The creators of Cheers

A special new Writers Panel

What an absolute joy and thrill today to talk with the creators of Cheers: Glen Charles, Les Charles, and James Burrows. They discuss the TV comedy landscape in 1982 and now, who at NBC didn't get the show, Taxi, Phyllis, discovering the cast's special talents, the pressure following Shelley Long's departure, and lots more.

Before that interview, though, an excerpt from Ted Danson and His Friends From Work, a live streaming special that I produced with my wife and our friend Marc Evan Jackson in 2020. The show featured cast reunions of Ted Danson's shows and movies, from Three Men and a Baby to The Good Place, and ended in a 45 minute Cheers reunion, featuring the Charles brothers, Burrows, Danson, Rhea Perlman, Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer, Kirstie Alley, John Ratzenberger, Bebe Neuwirth, and George Wendt, as well as a fan-question from Tina Fey!

And before that, a short but important conversation with Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything), who is a WGA Board Member and is on the contract negotiating committee, about who forms the WGA's strategy, what sympathetic execs can do to help (without getting fired), how pre-WGA writers can pitch in, and what gives him hope that the WGA will win this fight,

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By the way! Les Charles wants you to know that the name of the episode that he couldn't recall is "Old Flames," which is episode 7 of season 2 and was written by the late, wonderful David Angell.

Later this week: what makes Cheers the greatest pilot of all time.