we took care of that one strip, right? Yeah. So we, and we were, we had a very good casting director. And we looked through a lot of people and we, and we had time. We had time.

We had time, there was no rush put on us. It was a show. Interestingly, the reason we had so much time is there was a writer strike. Just as we were ready to go on the show, the writers went out so we could do nothing. The business was at a halt, so all we had to do was sit around and cast

day after day after day, and all the actors were available because all of their stuff was closed down. Nobody had work. We read everybody for all these parts. And some of them two or three times. And it was Steve Kozak would just not let up on us. He says, you've got, I've got three more people. So it was, I think that's one of the secrets of Cheers success is

that we had had that luxury. You also though knew Rhea Perlman from both taxi and I think a play that she was in or something. So she was one of the first people. Right. Mainly taxis. Yeah. She was married to Danny.

Yeah. And we knew them socially and knew. Right. They were friends. So you always knew that she would be. Well, we wrote it for her. Yeah. And we knew them socially and knew. Right. They were friends. So you always knew that she would be. Well, we wrote it for her. Yeah. That's the only part that we wrote for an actor.

Um, and we still read people. We just, Stevie just said, you know, just to make sure you got the right choice. Um, read a black actress, I remember that was an interesting way to go with Carla. Would have been, but, uh been but yeah that's the only everybody else we wrote the part without any specific person in mind. Everybody kept saying Shelley Long you gotta go see Shelley Long and she wouldn't read. Oh she wouldn't? At first. At first. Forever she wouldn't. I don't know why she wouldn't read.

Well, she didn't want to do a TV series. I think she wanted to go right into movies. But. At that point, what had she done? It's a good question. That's a really good question. And I don't think anything major. She gets rebuttal time, man.

So just. No, I don't care. I don't think so. But I don't think So just. No, I don't care. I don't, I don't think so. But I don't think we'd, no, we didn't. When she walked in, she was a new entity to us. She finally agreed to come in. She wouldn't even come in and say hi. But as soon as she read, oh God.

Did even her reading come out full blown? Yeah, it was there. She got the character. And. So you knew right away. Right away, yeah. We were still doing due diligence. I mean, we were still looking at other actresses and did an audition, as you know, with.

Three different couples. Three different couples, yeah. It was actually, as it turned out, it was Ted and Shelley, but I don't think we manipulated that in any way. Maybe Steve Green. Three different couples. Three different couples, yeah. It was actually, as it turned out, it was Ted and Shelley, but I don't think we manipulated that in any way. Maybe Steve Kozak, our casting, I think he was pushing for that. I think he manipulated that. Yeah.

But we weren't actually sure ourselves until after we did that with the three couples, we all went back to the office and we said, what do you think? And we all said, well, there's no question. Well, I have Joel Thurms account of that, which we'll get to Woody. We interrupted you. What are you going to say? Oh, well, I was just going to say, I mean, like you didn't talk much about how you ended up casting, uh, Mr.

Dancing. Uh, so I want to hear how that all came about. Let me go on record first, then you can rebuttal here. I was doing taxi. Just out of the blue, somebody fell through and I got to play this hairdresser on taxi.

Then Jimmy, who I'd met for an audition of True West, was that the name? No, not True West, the best of the West. And didn't get the part, but he remembered me. So you guys were the beginning stages of casting and you invited me to come during a lunch hour of shooting the episode of Taxi.

And that was the first meeting and within a couple of days another meeting. And at the end of the second meeting, you said, well, don't, don't take any other work before you check with us. And I went, so, so does that mean I've got the part? And you went, no, no, but just check with us. Not at all. First.

And then literally there was a back door to where your office and there was a back door to where your office and there was a front door. I went out the back door and up the stairs was a line of every actor, you know. Ever lived. Ever lived, walking up the door. Perhaps his ex Bushman. Okay, all right, your turn.

Well, there's two things I remember. The first time your name was ever mentioned to us was Bob Broder, our agent. Oh really? Thank you, Bob. Yeah, he came in one day and said he had just seen Body Heat. Body Heat.

And he said you should look at that guy that was dancing. Yeah, dancing, dancing. Or he said that guy dancing, yeah. Also, the one thing I remember from that period is we had one of the executive producers on Taxi. You played a gay character. One of our executive producers was convinced you were gay. Yeah.

Positive you were gay. And we said, well, he's no, he's acting. Playing a part, he said, no. I just thought it was funny that somebody who's been in the business that long thought was, couldn't believe that someone could act. I hadn't made up my mind. Have you now? Anyhow, when you went back after the re- we did

come down, there were three, two other actors and actresses sets and, uh, on the stage re we did come down there were three two other actors and actresses sets and on the stage and we did audition for the network and the producers and writers and everybody and then you said you went back to talk about the casting choice I heard that oh hell here goes my brain Mary Tyler Moore's husband? Grant Tinker. Grant, who was the head of NBC at that point? He was, yeah. He wasn't there. He wasn't in favor of me, according to Joel Thuram, who was the head of NBC casting at the time. In his book, he writes, his tell-all book, that, oh, this is one of those stories that is really complimentary of me, but I'll keep going

Lee Grant said no no no this other actor. I won't mention what is one of the best actors in America How can you not take him? William would do vein Devane who was one of the best actors and we have to go with William Devane, and Joel Thurman said, no, no, no, you have to go with Ted, because he's more fuckable. Was his quote. Thank you, Woody. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

These guys are sitting here looking at me like, whoa, first off, how misguided, and I can't believe you said that. So you weren't part of that. I just, Joel Thurman never used that phrase when he was talking casting with us for anybody. How fuckable is that? Grant, Grant Tinker said that? No, Joel said it to Grant and Grant was so shocked

that I think he just decided to give up. Well, that's a real surprise because Grant never said anything to us. Well, I can edit this stupid story out. Trust me. No, I'm not saying that it's not true. Keep it in. Thank you.

No, the great thing about Grant was he never interfered with us as a studio. Even when our ratings were in the dumper. I remember, I think it was the week that we came in dead last in the ratings. We went over to NBC and Grant, we're walking down the hall and Grant came out of his office and said, don't change anything. Yeah.

Just we were stunned. I remember that. Wow. He was the best. We as a cast were spoiled because you did never put that pressure, because you must have felt pressure with, from the ratings. But you never put it on us.

Indeed. We felt pressure, but the, uh, we were sort of bolstered by the reviews. Yeah. And the audience reception to the show. Before we were even on the air, you know, we'd had to go down to Sharp shopping malls pass out tickets to a show come see a show of film blah blah blah

And we didn't do that personally or really it was I think one week We were a week away from doing that. But anyway Remember our first audience were the CBs right the group of CBs from the Naval Station. We'd never had an audience except people that were friends of ours and friends of the actors. The CBs absolutely loved it. They didn't even know these characters. That was a big lift. And so we knew we weren't just sort of masturbating. There were people that liked what we were doing. And they understood the essence of the character. We showed them the first show.

I mean, we shot the first show, I think, in Tennessee. We shot the first show with three different audiences, wasn't it? Two different audiences. And got a great response. And the first, I think, audience was the CBs. And then we had an industry audience, people that were agents. And the response was pretty universal. And we felt a lot better.

So when the ratings came out and we said, good God. Wait, we're not on the first page, second page. How could you get a negative rating? Some people who didn't watch said, and they wouldn't watch. So then they subtract for that. So can I ask a question? You're saying you had already shot the show and then you showed the finished product to these two audiences that have been on the air. So we would show when the, when a new audience came in, we would show

them the original episode. So that they would understand the story. I see. Wow. And then we'll be gone in the air. We didn't need to do that. Oh, obviously. But well, I guess we'll have to do that. So that they would understand the story behind it. I see. Wow.

And then we'll be gone in the air. We didn't need to do that, obviously. But, well, I guess we did for a while because nobody was watching at home. But then, so it was when, I mean, it was at the point where it went into reruns that it started picking up steam. Because a show called, I don't know if you've heard of it, Simon up steam. Because a show called, I don't know if you've heard of it, Simon and Simon, was a detective story on CBS, huge ratings.

Those were the days where pretty much every show took the summer off. When the summer came around and everybody had watched TV on Thursday, and I had seen Simon and Simon, what's this? Cheers. Then it also helped that we won an Emmy for best series, best comedy. And Shelley won.

And Shelley won. And we won and yeah, we won. Oh, the writing won something? Well, that's weird. Believe it or not, slow year. Yeah. And Jimmy won and yeah, we took a bunch and that helped a lot. And we got great reviews, our reviews were, so those things carried us a little bit.

But I wanted to ask you guys because Cheers famously was the first sitcom to have everything be sequential, like in time, like one connected to the next to the next. What do you call that? Chronological or whatever. Up until that time, everybody thought you have to have a show that every week they can tune in and it's starting from ground zero. You can't assume that they've seen shows before that. And we sort of said, well, why not?

Let's, let's try it out. And it worked out. And now of course, with streaming and stuff, they're all like that. You can't really tune into Breaking Bad in the third season and know what the hell's going on. Here's what I was going to say. We were pioneers. Let me, let me go back and say you reshot, if I

remember correctly, the last scene of the pilot, you reshot a couple of times. You came back to it once we were already shooting other episodes and you tweaked the ending just a You re-shot a couple of times. You came back to it once we were already shooting other episodes, and you tweaked the ending just a little bit. Really? I don't recall that.

OK, I'm wrong. No, no. He's adding Grant's book to it. The ending was the very end, right before the credits, is Shelly is working as a waitress. Right. She came in in the first scene with her fiance, Sumner Sloan, and the last scene, she's a waitress in a place she put down disparagingly

and the people she thought were oaths. So we might've shot that scene more than once. I could be wrong. I know we did shoot scenes over again. We had that luxury of being able to come back and shoot an extra scene after we shot an episode. Well, we did that throughout the series. We'd shoot the pickups, as they call them.

When we had a turkey, we'd have to go back and try to, or when you guys screwed up so badly. Speaking of turkey, one of our favorite episodes, the Thanksgiving. Oh God. Yeah. There was no going back on that. No reshoot.

And by then, and by then we had certain people had opinions of other people and had, you know, slight, not full on grudges, but yeah, I'm gonna wing at this person. Oh really, was there a little bit of personal? Every once in a while, every once in a while. In the throwing of the peas and. Oh definitely.

No, no. I'm gonna have to go back and watch that again. Everyone was aiming at Woody. I, I get more compliments about the Thanksgiving show. I know the cast loved it. Yeah, it was a good vent. But I think that there was some truth in that because most Thanksgiving dinners take too long and you get edgy.

And you get hungry. And you get very hungry and yeah. And violent. You've given the opportunity. But we were going to be on, the story behind that is we were going to be on Thursdays as you know and they used to do for the first few, we would try to rerun on a Thursday night because it's Thanksgiving. So the network that year said, I want you to do a

Thanksgiving show, Thanksgiving show, you know, is that like a Christmas show? I mean, there's things you can do for Christmas, but Thanksgiving, well, you do people just eat. Wait a minute. do for Christmas, but Thanksgiving, what do you do? People just eat. Yeah.

Wait a minute. Right. You remember? We ran out of ideas. You know, another show that was on Thanksgiving because the network said, oh, you can, you can go on Thanksgiving. It's just another night.

Nobody cares. We said, well, wait a minute, nobody watches TV on thing. So we, we bowed it bowed to their greater wisdom and the coaches daughter, remember that from the first season? Oh, of course. We had to show that on Thanksgiving.

One of the, I think one of the best Cheers episodes ever. Easily. Nobody saw it. Yeah. And a negative rating, like I say, it was really a shame. We felt so bad about that.

But then in repeats, yeah, enough people saw it to realize how, what a, what a gym that was. Nikki's performance was. Nikki Colisanto who was, yeah, Woody's predecessor played the coach and it was kind of a defining moment for his character. You know, you saw, he wasn't just the silly

man who'd been beamed in the head by baseballs too often. He had such a love for his daughter who was thinking that she was plain and not beautiful. It was amazing seeing. Great performance. And you know that kind of points to how Nicky was really kind of the heart and soul of the show, you know, and, uh, and when he passed away, I think a lot of us also felt in that moment, what do we do now that we've lost this center to the show as far as the heart goes. And once again, singing your praises, Woody, you came in, you know, just blasting with both barrels and became

beloved within, you know, an episode or two. People just immediately embraced your character because of the writing and because of you, but that was pretty amazing to replace Nikki. I thought it was a great touching and not to sing the praises of the writing too much. This wasn't my idea or maybe it was, but I think it helped a great deal that Woody came in, having been in contact with the coach. Yes. They had exchanged letters and he was really anxious to meet coach. Then when he heard he had passed away,

Woody was really broken down about it, which the audience went right to Woody at that moment and cemented him taking over the coach's spot. Right. And then once he left over the bar effortlessly and I couldn't and had to crawl over it, they really loved him. That's what we need. Well, we need to keep talking trash about people.

Georgie, George Wendt, tell us about how, you know, his casting and all of that. We worked with George on Taxi. He'd done an appearance on Taxi. We really liked him and thought he looked like a barfly. He looked like somebody that hang out in the bar. Actually, remember he did the very first script we ever wrote, that MASH.

He was in that. I don't remember that. Yeah, he played the guy who comes to pick up the bodies. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. I'm sorry, I may interrupt it, but yeah, we go back a way.

I didn't know you guys wrote on MASH. Just a couple of episodes. A couple of episodes, yeah. Wow. Before we went on to MTM. That was our first job. We got a MASH assignment. Yeah, we're old, Woody.

We're. That was the Korean War, wasn't it, fellas? It was during the Korean War. war, wasn't it? Okay. So you thought of him and wrote towards him or no? No, I interrupted Glenn. We didn't write with him in mind. No, we didn't, but somebody brought him up, but he, remember he was committed to another series. Oh, that's right. We had him on condition after the pilot. Right. And so we had to read other people for that role. And we were so heartened when the show he'd been on was not picked up. But if it had been, yeah, if that show had been picked up by the network, we'd have lost George, I don't know.

Hey, do the whole norm, the whole bar, people shouting out norm, what was the origin of that? How did that come about? Well, we did that on the first episode, and we people started to expect it. And that became, speaking as a writer, one of the hardest things about writing a cheered script is coming up with, what's new, Norm?

You know, when we're going, how you doing, Norm? I was light-cheating you, like I just ran over its dog. You know? Yeah. Do you have favorites? Can you remember? They sound so casual, and like you come right out of off the top of your head, but every time we came

to a Normism, everybody would put down the script and okay, it's going to be happening. I remember it's a dog eat dog world and I'm wearing, what was it? I'm wearing milk bone underwear. Wearing milk bone underwear. That might be the most quoted joke. Yeah. In Cheers.

We had him on. He's, he's still Georgie full fledged. George is George. And George had that ability, has that ability to go, uh, light or, or sad and dark. And, you know, he has all this ability to go anywhere you want it. That's sorry, I'm now rambling, but that was the,

the, I think one of the great things about the casting, I will say, was you all as writers, as this ability to go anywhere you want it. That's sorry I'm now rambling but that was the the I think one of the great things about the casting I will say was you all as writers could go anywhere which is not with your story because that's not always true but everyone in our cast because of the way the character was written and because of the acting you could go to them for a full story you didn't have to avoid people. Our casting director deserves so much credit.

Directors, we had one. But yeah, we were really fortunate, the cast we had. I think it's close to a flawless cast, as I've seen. All right, name names. Why did you say close to? Who were you thinking of when you said close to? I always have to have a good humility? I hate to use the word perfect. Okay, it was perfect.

But we were always intent on casting, not just for the funny, but for the actor. As somebody who can really act. And a lot of, I think a lot of comedies make the mistake of just, can they do a joke yeah and we'll just keep throwing jokes at them and no we just purposely wanted the chops actors with the chops and they're so blessed do you remember Georgie stop it George went stopping shooting because I can't remember what the setup was Woody but

they were nervous or something and he was sweating so much and he took his shirt off I mean his sports coat off and you guys had rigged huge pits huge pits that were like visibly dripping but we we had to stop shooting for the for the only time ever. The laugh was so loud. They wouldn't stop laughing. Yeah. Stop laughing.

We were a classy show. Classy show. Yeah. I love the story when Johnny came in and you guys, you know, he kind of bombed, he was on with us and we talked to him, but he kind of bombed the audition and then he turns back and says, uh, you guys have a bar, know it all. Do you remember that? I remember it very well. Uh, he, he actually came in and read for, uh, uh, norm and, and, and that wasn't the word. And, uh, but this is when we didn't know whether or not we were going to get George. So, uh, we were reading a lot of people, but, uh,

he said, uh, do you guys have a know it all of, uh, in the bar? I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, it's guy that comes in. Start of the evening, very prim proper by the end of the evening, he's doing this and poking everybody in the chest and screaming and yelling and thinking that. So we played with that. And his flies open.

We played with that. You played with that in the audition, you mean? No, no, we played with it when we were writing the character, we played with it. That's kind of a, we know it all, who would be a know it all. And it would be somebody that knows a little bit about a lot of things, but not a lot about it, little thing. Anyway, he, how about a mailman? Because, you know, they read magazines,

they read the covers and the headlines. Right, oh, that's great. And so- Cover of every magazine. Minimum knowledge. But he thought he was an expert in everything because he'd heard about it. So that was Cliff, Cliff Clavin. And we thought we'd just use him for a few episodes

here and there, like some of the other bar characters. But he was so funny that we eventually. When I watch old episodes, Johnny can make me laugh harder than. I usually laugh. He was so in that we eventually when I watch old episodes Johnny can make me laugh harder than So in Maine so you know out of left field one of my favorite John John bits was when he was selling shoes He was trying to I think Yeah, that was very funny show he was selling shoes and he said he managed, mail order shoes and he managed to sell to every guy in the bar just in case somebody hasn't seen the episode.

And the shoes came in and they were all excited and put them on and then they noticed that they squeak. The shoes squeak. All of the shoes squeak. And so they turned into an ugly mob to try to chase Cliff and they're squeaking though. And we had little handheld squeakers. Oh really? So we could all control our squeaks. That's right, I didn't know that. Woody, were you there when the whole bar full of guys, I think to the theme of either Bonanza or the Magnificent Seven,

we all sang that and galloped out because we were on some manly chase. Does this ring a bell at all? Yeah, I remember that. We were going after the guy from the other bar, Gary or whatever. Oh, Gary. Yeah, yeah.

Something to do with that? Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think Kelsey was part of it by then. Anyway, let's speak of, let's talk trash about Kels. Yeah. He was brought in. Another time you were only going to use him for a few episodes, right? Correct.

And he was so good. Right. Exactly. Exactly. We didn't realize what we had at that moment. So. You were looking for a device for the Sam in a way, the Sam and Diane relationship interrupt that an opposite from Sam, you know, uh, pseudo intellectual sob and God, he was full himself. Yeah.

Very funny. Is funny. Sorry. Yeah. Still doing Fraser. What, very funny. He is funny. Sorry. Yeah. Still doing, Frasier. What year will this be of him doing that character? Well, what year did he come on Shears? Second.

Was it the second? So it's the third. Third? So he's eight years on Shears, 11 on Frasier, and now we got a new one going. That's up there with gospel. He is chasing down James Arness for sure. Yeah, I think we see, I think we really, we realized that we needed to bring Kelsey on was when we started to see the vulnerability in the character.

Because at first he was just this pompous, successful psychologist and he had Diane and everything was going great. But then when you started to see him breaking down, we realized there were levels to this guy and he could really play them all. Kelsey Grammer is one of our most talented, I think. He could also write music, play music, play the piano, sing. He was always startlingly. He would also show up right up to the last second with the script and he literally truly did not know his lines.

He was reading from the script and it'd be like, oh God, how's this gonna work out? He's carrying the show, he has tons of lines and he would kind of barely have it and then turn around, audience comes, he'd step out and he was like word perfect. I'll tell you one of the one of the moments that really impressed me, those are series of moments, was Kelsey. We were doing a rehearsal and he had a line. And I said to him, you know, I think that's gonna work best if you hit this word.

And he nodded and said, okay. So in the next rehearsal, next time through, he hit that line. The next time through, he hit another word. The next time, he hit another word. And then he hit another word the next time. Every time it was funny. How long has it been?

Oh. So I just shut up. Yeah. Left him alone. That was phenomenal. Yeah. Shut my mouth. And then when did you bring on B.B. Neuwirth to play his,

I don't remember to hear. We had seen, we were in New York, my lay wife and I, and we had, we'd been to a play, and we'd heard about this review called Upstairs at O'Neill's, you know, the bar, what's it, the actor, I can't remember his first name, anyway, he had a bar, and they had a stage upstairs and they had late night reviews. And we saw Baby Noonworth that night for the first time. We couldn't take our eyes off of her.

I mean, she just has that deadpan look. And there's something about her that's captivating. So we came to a point and cheers where we needed perhaps a lot of interest for Frasier. We thought, oh, we got to get her. And she was very funny. Oh my God. And came in full blown.

She was, what was her name? Sorry, character name? Lilith. Lilith. The witch. Perfect name. But no, we've been so fortunate that as I say that every person we've lost has been replaced by someone equally good if not better. I mean, we've just been very, very fortunate. I think I count our casting directors and give them so much credit.

Yeah, every time we needed somebody, the actor walked through the door. Might not have been the first person, but we've been on other shows where the person never comes in, you never find. Right. But we always had Woody walk in, and Woody walked in the door and sneezed, I think. Didn't you, Woody? Is that the first time we always had Woody walk in and what he walked in the door and sneezed, I

think, didn't you, Woody? Is that the first time we ever saw Woody? That's right. Opened the door, walked in. No, no, I was blowing my nose. Walked in the door and blew his nose. I didn't know I was walking through the door and you guys were on the other side of it.

Cause we'd already walked through another door and you know, I, I just was unaware. It was perfect. You guys laughed. It was the perfect entrance. I don't know if you knew what was going on behind the scenes with Woody when Woody arrived he was

25 I think Woody I just turned 24 24 and we were all 37 George John me and Kelsey I don't know anyway we And 37 is right around the time you realize you're no longer 25 and you don't have those physical capabilities, but we were determined to show this whippersnapper a thing or two. So we all love basketball, so we took him out to the basketball court and he tore us apart, just whooped us. So we switched gears and we did John, who John, who has, you know, sizably muscular legs, decided to do that leg wrestling thing. We lie on the ground and he tried, he cleaned John's clock, just whooped him.

I then arm wrestled him and I literally still have some bad tendonitis in my right arm because I didn't want to lose. So I held out longer than I should have because he cleaned my clock. So we took him to the chessboard, cleaned our clock. It was like from that moment on it was like any kind of vengeful trick or anything we could play. It was wasted on anybody if it wasn't played on Woody. Did you know that was wasted on anybody if it wasn't played on Woody. Wow. Yeah.

Did you know that was going on? I definitely, well, we didn't at the time, but we've heard about the stories, definitely heard about it. And I think basketball was the first time we heard about Pres Brawis. No, while you were doing all of that, we were up working.

Oh, right, right. Might have heard of that. Yeah. And you guys did. Oh, right. Yeah. Right. I might've heard of that. Yeah. And you guys did actually work. So I remember, I remember Gary David Goldberg, he used to play basketball back there. Oh yeah. I think he was the one who put up that basketball court. Yeah. I'd love to know how you got from, is it Henderson? Henderson, Nevada.

Nevada. Ray S. Mormon. Who left Henderson first, but what was that like growing up as a young teenager kind of thing? Henderson is a well-known town now. A lot of Californians moved there, in fact, retired there. So in those days, those were very small town that was built essentially during the Second World War as an industrial town. So it was a cheaper place to live than Las Vegas, its nearest neighbor. But I really liked growing up in Las Vegas, that was very good. In those days,

they didn't have photo ID so we could get somebody. There was a guy in our high school that could fake IDs, and you could go get in the lounges late at night. That's where I first saw I saw Shecky Green and Don Rickles and people like that doing comedy. And I really like like it turned me on a lot. I was the first to go because I'm the oldest. I went to school in Southern California. And but yes, we were raised in the Mormon church. I don't think our mother was devout and insisted on us going to at least three meetings every Sunday.

And our father was- More if there had been any. Yeah, if there had been any. If there had been 12, we'd have- Our father was also a Mormon, but he was not a good one. He smoked a little, drank a little. So you had some wiggle room nearby. Well, we had yin yang.

We see lights from both sides now. They were not totally unlike Sam and Diane, our parents. Their mother was a reader and constantly going to school and getting educated and dad was down having beers. With the guys. Yeah, and loved sports. Did your parents live long enough to see the success of Cheers?

They did, fortunately. Now, my mother lived to 77. And then there was thumbs up from your mother? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I'll note that she still, I mean up to her passing, talked about tonight. She met you in my office or let's just say, I don't know if you remember coming up and this is when she was on the air a while and she just introduced to you and oh, she still talked about that for. He's so much better looking on screen.

Yeah. Oh, that was her. That was her. Oh, good. So I met your mom. So my question about, did she live long enough? Yeah, she did. She did. Thanks. Now, now, yeah, that, that's, this is an

embarrassing awkward moment now. Oh, fuck. Do you remember their mom? Not at all. But I don't remember anything in my defense. Okay. So, so who made that first move? I'm gonna, I'm gonna write. I'm gonna be a writer. I'm gonna be funny. I majored in literature in college and I I don't I didn't specifically have an idea of being a writer, but I took a course in drama and I got in a couple plays and I thought wow, this is this is such a different style of writing than if you're writing a novel And less than I have the, he's five years younger than me, he had the- Still am. Still, it doesn't show. Kids, kids.

We had the same tastes. And my first job, job, job, was a, I was an advertiser and excuse me I was a copywriter an advertising agency in Los Angeles and Less was going to school still and we It was what I think the movie was Chinatown not that this is important but we went to see Chinatown less than his wife and me and Not that this is important, but we went to see Chinatown, Les and his wife and me. And we came back from Chinatown, which was a very,

it's a great movie, I think. Anyway, we talked about great writing, and we both agreed that we'd seen some really good television shows, like Mary Tyler Moore, MASH, Bob Newhart, all of those shows were on the air about the same time. And we said, kind of, I Newhart, all of those shows were on the air about the same time. And we said, kind of, I don't know who said it first, but let's write for TV.

How hard can it be? Famous last words. It was very hard. It was very hard to get in, to get an agent. It took a long, long time, but we did eventually get an agent and we both were about with a spec script or something? Exactly, spec script. For which show, do you know? We wrote a spec mash, a spec marry, and we wrote a new heart. Yeah, but it was the Marry Toner and More show that got, that really got our foot in the door. But the first sale was MASH. Right.

That was our first, actually got paid to do a show. And that was. And then MTM called to put us on staff. Right. We made an interest in being on staff, which was. We'll think about it. Cause MTM was the place for TV comedy in those days. You know, and. They said it was like going to Harvard law school,

going to MTM, working at MTM. Boy, that, that's true. Working at Paramount had that same feeling of, there were so many shows on this half hour comedies. And I think I remember, or at least this is what I've always said, but sometimes friends of yours who were writing on other shows, if any one of the shows had a real problem or issue, sometimes people from other shows, writers,

would drop by and sit in the room for a while and work it. Is that? That was true at MTM too. People were trying to break in the business, wanted to go to Paramount, and they wanted to go to MTM before that. And in fact, we got two producers, you know, very well, Casey and Lee, were working on another show entirely.

They were working on Jefferson's, I think. And they wrote a spec script for Cheers. Sent us a spec script and we couldn't believe it. These guys are our producers on another show. And it was, I think, the best spec script we ever got. As well it should be. Yeah, it was brilliant I think, the best spec script we ever got. As well it should be. Yeah, it was brilliant.

Amazing writers over the years. Ken Levine, wasn't he there in the beginning? Yeah. David Isaacs. Yeah, Ken and David worked, it was the first year they were producers. Oh, who? A lot of late nights with those guys, yeah.

Yeah. You were our upbringing in this business, and it was such a luxury. Yeah. Yeah. You were our upbringing in this business and it was such a luxury privilege to be raised by your writing, your relationship to actors, your respect for actors, your respect for how important casts can be and just the whole process was such a gift to us. I mean, we're sitting here, we're allowed to keep working because of Cheers. And I can't thank you enough. Yeah, thank you. It was to this day, the greatest experience of my life. I really so appreciate you guys

creating this show and letting me be in it. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. I mean, good Lord. Thanks, that means a lot coming from you guys. It's such an incredible blessing for a writer to have a cast that you can, you know they'll get it. And you know if they don't, if they can't bring it off, then there's something

wrong with the writing. Cause they're, you guys were just the ultimate, ultimate cast. Well, thank you. Love you and miss you guys. Thank you. Miss you too. And it's kind of miraculous.

Cheers too. Horse walks into a bar. What? I said a horse. What? Anyway, love you, Woody. Thank you for taking time to do this. Love you too.

Great seeing you guys. Great seeing you, Woody. And let's be in touch. For sure, for sure. In Big Island. And Glenn, I'd love to see you sometime too. Anytime. Great seeing you guys.

I live in Pebble Beach, and you're more than welcome anytime. Oh, Pebble Beach, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Glenn and Les Charles. It was truly special to spend this time reminiscing with them. And thank you, Woody, for calling in from London. That's it for our show this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, why not send it to someone you have a crush on?

Thank me later. You can always watch us on YouTube by visiting youtube.com slash team coco. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if this episode made you feel happy, or even happy-ish. More for you next time, Where Everybody Knows Your Name. ["Where Everybody Knows Your Name"] You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leal. Executive producers are Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and St. Woody Harrelson, sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leal. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Graal. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Battista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Genn, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.