Give Me A Ring Sometime - Casting

Casting

The pilot introduces employees of the bar, Cheers, located in Boston, Massachusetts, in order of appearance:

• Sam Malone (Ted Danson) is a recovering alcoholic, a former baseball player, and a bartender and owner of Cheers.
• Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) is a highly-educated college student, a "bar's misfit", and abandoned by her lover Sumner Sloane. She becomes a waitress at the end.
• Ernie Pantusso (Nicholas Colasanto) is a "forgetful" bartender, who is nicknamed "Coach" and was Sam's baseball coach during Sam's career as a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
• Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) is a bitter divorcée, whose husband, Nick, abandons her and her four children.

The creators rejected the idea of casting a well-known star, such as Mary Tyler Moore, so they instead sought actors who were previously more unknown to the public eye. They interviewed almost 1,000 people for four principal characters: owner and bartender Sam Malone, academically-educated Diane Chambers, "a wisecracking, cynical waitress" Carla Tortelli, and "gravelly voiced bartender" Coach Ernie Pantusso. Steve Kolzak (credited as Stephen Kolzak) was in charge of casting original characters.

The roles of Sam and Diane were auditioned. Three pairs were tested: William Devane and Lisa Eichhorn, Fred Dryer and Julia Duffy, and Ted Danson and Shelley Long. Before the show premiered, Danson appeared in the 1979 film The Onion Field, and Long appeared in the 1982 film Night Shift, starring Henry Winkler of the television show Happy Days. Fred Dryer later appeared as Dave Richards, a sportscaster and one of Sam's friends, in "Sam at Eleven" (1982).

Originally, Sam Malone was "a former wide receiver for the New England Patriots," and Fred Dryer was initially considered for that role because he was a football player. However, NBC executives praised test scenes between Ted Danson and Shelley Long, so the creators chose this pair instead. Therefore, they transformed Sam into a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox baseball team. Ed O'Neill auditioned for the role of Sam Malone but did not win the part.

According to Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman was first to be cast and was cast as Carla. Perlman was previously seen in Taxi as a wife (and ex-wife in the show's final season) of Louie de Palma, played by her current husband Danny DeVito. Former umpire Ron Luciano auditioned for Coach but failed to get a part because producers "wanted an experienced actor". Actor Robert Prosky, who later appeared as Rebecca Howe's (Kirstie Alley) Navy father in Cheers episode "Daddy's Little Middle-Aged Girl" (1992) and an author in "A Crane's Critique" (1996), the episode of the Cheers spinoff Frasier, turned down the role of Coach. Therefore, Nicholas Colasanto, a director and actor, was cast as Coach. Colasanto appeared in the 1980 film Raging Bull, starring Robert De Niro.

We had some surprises. Some actors were terrific by themselves but not in concert with others. Each actor read the same scene. Everyone got the same chance. We were looking for actors who could make us laugh by being loyal to the characters. Then we matched them up. —Les Charles, United Press International, July 11, 1982 John Ratzenberger Their respective roles, Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin, were not originally considered until they auditioned for a minor role that was originally scripted.

In addition, the customers are introduced afterwards:

• Norm Peterson (George Wendt), whose first name is called by everyone in the bar, enters for a quick drink.
• Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) appears for a conversation with other male patrons for bar trivia.

Originally, there was neither Norm Peterson nor Cliff Clavin. George Wendt and John Ratzenberger originally auditioned for the same role, George, and Wendt was cast for that role. In the original script, George was Diane Chambers's first customer at the end of the episode. He could not bear Diane's long-winded explanation of becoming a waitress and had only one word in one line: "Beer!" Since Wendt was cast, the writers revised the script, and Wendt's role first expanded and then evolved into Norm Peterson as the first onscreen customer to enter the bar and " Diane rather than the other way around". Meanwhile, after Wendt took that one-liner role, who evolved into Norm, Ratzenberger suggested to the producers that a know-it-all character must be added, and that suggestion led to the addition of another character Cliff Clavin.