‘Cheers’ Tried 1 Money Saving Trick That Ended up a Disaster

The NBC comedy Cheers proved a profitable hit. Not solely did it run for 11 seasons, but it surely launched the spinoff Frasier which ran for 11 extra. However, it wasn’t at all times a hit. In actual fact, the primary season, it was on the backside of the rankings till summer season reruns. Throughout that darkish interval, the studio, Paramount, tried a technique to economize on Cheers but it surely didn’t work. 

Shelley Lengthy and Ted Danson | NBCU Photograph Financial institution

Cheers author Ken Levine shared the story of the present’s cash saving mistake on his podcast, Hollywood and Levine. Be glad they didn’t go together with this concept. 

‘Cheers’ thought-about a totally different course of to economize

Cheers introduced “Cheers was filmed before a live studio audience” as a disclaimer to verify actual human beings had been laughing, not a chuckle observe. However, in 1982, video tape was rising as a inexpensive choice. 

“How many of you knew that Cheers almost switched from film to tape?” Levine mentioned on Hollywood & Levine. “You know at the beginning of each episode they say, ‘Cheers was filmed before a live studio audience?’ Well, it was almost ‘Cheers was taped before a live studio audience.’ The story behind that is this.”

The idea was that if Cheers value much less, NBC is perhaps extra inclined to maintain them round regardless of low rankings. 

“About halfway through the first season, remember Cheers had been doing terrible in the ratings,” Levine mentioned. “So Paramount thought well, maybe to save the show, if we went from film to tape, it would be much cheaper. Maybe NBC would decide well, you know what, it’s cheap, what the hell. Let’s give it another 9 episodes.’”

‘Cheers’ truly taped one scene to display the distinction

To see what Cheers would possibly seem like on tape, they really recorded one scene with your complete forged.

“So they did a test on the stage one day,” Levine mentioned. (*1*)

The present didn’t look proper on tape 

Regardless of all that effort, tape didn’t do Cheers any favors. Due to the present’s look on movie, the precise Bull & Finch bar in Boston turned Cheers, modeled after the inside with a few modifications.

“It was awful,” Levine mentioned. “Just ghastly. Any charm that the bar had, any softness, any warmth, any real sense of color and fun, all was eliminated. It became just very stark and it looked ugly. Cheers went from looking beautiful to looking ugly. To the credit of the Charles brothers and Jimmy Burrows, that was the end of that experiment. So Cheers was never shot on tape.”

After 11 seasons on movie and a long time in syndication, Levine could be curious to see that previous tape check once more.

“I wonder if that exists,” Levine mentioned. “Boy, that would really be fun to see on YouTube someday. It was truly, truly horrifying.”

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