Many years ago, I wrote a script for the TV series, Cheers. I don't mention it much since it wasn't produced but basically, when I was on hiatus from another job and had something almost resembling free time, the producers there asked me to write one. We came up with an idea that would have involved booking a certain very funny actor as a guest.
They told me that if they could get the guy, they'd film my script and if they couldn't get the guy, they wouldn't…and they couldn't get the guy so they didn't. I wasn't too bothered by this and not just because I got paid anyway. Yeah, it would have been a nice credit but I'm sure that if the actor had been available, the fine staff there would have rewritten at least 90% of what I handed in…so it would have been a credit for work that really wasn't mine. I've gotten a few of those and while they look great on your résumé, they always make me a little uncomfy. It feels especially odd when friends who see the show broadcast will cite a line I didn't write and say, "When I heard that, I said to myself, 'Ah, that's pure Evanier!'"
A year or two after that, my agent sent me to meet with a producer who was seeking writers for a new series. After the initial amenities and my customary joke/explanation of my last name, she said, "Your agent told me you'd written for Cheers. I love that series. Which episode was yours?" I explained mine had never gotten before a camera and I told her why. She gave me an odd look and moved quickly on to other questions. It wasn't the friendliest of meetings and I left with the feeling that I wasn't going to be hired and if by some chance she wanted me, I didn't particularly want to work on that show. As things turned out, I wasn't hired and the show was cancelled some time between the opening titles and the middle commercial. Which just goes to show you. If they'd hired me, I bet it would have lasted all the way to the end credits.
Several months later, that producer called me and said, "I want to apologize. When you told me you'd written a Cheers and it hadn't been filmed, I thought, 'Well, I just caught this guy in a lie.' This afternoon at lunch, I ran into David Lloyd [whose credits on Cheers were legendary and indisputable] and I told him how I once caught a writer lying about writing a Cheers and when I mentioned your name, he said, 'Oh, yeah. I remember he did a script but we couldn't get the guest star we needed for it.' She said she was sorry about eight different ways then added, "Maybe I did you a favor by not hiring you on that show of mine." Probably.
A few of my friends knew about my adventures with Cheers, including one who worked at Jim Davis's big studio in Muncie, Indiana. That's where Jim runs the Garfield Empire and on one of my visits back there, I was taken to the Cheers bar…which is still there. This is not a Cheers bar in Boston. It's in Muncie and apart from the name, the logo on the sign outside and some pictures on the walls and furnishings (glasses, coffee mugs, etc.), it doesn't have anything to do with the one on TV. I don't know if it's licensed or franchised or unauthorized or anything of the sort. But my friend thought it would be fun to take "a real Cheers writer" to lunch there and introduce him to the owner. The place served a pretty good hamburger but the owner couldn't have cared less. He didn't even ask me which episode(s) I'd written.
Last week while back in Muncie, I passed the place and I couldn't resist. I stopped my rental car and took a photo, not because of the "Cheers" sign out front but because of what was below it: "Cornhole Tournament?" "Cornhole Tournament!???"
Apparently, it's a game played with beanbags. That's not what I would have expected if I'd seen that sign in West Hollywood.