Nick at Nite used to be the last bastion of full length, uncut reruns on tv. Alas, tis no more. They cut and compress like the rest of 'em. At least so I’ve read. I haven’t had a tv at home in years. (When I did, I mostly watched Nick at Night, though.)
Ratzenberger originally tried out for the role of Norm. When he didn’t get the role, he pitched the idea of the Cliff Clavin character to the show’s producers. They agreed to include him as a minor character to start.
This makes even less sense, then. Why should Wendt get hosed this way? I think he was a fan favorite.
I’m almost positive the theme was compressed during the show’s initial broadcast run, around the same time Lilith became a regular cast member.
hi all I know this is a shocker of a necro, post. i remember a while back an interview featuring Ted Danson the guy holding up the “We win” newspaper was one of the original cast or production crew who died and it was i believe done as a tribute to him, however i cant remember the details. It was in looking for clarification of the matter, that i stumbled across this post if anyone out there knows the story. I would sure appreaciate it if you could educate me 
as to the facts thanks.
OP - are you George Wendt?
This is what I’ve always assumed. Carla didn’t get a face because she got a sexy pair of legs instead. Makes perfect sense actually.
One thing I have always noticed though is that the final guy (the think man holding up the class) looks a lot like Niles from “Frasier.”
The question is based upon the assumption that the credits were designed to appear over pictures of people who represented the actors being credited. Occam’s Razor says it simply may be that no connection between the names and the pictures was intended; they just picked photos they liked and put them into the montage, then added the names later.
I’ve always thought that the green dress on Sexy-Legs Woman was similar to some of the dresses that Carla wore for special occasions: short, tight, a little wacky.
What does Occam’s Razor say about the fact that Woody’s picture is an almost perfect likeness of the real Woody Harrelson?
No, it’s quite clear the images are meant to evoke the actors they’re paired with.
I am pretty sure that, background pictures notwithstanding, George Wendt was getting excellent billing, almost as good as Danson and Long, by being placed last, after the “and”. That is the name that you remember as the credits end, and I am pretty sure it is a billing slot that actors fight to get. It seems as though, originally, Danson, Long and Wendt were considered the stars and the other characters were expected to be relatively minor. As the show developed, however, it became more of an ensemble, with Karla, Cliff and Coach (and later additions, like Frasier and Woody) becoming much more prominent. Other significant early characters, like Sumner Sloan, faded out quickly. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the original plan was that Cliff would only appear in a couple of early episodes, and was not planned as a continuing character at all.
Another point about George Wendt’s billing: I always notice that just as the song ends with the line “You want to go where everybody knows your name,” the words “and George Wendt” appear on the screen. I do not know whether this was intentional, but it always struck me as rather a neat pun, and it makes the George Wendt name even more noticeable than it is simply in virtue of being last, after the “and”.
In sum, no way is Wendt being slighted in the billing. If anything the rest of the cast is being slighted relative to him. He gets better billing than is warranted by his character’s importance to the ensemble.
Old thread, but what the hell. Here’s another vote for “it’s what they had.” A lot of decisions in creative fields are based on getting things done within deadline and budget. My guess is that someone got an idea of using old-timey images for the opening and they saw a few photos that were analogous to some of the characters. They used those ones and then rather than send out for additional libraries of vintage photos, they moved on to the next job. So Rhea P is a pair of legs, rather than a short, older, working class, barmaid. It’s easier to find an old-timey picture of a pair of legs.
Time and money.
Most likely the reference here is to the character “Coach” Ernie Pantuso, played by Nicholas Colasanto, who died in 1985 after the third season of Cheers. There is a photograph of Geronimo on the set that can be often seen in shots that represents both the character and the actor. In the very last scene of the final episode, as Ted Danson walks to the back of the bar he straightens the photo.
It’s possible that the “We win” guy is somehow tied into that but I don’t think so. That was there before he died.
I believe George Wendt’s “picture” was given at least a few seconds more time in the first couple of seasons. At that point, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth were not in the opening credits, so they had more time for each person. Plus, when Kirstie Alley joined, she had a separate credit screen (as opposed to the shared screen that Ted Danson & Shelley long got) so now they had to squeeze in a lot more in the same amount of time. As for why only Wendt’s part got trimmed, I’m not really sure, but I do know that he had more in the early seasons.
BTW, I have a set of books I got at a library used-book sale many years ago called “This Fabulous Century.” It was from 1970 and the idea was to have a separate book for each decade, although 1870-1900 got lumped together. In one of those books, I believe the 1870-1900 one, I saw several of the images from the Cheers credits, including the Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrelson ones.
No wonder we never got to see inside Barad-Dur. The Dark Lord was Norm! 
Keep in mind this thread is nearly a decade old. It was bumped to ask about the “Coach” question.
I knew exactly what the OP was going to be about the second I saw the thread title (and no, I did not see this thread when it was first started). I used to wonder the same thing every time I watched Cheers and I could swear I read that the placement of the photos was completely unintentional. I know that’s not very helpful without a cite, but just my .02 to go along with **Reality Chuck’s **theory.
Sauron’s kid is nine now!
Is it my imagination, or did the first appearance of Cliff portray him as an annoying know it all who actually did know some obscure facts as opposed to him later being just full of BS?
YouTube to the rescue!
Here’s the original opening for Cheers. It’s 63 seconds long, with the credits starting 30 seconds in.
Danson/Long comes first – on-screen 4 seconds
Nicolas Colasanto, Rhea Perlman and George Wendt each get three seconds.
Note that there’s absolutely no relationship between the Danson/Long and Colosanto credits and the images behind the names. Rhea Perlman is backed by the green dress and legs, and the image behind George Wendt’s name shifts from the portly man to the “We Win” bartender midway through.
Now here’s the opening from the final episode. It’s a tad shorter (about 61 seconds), and of course, there are more names – each is featured for 2 seconds instead of the original 3.
Notice, however, that while Danson, Kirstie Alley, Woody Harrelson, John Ratzenberger and Kelsey Grammer (also Bebe Neuwerth when she was in the opening credits) now are backed by images that look like their characters, the backgrounds for Rhea Perlman and George Wendt are still the same.
It looks as if originally there wasn’t any relationship intended between the stars’ names and the images behind them, and that the portly man behind George Wendt was coincidence. As the series continued, I guess someone got the idea of making the images match the characters, but never got around to re-editing for Perlman and Wendt.
sh1bu1 Yes, Cliff was originally written as a guy who knew weird stuff, but as his character was expanded, so were the BS and weirdness factors.
Not sure I agree. The Danson/Long image, after all, is a young man and a young woman, and the George Wendt image I believe looks too much like Wendt to be a coincidence.
The Colasanto image is the worst match. Curiously enough, the second Wendt image–the “WE WIN” guy they cut to, while Wendt’s name is still on the screen–would have been a much better Colasanto match. He’s even wearing a white shirt and tie, and the “WE WIN” headline evokes sports.
In fact, until I saw the video, I was sure that “WE WIN” originally had been the Colasanto match. But no.
I would say, as the series went on, they got better about matching the images and characters. But I believe the idea was there from the beginning.
I have one more question–who were “WE”, and what did we “WIN”?