When John Cleese appeared on “Cheers,” he was pretty much at the height of his career. “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and its lasting impact had established the comedian as one of the greats. That reputation was further cemented by Cleese’s classic sitcom “Fawlty Towers,” which ran on the BBC in the late 1970s and remains beloved to this day. Having the man on “Cheers” in 1987 was a big deal, then, even for a show that could claim to be the biggest sitcom of the decade at the time. Cleese was essentially comedy royalty.
As such, the “Cheers” writers initially wrote the episode around this great presence — a tactic that proved ineffective once table reads got underway. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, writer/producer Peter Casey (who co-created “Frasier” alongside fellow “Cheers” writers David Angell and David Lee) recounted the first-ever read-through, saying:
“John Cleese did a terrific episode. At the table read, the first act went gangbusters. And then we got into the second act and it started losing steam. We went to the writers’ room. Glen paused and said, ‘It seems impossible, but we’ve managed to make John Cleese unfunny.'”
Just how the writers managed to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat remains unclear (although the man himself has done a good job of it lately). But according to “Cheers” co-creator Les Charles, it had something to do with trying to make the show fit the man rather than the other way around. Per Charles:
“Cleese himself said, ‘You’re trying too hard to service me. I think you should make this the best ‘Cheers’ you can and let me be an actor in it.’ That solved our problem.”