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The year was 1987, and Cheers was ruling the television airwaves. The NBC sitcom was a ratings winner, and millions of viewers tuned in each week to see the misadventures of Sam Malone, Diane Chambers, and all the barflies at Cheers. While Cheers was an ensemble series, there was no mistaking that Sam and Diane’s chaotic relationship served as the backbone of the show. That’s why it was a splash of cold water when Shelley Long announced she would be leaving the show at the end of season five.

“There was a lot of concern that Shelley leaving would cause the show's downfall, so everyone's livelihood was at stake. It's funny, there were actors who said that she drove them nuts, yet they were also mad that she was leaving. It's like the restaurant where the food is so bad and the portions are so small,” Cheers writer Ken Levine tells GQ in a 2012 Cheers retrospective.

“Our jaws dropped when we found out she was leaving. From a writing standpoint, you would look at [Sam and Diane's] scenes and go, "That's the glue that's holding everything together," Cheers writer and executive producer David Lee says.

“I was scared,” Sam Malone actor Ted Danson recalls. “Could I be any good? Would people want to watch one-half of the relationship? She put Cheers on the map. Was she the entire show?”

Keeping the Cheers revamp a secret

Diane departed the show in the season five finale ‘I Do, Adieu.’ Although Shelley Long’s departure was known to anyone reading newspapers, this was the days before the internet, so the producers wanted to keep Diane’s goodbye a secret. An alternate version of the season finale’s ending was filmed before a live studio audience, who saw Sam and Diane get married. However, in the aired version, Diane and Sam agree to cancel their wedding so Diane can go to the West Coast and become a writer.

Long’s departure frightened the producers, but it also gave them a chance to revamp the series. First, they needed a new character to fill the void left by Long. Kirstie Alley was cast as Rebecca Howe, but instead of simply being another waitress/love interest for Sam, the writers decided to flip the script.

“The producers wanted the opposite of Diane, someone who was grounded and not flighty. And they didn't want another blonde. The first thought I had was, believe it or not, Kirstie Alley, who I'd seen do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She was great and sultry, and she had those eyes. But she also found a lot of subtle humor in the play that I had not seen before,” casting director Jeff Greenberg says.

“We wanted her to be the Joan Collins [character], the gorgeous woman who's the boss, and everybody thinks of ways to circumvent her and foul her up,” Cheers co-creator Glen Charles says.

“We wanted to keep [her auditions] secret, because we didn't want to shove it in Shelley's face,” Greenberg says. “It was only November, and she was going to be there until March. So, we had all these secret meetings. My own assistants didn't even know it was happening. We had her come to the studio on a Saturday, when no one was on the Cheers set, and she did two scenes, one with Ted, and one with Rhea.”

“Jimmy, Les, and Glen loved her, but the network, which gets the final word on these things, did not. They didn't see the audition and didn't consider Kirstie a comic actress. So, we had to go through the process of looking at every other actress, [like] Sharon Stone, Kim Cattrall, Marg Helgenberger. And after this long process, NBC finally said, "Well, if they are that passionate about her, how can we deny [them]?"

How a cast member change went from worry of killing the show to saving it

Rebecca became the new manager at Cheers, making her Sam’s boss. This immediately shifted the power dynamics. Unlike Diane, Rebecca was immune to Sam’s charms and rebuffed all his advances. While Sam often acted as the straight man against Diane’s antics, the arrival of Rebecca allowed Sam to become more of a comedic foil, taking the character in a fun new direction.

The cast and crew at Cheers thought that Shelley Long’s departure would kill the show. In the end, the series ran for another six seasons after Long’s departure. Of the 28 Primetime Emmy Awards Cheers won during its 11-season run, 15 of them were awarded after Long left the series.

Shelley Long’s departure didn’t kill Cheers. It reinvented the show, allowing it to stay fresh and continue to be a ratings success.