The NBC comedy Cheers was all about feeling good. Fans don’t associate it with horror. But, for writer Ken Levine, working on Cheers had some scary moments. Levine, with his partner David Isaacs, wrote 40 episodes of Cheers. They were responsible for a “Monster” Norm (George Wendt) joke and integral to the transition from Shelley Long to Kirstie Alley, but those weren’t the scariest times.
Levine revealed his scariest moment on Cheers on an episode of his Hollywood & Levine podcast. If you’re a writer, grab your blankie and night light because Levine’s fear is palpable.
‘Cheers’ classic episode was terrifying to writer Ken Levine
“Bar Wars” became a classic Cheers episode. The Cheers gang goes to war with Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern in season 6. Levine explained why this episode came together hastily.
“We usually did 24, 25 episodes a season on Cheers,” Levine said on Hollywood & Levine. “They just kept ordering more and more because by then the show was really popular and they wanted to get as many as they could. At the very last minute they ordered one more show. So Glen and Les [Charles] called David Isaacs and I in to write it because we write fairly quickly and we obviously know the show and we worked with them for a long time.”
The quick turnaround wasn’t the terrifying part, although it wasn’t easy. No Cheers episode came together as quickly as “Bar Wars.”
“We mapped out the story, this was a Friday,” Levine said. “No outline, no nothing, just mapped it down, we took notes. Then David and I went off and wrote the script over the weekend. The idea was we would turn it in on Monday, everyone would polish it and Wednesday it would go to the table.”
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The writer’s strike put fear in the hearts of ‘Cheers’ writers
Towards the end of Cheers’s sixth season came a Writers Guild of America strike. It’s a part of Hollywood history now, but Levine said they were expecting WGA to resolve the issue without a strike.
“We did the best we could writing a script in two days,” Levine said. “Looming overhead was a Writers Guild strike. They were in negotiations and it was the 11th hour and all indications were that they were going to reach a settlement. Well, at 11:59, that Sunday night, no. Go on strike. So we had to go on strike. I turned in the script. They had already paid for the script. We were allowed to turn it in and the rule was that they could shoot whatever existing material they had but they couldn’t rewrite. No one was allowed to change any of the writing. It is not like there were any other scripts in the pipeline.”
Filming ‘Bar Wars’ terrified Ken Levine
Per WGA rules, Cheers could only film the existing script. This wasn’t how Cheers episodes usually evolved. Usually, it was a collaborative effort improving the jokes until filming. “Bar Wars” turned out pretty well given the restrictions.
“So what they had to do was film our two day first draft of ‘Bar Wars’,” Levine said. “ And the night that it filmed I have to tell you it was one of the scariest nights of my life because I thought okay, now we are going to be revealed as the frauds that we are. Wait ‘til they have to do a show that’s not polished and rewritten by everyone else. Now it’s just us. Just bare ass naked out there on the stage. Very relieved that it played well. It played very well.”
Looking back, Levine still has regrets about “Bar Wars.”
“That said, I wish we would’ve had four days to write the script,” Levine said. “It would’ve been better. That said, it still would’ve been better had the entire staff been able to tweak it a little bit. There are places where there are jokes that could be better. There are jokes that I would want to take a second look at but considering the situation, considering it was written in two days and then just filmed, I am very proud of that show.”
