The Cheers Effect: Christopher Lloyd

Think of Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd as an honorary Cheers barfly: Not only did he serve as an executive producer on Frasier, but his father, Emmy-winner David Lloyd, was one of the show's first writers. "When I was beginning my career," Christopher says, "I'd get Cheers scripts and try to break them down and outline them, so I could understand their structure. It was very much a part of my formative years in television." As part of GQ's celebration of the landmark sitcom's thirtieth anniversary, we spoke to Lloyd about how the sitcom came together and what made it work so well.

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GQ: Growing up, how much time did you spend on the Cheers set?
Christopher Lloyd: I was in college by the time the show was on, so I never went to a filming. But I would drop by the set every once in a while. Watching Ted Danson and George Wendt and John Ratzenberger throw footballs and shoot bottle-rockets in the little courtyard made me think, "You guys get to [crack] jokes for a living, and in your downtime, act like ridiculous frat characters? This sounds like the greatest thing ever."

GQ: Did you and your dad talk about his Cheers experience?
Christopher Lloyd: We talked shop, as one does at any dinner table. He tended to like the bigger, broader episodes. He wrote Woody's wedding episode, which was one long, continuous, farcical scene. They had to build this giant kitchen and wedding set on a separate soundstage, then have the entire audience get on buses and move from one soundstage to another, so that they could see the second half of the show. Given the choice between a heartfelt Sam-and-Diane episode, or an episode that was big and bouncy and ridiculous and dazzling in its complexity, he would always choose the second kind.

GQ: What did you learn when you studied Cheers episodes?
Christopher Lloyd: From a craft standpoint, I marvel that they never left the bar in the entire first season. The writers had to tell stories that didn't make the audience ask, "How do these people have so much time to be in a bar all the time?" I think that was the genius of that show—that you loved being in their company, and you never asked those questions. You never asked why nobody ever paid for a beer. You went with it, because the spirit of the show was so great. And the characters weren't mean. So, personally, I think I took that forward in my career: Rather than write something where everybody's sarcastic and snarky and mean-spirited, it's better to write something where the audience can be amused by the characters, but also just genuinely enjoy their company.

GQ: Despite infamously low ratings in its first season, NBC kept Cheers on the air, allowing it to grow into a hit. Is there any chance that could happen in today?
Christopher Lloyd: There's just too much competition. In the old days, there were such enormous audiences for the big hits that you could get away with shows trickling along, because the other shows were making enough money. But now that the audiences are down so low, for something that's really tanking, they give you four weeks, maybe six. Then they're going to pop in something they have waiting in the wings. Even [with] a show like Arrested Development, everyone felt, "Oh, it's going to be Cheers again. It just needs to find its audience." And it never did. I think it's very unlikely you'd find yourself in that situation [now]. That era's gone.

The Cheers Effect: Shawn Ryan

What Does Sam Malone have to do with The Shield's Vic Mackey? More than you might think

Shawn Ryan may be known as the creator of such dark-hearted hour-long dramas as The Shield and Last Resort, but as a teenager, his biggest TV obsession was Cheers. "It was one of the first shows where I started to pay attention to the credits," says Ryan, "because the writing was better than everything else on TV." As part of GQ's celebration of the landmark sitcom's thirtieth anniversary, we spoke to Ryan about big-issue TV, Shelley's long goodbye, and Cheers' unlikely influence on The Shield.

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GQ: When did you start watching Cheers?
Shawn Ryan: I was in high school. In the fall-preview issue of TV Guide—which was a very big deal back in those days—I read some blurb that made me think that I might like it. And I was hooked right from the teaser. It was smarter than most things on TV, and it was anchored by Ted Danson and Shelley Long, who were just explosive together. A lot of times, when you go back and you watch comedy pilots, even for great shows, they're really awkward. Seinfeld's a perfect example of a show that certainly did not find its feet for a long time. But you go back and watch the pilot of Cheers, and both Danson and Shelley Long really seem to have a firm grasp of who those characters were. And on Cheers, characters came first, and the jokes came second, which was rare. The writers weren't afraid to let a joke fall slightly flat if it advanced the characters.

It was also the day and age when all the characters didn't have to be these incredibly good-looking people. There were more oddball characters [on Cheers] than there were traditionally good-looking men and women. You had Sam and Diane, but Carla and Norm and Cliff and Coach were not the typical good-looking people on the cover of TV Guide.

GQ: Were you caught up in the Sam and Diane relationship?
Shawn Ryan: I was 15 or 16 when it started, and so I was just at that age when you start thinking about dating—or, at least, when dating is an actual option. So I was fascinated by Sam Malone, because I was a shy kid who was a little tongue-tied around women, and here was this guy who would talk to any of them. I was also fascinated by his frustrations with Diane, and how that didn't work—the fighting and the sparks.

GQ: How did you react when Shelley left the show?
Shawn Ryan: I went to college in Vermont. TVs were limited in the dorms, and the buddies I hung out with wanted to watch Mangum P.I. on Thursday night. So I worked on these guys, and by my sophomore year, I had turned them into Cheers fans. Then all of a sudden, Diane was leaving! It was like, "Is there [still] a show? Is she coming back?" When I found out she wasn't, it was devastating to me.

GQ: Her final scene is incredibly moving. In fact, when I was re-watching the first few seasons, I was surprised how often they'd slow down the comedy and have some genuine moments of pathos. But never got mawkish or preachy.
Shawn Ryan: Cheers was radical. The lead character was an ex-alcoholic, and there were episodes where he really struggled with it. And the sexual politics were dealt with in a very sophisticated manner. Sitcoms were saying more stuff in the '70s than dramas were, with All in the Family and Maude and shows like that. Cheers took on serious issues, but they didn't take them on in a let's have-a-debate-about-it kind of way. They tackled them the way that they really would happen in life.

One of my all-time favorite episodes [season one's "The Boys in the Bar"] touched on homophobia. These guys come in, and people at the bar think they're gay, and worry that Cheers is going to turn into a gay bar. To deal with that subject matter with humor—with two guys kissing Norm on the cheek at the end, and him saying, "Better than Vera"—had more of an impact on me, as a 16-year-old, on how I would view homosexuals, than if I had the characters had engaged in sort of Archie Bunker-style debate.

GQ: Did Cheers have any influence on The Shield?
Shawn Ryan: I remember one of the Charles brothers talking about the decision to bring Sam and Diane together at the end of season one, and [saying] that if Sam couldn't seduce Diane within the first 22 episodes, then he wasn't the character they'd been writing. They made a risky decision, based on who their characters were, and decided to follow that out. That's something I would always say on The Shield: "We have to be true to Vic Mackey, and have him do the things he does, even if that creates extra work for us story-wise." That was all based on what they said about Sam Malone.