Classic TV show Cheers helped pave the way for Ted Danson to find success in the world of situation comedy and he’s still working. Danson played bartender Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom which, by the way, has an anniversary. Yes, the show premiered in September 1982 and will celebrate its 40th anniversary since the show started. For Danson, he’s directing his thanks and gratitude to the old show.
“The reason why we’re talking, the reason why I’m sitting next to [Mr. Mayor co-star] Holly [Hunter] is because of Cheers,” Danson said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “Everything I do is because of the popularity of that show.” Does he still watch it? Apparently so. The actor said, “It still makes me laugh when I watch sometimes. It’s funny and it’s great to see my friends and they make me laugh.”
Ted Danson of ‘Cheers’ Remembers Having Full Head of Brown Hair
Danson has been starring in the NBC sitcom Mr. Mayor but the show has been canceled after just two seasons. Hunter is known for movies like Raising Arizona and Broadcast News. As for Danson, he looks back upon being 35 years old when it all started. “My hair was brown, and I had a lot of it,” he quips.
Now 74 years old, he gives a lot of credit to the show’s creators, saying he was blessed. “I got my introduction to this business with [Cheers creators] Jimmy Burrows and [Les Charles] and Glen Charles, who are like half-hour aristocrats,” he said. Danson said that they were some of the best in the business. He adds that’s how he was introduced to half-hour television work. We get more from WFAA.
Of course, over the years people have asked if a reboot of the show would happen. Forget about it, according to the Sam Malone actor. “It’d be a bunch of people in their 70s in a bar going, ‘What? What? A horse walked into a what?’” he tells NBC talk-show host Seth Meyers in a recent appearance. “Maybe ‘Cheers, The Old Age Home’.” Well, the crowd applauded at that mention but Danson said it wouldn’t happen.
Fans, though, can be stubborn and want the place where everybody knows your name to come back. Danson reflects upon the hilarious thing that he hears most from fans. “I get a lot of people coming up and saying, ‘My grandmother loved watching you on Cheers,‘” Danson said. “And I’ll say, ‘Hold on, let me turn on my hearing aids. OK, say again?’” But the actor obviously still has a lot of love and respect for his sitcom all these years later. Don’t count Danson out from another half-hour show in his future, either.
