One more question...

Hey, I love you guys! Thanks for so many GREAT questions. Will try to get to all of them. But thought I'd sneak in one more.

From John:

Since you had the "get well Kelsey" thread below, I was wondering if Grammer's Frasier Crane character was meant to be ongoing past a single season when he was first conceived, or was the writers ability to find new angles to Kelsey's character -- and his ability to play more than just the clueless yuppie boyfriend he started off as in Season 3 -- the reason why he became a regular on "Cheers"?

Kelsey was originally only supposed to be in the first few episodes of season three. He was conceived as a "Ralph Bellamy" and by that I mean, Ralph Bellamy was always the "other" guy, the poor schmuck eventually getting dumped. See HIS GIRL FRIDAY or just about any other romcom that Ralph Bellamy is in.

The storyline to begin season three had Diane briefly admitted to a sanitarium and Dr. Frasier Crane was her shrink. Then it's learned that they are lovers. Please skip over the horrible breach of ethics. In short, he was just a device to make Sam jealous.

But in the parlance of comedy writing, Kelsey really scored. He proved to be so funny and interesting that the Charles Brothers kept finding new reasons to bring him back. And then when Shelley became pregnant they came up with the ingenious idea to have Diane and Frasier go off to Europe (so they could pre-shoot all those scenes and have something to show once Shelley had something to show).

Shelley Long story short, he became a series regular. And my favorite character in CHEERS to write for.