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American television sitcom (1982–1993)
the American TV series

Cheers is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from September 30, 1982, to May 20, 1993, with a total of 275 episodes across eleven seasons. The show was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with Paramount Network Television and was created by the team of James Burrows and Glen and Les Charles. The show is set in the titular bar in Boston, where a group of locals meet to drink, relax, socialize, and escape from their day to day issues. At the center of the show is the bar's owner and head bartender, Sam Malone, who is a womanizing former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. The show's ensemble cast introduced in the pilot episode are waitresses Diane Chambers and Carla Tortelli, second bartender Coach Ernie Pantusso, and regular customers Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. Later main characters of the show also include Frasier Crane, Woody Boyd, Lilith Sternin, and Rebecca Howe. After premiering in 1982, it was nearly canceled during its first season when it ranked almost last in ratings for its premiere (74th out of 77 shows). However, Cheers eventually became a Nielsen ratings juggernaut in the United States, earning a top 10 rating during eight of its 11 seasons, including one season at number one (season 9). The show spent most of its run on NBC's Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup. Its widely watched series finale in 1993 became the most watched single TV episode of the 1990s, and the show's 275 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide. Nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for all 11 of its seasons on the air, it earned 28 Primetime Emmy Awards from a record of 117 nominations. During its run, Cheers became one of the most popular series in history and received critical acclaim from its start to its end. In 1997, the episodes "Thanksgiving Orphans" and "Home Is the Sailor," aired originally in 1987, were respectively ranked No. 7 and No. 45 on TV Guides 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. Its series finale was watched by an estimated 93 million viewers, almost 40% of the US population at the time. The series also produced three spin offs: The Tortellis, Wings, and Frasier; and a Spanish remake. In 2002, Cheers was ranked No. 18 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the eighth best written TV series and TV Guide ranked it No. 11 on their list of the 60 greatest shows.

Before the Cheers pilot "Give Me a Ring Sometime" was completed and aired in 1982, the series consisted of four employees in the first script. In later years, Woody Boyd replaced Coach, after the character died off screen in season three (1984–85), following actor Nicholas Colasanto's death. Frasier Crane started as a recurring character and became a permanent one. In season six (1987–88), new character Rebecca Howe was added, having been written into the show after the finale of the previous season (1986–87). Lilith Sternin started as a one time character in an episode of season four, "Second Time Around" (1985). After her second season five appearance, she became a recurring character and was later featured as a permanent one during season 10 (1991–92).

Ted Danson as Sam Malone: A bartender and proprietor of Cheers, Sam is also a lothario. Before the series began, he was a baseball relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox nicknamed "Mayday Malone" until he became an alcoholic, harming his career. He has an on again, off again relationship with Diane Chambers, his class opposite, in the first five seasons (1982–1987). During their off times, Sam has flings with many not so bright "sexy women" All of her children are ill behaved, except Ludlow, whose father is a prominent academic. She flirts with men, including ones who are not flattered by her ways, and believes in superstitions. Later, she marries Eddie LeBec, an ice hockey player, who later becomes a penguin mascot for ice shows. After he dies in an ice show accident by an ice resurfacer, Carla later discovers that Eddie had committed bigamy with another woman, whom he had gotten pregnant. Carla sleeps with Sam's enemy, John Allen Hill, to Sam's annoyance and anger. George Wendt as Norm Peterson: A bar regular and occasionally employed accountant. A recurrent joke on the show, especially in the earlier seasons, is that the character was such a popular and constant fixture at the bar that anytime he entered through the front door, everyone present would yell out his name ("NORM!") in greeting (when present in the scene Diane would be heard saying "Norman!" moments later) ; usually, this cry would be followed by one of the present bartenders asking Norm how he was, usually receiving a sardonic response and a request for a beer. ("It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear.") He has infrequent accounting jobs and a troubled marriage with (but is still in love with and married to) Vera, an unseen character, though she is occasionally heard. Later in the series, he becomes a house painter and an interior decorator. Even later in the series, Norm secures his dream job, tasting beer at a brewery. The character was not originally intended to be a main cast role; After he was cast in a more permanent role, the character was renamed Norm.

John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin: A know it all bar regular and mail carrier. He lives with his mother Esther Clavin (Frances Sternhagen) in first the family house and later his own apartment. In the bar, Cliff continuously spouts nonsensical and annoying trivia, making him an object of derision for the bar patrons (especially Carla). Ratzenberger auditioned for the role of a minor character George, but it went to Wendt, evolving the role into Norm Peterson. The producers decided they wanted a resident bar know it all,
Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane: A psychiatrist and bar regular, a recurring character for seasons 3 and 4 who joins the main cast by season 5. Frasier started out as Diane Chambers' love interest in the third season (1984–85). In the fourth season (1985–86), after Diane jilts him at the altar in Europe, Frasier starts to frequent Cheers and becomes a regular. He later marries Lilith Sternin and has a son, Frederick. After the series ends, the character becomes the focus of the spin off Frasier, in which he is divorced from Lilith and living in Seattle. Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd: A not so bright At the start, Sam frequently attempts to seduce Rebecca without success. As her personality changes,

Other celebrities guest starred in single episodes as themselves throughout the series. Sports figures appeared on the show as themselves, with a connection to Boston or Sam's former team, the Red Sox, such as Luis Tiant, Wade Boggs, and Kevin McHale (of the Boston Celtics). Some television stars also made guest appearances as themselves such as Alex Trebek, Arsenio Hall, Dick Cavett, Robert Urich, George McFarland and Johnny Carson. Various political figures even made appearances on Cheers such as then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J. Crowe, former Colorado Senator Gary Hart, then Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, then Senator John Kerry, then Governor Michael Dukakis, Ethel Kennedy (widow of Robert F. Kennedy), and then Mayor of Boston Raymond Flynn, the last five of whom all represented Cheers' home state and city. In maternal roles, Glynis Johns, in a guest appearance in 1983, played Diane's mother, Helen Chambers. Nancy Marchand played Frasier's mother, Hester Crane, in an episode that aired in 1985. In an episode that aired in 1992, Celeste Holm – who had previously played Ted Danson's mother in "Three Men and a Baby" – appeared as Kelly's jokester of a paternal grandmother. Melendy Britt appeared in the episode "Woody or Won't He" (1990) as Kelly's mother, Roxanne Gaines, a very attractive high society lady and a sexy, flirtatious upper class cougar who tries to seduce Woody. The musician Harry Connick Jr. appeared in an episode as Woody's cousin and plays a song from his Grammy winning album We Are in Love (c. 1991). John Cleese won a Primetime Emmy Award for his guest appearance as "Dr. Simon Finch Royce" in the fifth season episode "Simon Says". Emma Thompson guest starred as Nanny G/Nannette Guzman, a famous singing nanny and Frasier's ex wife. Christopher Lloyd guest starred as a tortured artist who wanted to paint Diane. Marcia Cross portrayed Rebecca's sister Susan in the season 7 episode Sisterly Love. John Mahoney once appeared as an inept jingle writer, which included a brief conversation with Frasier Crane, whose father he later portrayed on the spin off Frasier. Peri Gilpin, who later played Roz Doyle on Frasier, also appeared in one episode of Cheers, in its 11th season, as Holly Matheson, a reporter who interviews Woody. The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, also guest starred in different episodes. In "The Guy Can't Help It", Rebecca meets a plumber, played by Tom Berenger, who came to fix one of the beer keg taps. They marry in the series finale, triggering her resignation from Cheers. Judith Barsi appears in the episode Relief Bartender. Notable guest appearances of actresses portraying Sam's sexual conquests or potential sexual conquests include Kate Mulgrew in the three episode finale of season four, portraying Boston councilwoman Janet Eldridge; Donna McKechnie as Debra, Sam's ex wife (with whom he is on good terms), who pretends to be an intellectual in front of Diane; Barbara Babcock as Lana Marshall, a talent agent who specializes in representing male athletes, with whom she routinely sleeps on demand; Julia Duffy as Rebecca Prout, a depressed intellectual friend of Diane's; Alison LaPlaca as magazine reporter Paula Nelson; Carol Kane as Amanda, who Sam eventually learns was a fellow patient at the sanitarium with Diane; Barbara Feldon as Lauren Hudson, Sam's annual Valentine's Day fling (in an homage to Same Time, Next Year); Sandahl Bergman as Judy Marlowe, a longtime casual sex partner and whose now grown daughter, Laurie Marlowe (Chelsea Noble), who has always considered Sam a pseudo father figure, Sam falls for; Madolyn Smith Osborne as Dr. Sheila Rydell, a colleague of Frasier and Lilith; Valerie Mahaffey as Valerie Hill, John Allen Hill's daughter whom Sam pursues if only to gain an upper hand in his business relationship with Hill; and Alexis Smith as Alice Anne Volkman, Rebecca's much older ex professor. In season 9, episode 17, "I'm Getting My Act Together and Sticking It in Your Face", Sam, believing Rebecca wants a more serious relationship, pretends to be gay, his lover being a casual friend named Leon (Jeff McCarthy)—the plan ultimately leads to a kiss between Sam and Leon.

Near the end of production of the third season, the writers of Cheers had to deal with the death of one of the main actors. Nicholas Colasanto's heart condition had been diagnosed in the mid 1970s, but it had worsened. He had lost weight and was having trouble breathing during filming, and he was hospitalized shortly before filming finished for season three due to fluid in his lungs. He recovered but was not cleared to return to work. He was visiting the set in January 1985 to watch the filming of several episodes, and co star Shelley Long commented, "I think we were all in denial. We were all glad he was there, but he lost a lot of weight." Co star Rhea Perlman added that he "wanted to be there so badly. He didn't want to be sick. He couldn't breathe well. It was hard. He was laboring all the time." Colasanto ultimately died of a heart attack at his home on February 12, 1985.

Nearly all of Cheers takes place in the front room of the bar, but the characters often go into the rear pool room or the bar's office. Cheers does not show any action outside the bar until the first episode of the second season, which takes place in Diane's apartment. The show's main theme in its early seasons is the romance between intellectual waitress Diane Chambers and the bar's owner, Sam Malone, a former Major League Baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and recovering alcoholic. After Shelley Long (Diane) left the show, the focus shifted to Sam's new relationship with Rebecca Howe, a neurotic corporate ladder climber. 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, and Lilith Sternin — rub 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. Diane is a vocal feminist, and Sam is the epitome of everything she hates: promiscuity and chauvinism (see "Sam and Diane"). Homosexuality was dealt with from the first season, which was rare in the early 1980s on American television. In the first season episode "The Boys in the Bar" (the title being a reference to the play and subsequent movie The Boys in the Band), 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 a Primetime Emmy Award. Addiction also plays a role on Cheers, almost exclusively through Sam. He is a recovering alcoholic who had bought a bar during his drinking days. Frasier has a notable bout of drinking in the fourth season episode "The Triangle", while Woody develops a gambling problem in the seventh season episode "Call Me Irresponsible". Carla and other characters drink beer while pregnant, but nobody seems to mind.

Cheers 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 numerology purposes, revealed in season 8, episode 6, "The Stork Brings a Crane", which also revealed the bar's address as 1121/2 Beacon Street and that it originated under the name Mom's. In the series' second episode, "Sam's Women", Coach tells a customer looking for Gus, the owner of Cheers, that Gus is dead. In a later episode, Gus O'Mally 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's departure from the series. In addition, Sam leaves on a trip to circumnavigate the globe. Before he leaves, he sells Cheers to the Lillian Corporation. He 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 has Rebecca (in absentia) "agree" to a long list of demands that the corporation had for her. From there, Sam occasionally attempts to buy the bar back with schemes that usually involve the wealthy executive Robin Colcord. Sam acquires Cheers again in the eighth season finale, when it is sold back to him for 85¢ by the Lillian Corporation after he alerts the company to Colcord's insider trading. Fired by the corporation because of her silence on the issue, Rebecca is hired by Sam as a hostess/office manager. For the rest of the episode, to celebrate Sam's reclaiming the bar, a huge banner reading "Under OLD Management!" hangs from the staircase. When it is learned that the Pool Room and bathrooms are actually owned by Melville's (which spawns a war of wits between Sam and Melville's owner John Allen Hill), Rebecca later purchases them from Hill, making Sam and Rebecca partners in the ownership of Cheers (and more or less co runners of the establishment). Sam has two main battles. One is with Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, trying to beat them at some activity or another but always failing, except for one episode when Diane helps Cheers win the bowling trophy, and extending to the practical jokes they play on each other. The second is with Melville's owner John Allen Hill, who keeps annoying Sam with his pettiness and ego. Hill had an ongoing relationship with Carla.

Some believe that the show is a rehashing of Boston's ABC affiliate WCVB's locally produced 1979 sitcom Park Street Under featuring Steve Sweeney and American Repertory Theater founder Karen MacDonald. Three men developed and created the Cheers television series: Glen and Les Charles ("Glen and Les") and James Burrows, They aimed at "creating a show around a Spencer Tracy Katharine Hepburn type relationship" between their two main characters, Sam and Diane. An early concept revolved around a woman becoming the new owner of the bar and the animosity created between her and the regulars, an idea that was used later in Season 6 when the character of Rebecca Howe is introduced. Early discussions about the location of the show centered on Barstow, California, then Kansas City, Missouri. They eventually turned to the East Coast and finally Boston. The Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, which was the model for Cheers, was chosen from a phone book. When Glen Charles asked the bar's owner, Tom Kershaw, to shoot exterior and interior photos, he agreed, charging $1. Kershaw has since gone on to make millions of dollars, licensing the pub's image and selling a variety of Cheers memorabilia. The Bull & Finch became the 42nd busiest outlet in the American food and beverage industry in 1997.

The crew of Cheers numbered in the hundreds. The three creators—James Burrows and Glen and Les Charles—kept offices on Paramount's lot for the duration of the Cheers run. The Charles Brothers remained in overall charge throughout the show's run, frequently writing major episodes, though starting with the third season they began delegating the day to day running of the writing staff to various showrunners. Ken Estin and Sam Simon were appointed as showrunners for the third season, and succeeded by David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee the following year. Angell, Casey and Lee would remain as showrunners until the end of the seventh season when they left to develop their own sitcom, Wings, and were replaced by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner and Phoef Sutton for the eighth through tenth seasons. For the final season, Tom Anderson and Dan O'Shannon acted as the showrunners. James Burrows is regarded as being a factor in the show's longevity, directing 243 of the 270 episodes and supervising the show's production. Among the show's other directors were Andy Ackerman, Thomas Lofaro, Tim Berry, Tom Moore, Rick Beren, as well as cast members John Ratzenberger and George Wendt. Craig Safan provided the series' original music for its entire run except the theme song. His extensive compositions for the show led to his winning numerous ASCAP Top TV Series awards for his music.

The character of Sam Malone was originally intended to be a retired football player and was slated to be played by Fred Dryer, but Danson was chosen in part because he was younger and had more acting experience than Dryer. Dryer, however, went on to play sportscaster Dave Richards, an old friend of Sam, in three episodes. Bill Cosby was also considered early in the casting process for the role of Sam, after having been recommended by the network. Shelley Long was recommended by various sources to the producers for the role of Diane Chambers, but Long wished to be offered the part straight out and had to be coaxed into giving an audition. When she did read for the part, according to Glen Charles, "that was it, we knew that we wanted her." The chemistry was so apparent between Long and Danson that it secured them the roles. Alley joined the cast when Shelley Long left, and Woody Harrelson joined when Nicholas Colasanto died. Danson, Perlman and Wendt were the only actors to appear in every episode of the series; Ratzenberger appears in all but two (and his name wasn't part of the opening credit montage during the first season).

Most Cheers episodes were, as a voiceover stated at the start of each, "filmed before a live studio audience" on Paramount Stage 25 in Hollywood, generally on Tuesday nights. Scripts for a new episode were issued the Wednesday before for a read through, Friday was rehearsal day, and final scripts were issued on Monday. Burrows, who directed most episodes, insisted on using film stock rather than videotape. He was also noted for using motion in his directorial style, trying to constantly keep characters moving rather than standing still. Burrows and the Charles brothers emphasized to the cast to "never assume that you're not being watched" because the camera would be focused on the actors at all times, so they had to always be reacting and "always be funny". Due to a decision by Glen and Les Charles, the cold open was often not connected to the rest of the episode, with the lowest ranked writers assigned to create the jokes for them. Some cold opens were taken from episodes that ran too long. The first year of the show took place entirely within the confines of the bar, the first location outside the bar being Diane's apartment in the second year. When the series became a hit, the characters started venturing further afield, first to other sets and eventually to an occasional exterior location. The exterior location shots of the bar are of the Bull & Finch Pub, located directly north of the Boston Public Garden. The pub has become a tourist attraction because of its association with the series, and draws nearly one million visitors annually. It was displayed for a short time at the defunct Hollywood Entertainment Museum, but later returned to storage, where it remained for many years. In 2014, CBS donated the set to the Museum of Television after a years long campaign by James Burrows and his office on behalf of the museum's founder, James Comisar. At the time of the donation, Comisar initiated a planned $100,000 restoration of the set using former conservators from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, although a site for the 10,000 item collection of the museum had not been decided upon. On syndicated airings of Cheers, the theme song was shortened to make room for additional commercials.

Cheers was critically acclaimed in its first season, though it landed a disappointing 74th out of 96 shows in that year's ratings. This critical support, the early success at the Primetime Emmy Awards, and the support of the president of NBC's entertainment division Brandon Tartikoff, are thought to be the main reasons for the show's survival and eventual success. Tartikoff stated in 1983 that Cheers was a sophisticated adult comedy and that NBC executives "never for a second doubted" that the show would be renewed. Writing in 2016, drama critic Chris Jones called Cheers "a hinge sitcom – one foot in classic bits and shtick not far removed from Mel Brooks and another in ambitious, Seinfeld like absurdism." In 2017, James Charisma of Paste magazine ranked the show's opening sequence No. 5 on a list of The 75 Best TV Title Sequences of All Time. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked Cheers as the eighth greatest TV show of all time. In 2023, Variety ranked Cheers #11 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time.

Although not the first sitcom to do it, Cheers employed the use of end of season cliffhangers and, starting with the third season, the show's storylines became more serialized. The show's success helped make such multi episode story arcs popular on sitcoms, which Les Charles regrets. [W]e may have been partly responsible for what's going on now, where if you miss the first episode or two, you are lost. You have to wait until you can get the whole thing on DVD and catch up with it. If that blood is on our hands, I feel kind of badly about it. It can be very frustrating." Cheers began with a limited five character ensemble consisting of Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Nicholas Colasanto and George Wendt. Cheers was able to gradually phase in characters such as Cliff, Frasier, Lilith, Rebecca, and Woody. By the time season 10 began, the show had eight front characters in its roster.

Cheers grew in popularity as it aired on American television and entered off network syndication in 1987, initially distributed by Paramount Domestic Television. When the show went off the air in 1993, Cheers was syndicated in 38 countries, with 179 American television markets and 83 million viewers. When the quality of some earlier footage of Cheers began to deteriorate, it underwent a careful restoration in 2001. The series aired on Nick at Nite from 2001 to 2004 and on TV Land from 2004 to 2008, with Nick at Nite airing week long Cheers "Everybody Knows Your Name" marathons. The show was removed from the lineup in 2004. The series began airing on Hallmark Channel in the United States in October 2008, and WGN America in 2009. In January 2011, Reelz Channel began airing the series in hour long blocks. MeTV began airing Cheers weeknights in 2010. USA Network has aired the series on Sunday early mornings and weekday mornings to allow it to show extended length films of 2 1/2 hours and maintain symmetric schedules. In 2011, Cheers was made available on the Netflix and Amazon Prime Video streaming services. Cheers began airing on Eleven (a digital channel of Network Ten) in Australia on January 11, 2011. NCRV in the Netherlands aired all 275 episodes in sequence, once per night, repeating the series a total of three times. In Italy, Cheers aired on Italia 1 & Canale 5 as Cin Cin from 1985 until 1988. Cheers was first screened in the UK on Channel 4, and was one of the then fledgling network's first imports. As of 2012, Cheers has been repeated on UK satellite channel CBS Drama. It has also been shown on the UK free to air channel ITV4, with two episodes every weeknight. On March 16, 2015, the series began airing on UK subscription channel Gold on weekdays at 9:30 a. m. and 10:00 a. m. Cheers aired again daily in 2019 on Channel 4.

A high definition transfer of Cheers began running on HDNet in the United States in August 2010. The program was originally shot on film (but transferred to and edited on videotape) and broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The series has also been remastered for 4K

The complete 11 seasons of Cheers are available through the iTunes Store, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock and Hulu in high definition. In Canada, all seasons are available on streaming service Crave. The entire series was available in the UK on All 4.

The series lent itself naturally to the development of Cheers bar related merchandise, culminating in the development of a chain of Cheers themed pubs. Paramount's licensing group, led by Tom McGrath, developed the Cheers pub concept initially in partnership with Host Marriott, which placed Cheers themed pubs in over 15 airports around the world. Boston boasts the original Cheers bar, historically known to Boston insiders as the Bull and Finch; a Cheers restaurant in the Faneuil Hall marketplace; and Sam's Place, a spin off sports bar concept also located in Faneuil Hall. In 1997, Europe's first officially licensed Cheers bar opened in London's Regent's Street W1. Like Cheers Faneuil Hall, Cheers London is a replica of the set. The gala opening was attended by James Burrows and cast members George Wendt and John Ratzenberger. The Cheers bar in London closed on December 31, 2008. The actual bar set had been on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum until the museum's closing in early 2006. The theme song to the show was eventually licensed to a Canadian restaurant, Kelsey's Neighbourhood Bar & Grill. CBS currently holds the rights to the Cheers franchise as a result of the 2005 Viacom split which saw Paramount transfer its entire television studio to CBS (both CBS and Viacom would reunite in 2019).

Some of the actors and actresses from Cheers brought their characters onto other television shows, either in a guest appearance or on a new spin off series. The most successful Cheers spin off was Frasier, which featured Frasier Crane following his relocation back to Seattle, Washington. Sam, Diane, and Woody all individually appeared in Frasier episodes, with Lilith appearing as a guest on multiple episodes. In the season nine episode "Cheerful Goodbyes", Frasier returns to Boston and meets up with the Cheers gang, later attending Cliff's retirement party. Frasier was revived in 2023, moving back to Boston like Cheers. Although Frasier was more successful, The Tortellis was the first series to spin off from Cheers, premiering in 1987. The show featured Carla's ex husband Nick Tortelli and his wife Loretta, but was canceled after 13 episodes and drew protests for its stereotypical depictions of Italian Americans.

In addition to direct spin offs, several Cheers characters had guest appearance crossovers with other shows, including Wings and St. Elsewhere (episode "Cheers"). Cheers has also been spoofed or referenced in other media, including The Simpsons (spoofing the title sequence and theme song in "Flaming Moe's"; actually visiting the place with vocal role reprises of the majority of the principal cast in "Fear of Flying"), Scrubs (episode "My Life in Four Cameras"), and the 2012 comedy film Ted. The eighth anniversary special of Late Night with David Letterman, airing in 1990, begins with a scene at Cheers in which the bar's TV gets stuck on NBC and all the bar patrons decide to go home instead of staying to watch David Letterman. The scene was re used to open Letterman's final episode in 1993. A similar scene aired in the Super Bowl XVII Pregame Show on NBC, in which the characters briefly discuss the upcoming game. In 2019, members of the Cheers cast, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger and Kirstie Alley reprised their characters in an episode of The Goldbergs where they play customers of Geoff's short lived food delivery business. In the 2010 show Adventure Time, the show Cheers is referenced a few times, usually by Ice King/Simon because it was his favorite show back when he was a human living in the 20th century. This is explored in greater detail in the 2023 spin off series Fionna and Cake, which is partially set within the mind of Simon. All televisions in that world simply play an animated rendition of Cheers reruns on every channel, and the characters sometimes sing the theme song in difficult moments. The season finale of the show is simply entitled "Cheers".

In Australia, Cheers is remembered for its role in the infamous cancellation of the 1992 Nine Network special Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos. Due to the then owner of Nine Network Kerry Packer's objections to its content, Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos was pulled off the air during its first and only broadcast; viewers saw the network abruptly begin airing a rerun of Cheers midway through the special, either after a scheduled commercial break or a Nine Network bumper claiming a technical problem. Nine Network's affiliate in Perth didn't air the special at all and filled its timeslot with two episodes of Cheers. When the program was re aired in its entirety in 2008, it abruptly cut away to the opening of Cheers midway through in a reenactment of the incident before resuming the second half that didn't get aired. In the Cheers episode "Woody For Hire, Norman Meets the Apes" Woody shows and tells everyone how he was an extra on Boston based drama Spenser: For Hire. In the season 4 episode of Seinfeld titled "The Pitch", Jerry and George are presenting their idea for a sitcom to NBC executives. George is unhappy with their offer and feels that he deserves the same salary as Ted Danson which he claims was $800,000 per episode, being that Cheers is also an NBC show. Danson's reported salary was actually $250,000 per episode. At this point Cheers was in its 10th season and Ted Danson had won an Emmy and a Golden Globe the year before. In another Seinfeld episode, The Trip, George runs into George Wendt (portraying himself) while backstage on the set of The Tonight Show and annoys him by suggesting that the series change its setting from a bar to a rec room or community center. In the seventh episode of the second season of How I Met Your Mother, a coffee shop barista mistakenly hears Barney's name as "Swarley" and writes it on his cup. This leads to a running gag in which everyone mercilessly refers to Barney as "Swarley" despite his protests, which culminates in everyone in McClaren's bar shouting "Swarley" when he enters and playing the Cheers theme song. The credits are then shown in the "Cheers" style. In the season seven episode, In Tailgate, Ted and Barney are outraged with the price to get into MacLaren's on New Year's Eve, so they offer for everyone to come upstairs. In the apartment, there is a puzzles sign that is designed to parody Cheers. Ted and Barney employ Kevin as their bartender, and they invent a theme song which also parodies the Cheers theme song. In the 2004 video game Tony Hawk's Underground 2, "Jeers" is set in Boston, with the typeface referencing the Cheers logo. It is located down a set of stairs, and when near the front door, there is bar chatter coming from inside. In the 2015 video game Fallout 4, which is set in Boston, there is a bar named Prost Bar near Boston Common that, when entered, is an almost exact replica of the bar featured on the series. It includes two dead bodies sitting at the end of the bar, with one of them wearing a mail carrier's uniform, a direct reference to regular barfly Cliff Clavin. In the season 2 finale of the NBC sitcom The Good Place, Ted Danson's character Michael appears as a bartender while wearing a blue plaid button down, in a clear homage to Danson's character in Cheers.

In September 2011, Plural Entertainment debuted a remake of the series on Spanish television, also titled Cheers. Set at an Irish pub, it starred Alberto San Juan as Nicolás "Nico" Arnedo, the equivalent of Sam Malone on the original series. It also used the original theme song, rerecorded in Spanish by Dani Martín, under the title "Donde la gente se divierte." In December 2012, The Irish Film and Television Network announced that casting was underway on an Irish language version of Cheers produced by production company Sideline. The new show, tentatively titled Teach Seán, would air on Ireland's TG4 and features a main character who, like Sam Malone, is a bar owner, a retired athlete, and a recovering alcoholic. However, because of being set in Ireland, the barman is a "former hurling star" rather than an ex baseball player. As of August 2019, the Irish remake has not occurred.

On September 9, 2016, a stage adaptation called Cheers: Live on Stage opened at the Shubert Theatre in Boston. Comprising pieces of the original TV series, the play was adapted by Erik Forrest Jackson. It was produced by Troika/Stageworks. The director was Matt Lenz. It starred Grayson Powell as Sam Malone, Jillian Louis as Diane Chambers, Barry Pearl as Ernie "Coach" Pantusso, Sarah Sirotta as Carla Tortelli, Paul Vogt as Norm Peterson, and Buzz Roddy as Cliff Clavin. The production was scheduled to tour through 2017, but was cancelled in 2016.