Cheers' Writers Ran Into Some Trouble When Crafting John Cleese's Cameo Episode
The current generation will likely know John Cleese for his Tweets and his GB News project "The Dinosaur Hour," which recently saw him trading witticisms with Stephen Fry in a 12th-century castle for some reason. Which is a shame because at one time he was pretty much unanimously viewed as a British national treasure and comedy great. So much so that when he dropped in on the "Cheers" crowd back in the '80s, he basically caused the whole show to buckle under the weight of his reputation, at least until the writers managed to compose themselves enough to get his episode back on track.
Appearing in the season 5 installment "Simon Says," Cleese played Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, a renowned marriage counselor and friend of Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane, who at one time attended Oxford with the distinguished doctor. Presumably, in the "Cheers"-verse, Finch-Royce was also a friend of Alan Cornwall, Frasier's other old Oxford pal who's portrayed by British comedy legend, Nicholas Lyndhurst, on the neither disappointing nor remarkable "Frasier" revival that debuted in 2023.
Helmed by "Cheers" co-creator and illustrious sitcom director James Burrows, "Simon Says" saw Dr. Finch-Royce dragged into the long-running will-they/won't-they dynamic between Ted Danson's Sam and Shelley Long's Diane. After telling the couple they aren't right for each other, the doctor found himself hounded by Diane, who was insistent that he reconsider his view of the pair. Unable to take any more badgering, Cleese's character eventually relented and told Sam and Diane they're "the most perfectly matched couple on the face of the earth."
Matching Cleese with the "Cheers" dynamic, however, proved to be a tad difficult.
'We've managed to make John Cleese unfunny'
When John Cleese appeared on "Cheers," he was pretty much at the height of his career. "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and its lasting impact had established the comedian as one of the greats. That reputation was further cemented by Cleese's classic sitcom "Fawlty Towers," which ran on the BBC in the late 1970s and remains beloved to this day. Having the man on "Cheers" in 1987 was a big deal, then, even for a show that could claim to be the biggest sitcom of the decade at the time. Cleese was essentially comedy royalty.
As such, the "Cheers" writers initially wrote the episode around this great presence — a tactic that proved ineffective once table reads got underway. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, writer/producer Peter Casey (who co-created "Frasier" alongside fellow "Cheers" writers David Angell and David Lee) recounted the first-ever read-through, saying:
"John Cleese did a terrific episode. At the table read, the first act went gangbusters. And then we got into the second act and it started losing steam. We went to the writers' room. Glen paused and said, 'It seems impossible, but we've managed to make John Cleese unfunny.'"
Just how the writers managed to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat remains unclear (although the man himself has done a good job of it lately). But according to "Cheers" co-creator Les Charles, it had something to do with trying to make the show fit the man rather than the other way around. Per Charles:
"Cleese himself said, 'You're trying too hard to service me. I think you should make this the best 'Cheers' you can and let me be an actor in it.' That solved our problem."
Cleese almost came back
Whatever the writers did to fix the episode, it did indeed seem to solve the problem. Cleese even won an Emmy for his "Cheers" appearance, which would have ended his foray into the "Cheers"-verse on a high note if it wasn't for what was, according to one writer, a much less fortuitous follow-up that never came to be.
In a post on "Cheers" writer Ken Levine's blog, David Lee recalled that John Cleese was actually interested in returning to the show for a second episode after his first experience on the sitcom. As Lee remembered it, the season 7 episode "The Visiting Lecher" was originally written with Cleese in mind to reprise the role of Dr. Simon Finch-Royce. According to the writer, the crew were "thrilled that he was interested in coming back," and developed a story that would see the return of Finch-Royce. Lee continued:
"A great script resulted and was put into the production schedule. Shortly before they were scheduled to go into rehearsal, Mr. Cleese's people called up to inform us that he was, as I remember, 'too tired' or something and would not be doing the episode."
The episode was then apparently rewritten in a hurry to include a Dr. Lawrence Crandall, who unsurprisingly had a lot in common with Finch-Royce. Unfortunately, the whole debacle didn't do much for Cleese's reputation, with Lee adding that "the once fondly remembered name of Mr. Cleese was — how shall we put this? — Not." Still, it wouldn't be the last time the "Cheers" crew were stood up. Bill Clinton similarly expressed an interest in appearing in the 1993 series finale, only to cancel at the last minute. Perhaps he, too, can join Cleese in his castle sometime soon to reminisce about standing up the "Cheers" crew.