THE SAD TALE OF SAM MALONE
A CHEERS Retrospective
What do a former professional baseball player, a career waitress/mother of eight, an often out of work accountant, a know-it-all mail man, a bad at love psychiatrist, an emotionally unstable gold digging manager, an uptight psychoanalyst, an elitist failed writer, a clueless former coach, a clueless former farm hand and a number of colorful characters that occupy the city of Boston have in common?
CHEERS, an iconic bar in Boston, Massachusetts and an iconic television series that ran from 1982–1993 on NBC during the heyday of MUST SEE TV. The show starred Ted Danson as Sam “Mayday” Malone, a former Red Sox reliever turned bar owner, an irony considering he spent his years as a pitcher inebriated and turned his life around as a recovering alcoholic.
The one thing Sam couldn’t shake was his skirt chasing ways, which led him to empty and shallow relationships with countless women. That is until he met Diane Chambers, a recently dumped out of work aspiring writer, played exquisitely by Shelley Long.
The first five years of the show was nothing but a romantic comedy of sorts. A will they, won’t they, that saw Sam and Diane get together, break up, get back together again, only to see them call off a wedding and Diane leave for greater opportunity as a television writer once her novel failed to sell. Sam may have been the central character of CHEERS, but those early years were built on Diane as she was the bridge between the audience and the colorful characters that occupied Cheers.
Shelley Long’s aspirations for a film career led to her departure, closing a major chapter on the show. Though the addition of Kirstie Alley and her character Rebecca Howe was a welcomed change of pace, a certain kind of magic left the show and never returned.
The next six seasons of the show saw developments in the lives of the other major characters, most notably Frasier Crane played by Kelsey Grammar. Frasier went from being the third point in a love triangle with Diane and Sam, to being married to scene stealing Lilith Crane played perfectly by Bebe Neuwirth. Frasier would of course go on to have his own show post CHEERS.
Unfortunately for Rebecca, her character was reduced to being a gold digging emotionally unstable failure, whose sole purpose was to provide a different type of potential love interest for Sam. Season six thru eight were dedicated to a game of cat and mouse between Sam and Rebecca. After finally hitting the sack, they agreed they were better off friends. This is a sharp juxtaposition to Sam’s relationship with Diane, an elitist academic and staunch feminist, which would continue to haunt him until the final episode of the show.
The final three seasons of the show was dedicated to Sam’s evolution. From wanting to start a family, albeit somewhat randomly with Rebecca, to finally coming to terms with the fact he was incredibly lonely and suffering from a sex addiction. Only in the moments where Sam was his most vulnerable, did the show actually reach its zenith. Those moments were often too far and in between post Diane.
Sure, Sam continued to fight and lose in his prank battles with Gary from competing bar Gary’s Olde Town Tavern. Sure, Sam was in a battle for ownership of Cheers in various ways, including upstairs restaurant Melville’s owner John Allen Hill dispute over who owned the rights to the pool room. Sam even had to figure out how to rebuild Cheers after Rebecca accidentally set the office ablaze.
However, the former Red Sox star never truly found his happy ending. Even after developing into someone who realized he’s an addict of both alcohol and sex, Sam never falls for anyone other than Diane. He never gets the opportunity to start a family. He never gets to grow up. Forever trapped in his prime, well past his prime, to the point of becoming a joke in his own bar.
The final episode of the show sees momma’s boy Cliff get a long overdue promotion at the post office, Norm finally get a steady job with local government, Woody get elected to office despite his lack of knowledge or experience, Rebecca finally let go of her shallow nature and marry a man for love, Frasier apparently fixing things with Lilith despite her infidelity, but Sam is left with his bar. A bar that in so many ways is a prison of his own making.
Diane returns in the final episodes of CHEERS, a recent winner of an award for her screenwriting. Diane claims she left in hopes of being a success, but success came too late. After one final fling that has Sam on the verge of leaving Cheers and the crew behind for good, the two come to a realization that despite the great sex, they’re too different to work out in the end.
After pondering the purpose to life with the regulars, Sam and Norm are the final two remaining. Norm tells Sam he knew that Sam would come back and implied that the love of Sam’s life is Cheers. Sam is left alone and says aloud, “I’m the luckiest guy on the face of the Earth.” A line that was made famous by Lou Gerhig, forced to retire from Major League Baseball due to a disease that would claim his life and be named after him.
Seasons nine and ten were difficult to sit through. Despite the great acting, the scripts and story lines were lacking, and what used to be an at times outlandish show went completely off the rails. Ted Danson recognized this, and pretty much put a cap on his involvement at the end of season eleven, which is arguably the best season post Diane. The show had focus again, and the focus was to wrap things up.
Unfortunately for the central character Sam, it’s an at best bitter sweet ending, at worst a tragic warning to those that find themselves in a negative routine surrounded by enablers posing as friends. A slice of reality that the show hadn’t seen before.
CHEERS at the end of the day was an entertaining television series. A good one. People watched in the tens of millions every week. In a lot of ways, it changed the sitcom or just TV in general for the better. The show just missed the bar of being great, because deep down I think we all wanted Sam and Diane to wind up together. Is it realistic? Probably not. Would it have been typical for a show that was anything but? Probably so. However, there’s an aftertaste that haunts, when you see Sam walk into the darkness of the pool room, accepting his fate as a man that is forever tied to his own faults.
Here’s to Sam Malone! May he be out there somewhere, finding the peace of mind he was subconsciously searching for from episode one all the way to episode 275.
For more from this author, check out his web series DRIV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmmzwghlLEQ&list=PLgwjmm1QMtqw2Ehe2Gzz6YfUcrNkLMmtQ
