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File:Sam and Diane late 1980s.jpg

Shelley Long as Diane Chambers (left) and Ted Danson as Sam Malone

Sam Malone and Diane Chambers, also known as Sam and Diane, are a fictional couple from the American television series Cheers. The on-off relationship of Sam, a "working class", retired athlete turned bartender and ladies' man, and Diane, a "snobby," "overeducated" cocktail waitress, is one of the best-known examples of the "delayed romance" theme in situation comedy and a "most-celebrated proof of the `opposites attract theory'."

The relationship of Sam and Diane inspired many fictional couples of other television shows, such as The X-Files and Friends, with similar themes of sexual tension and delayed romance. Critics consider Sam and Diane to have been inspired by prior couples, such as those of television show Rhoda and the play Much Ado About Nothing. The relationship has received mixed reactions from critics and audiences.

Sam Malone was portrayed by Ted Danson, and Diane Chambers was portrayed by Shelley Long. Long regularly appeared as Diane Chambers from the 1982 series premiere "Give Me a Ring Sometime" to the Season 5 finale "I Do, Adieu" (1987). Long made one special appearance as Diane Chambers in the 1993 series finale "One for the Road." Danson remained on Cheers as Sam Malone from "Give Me a Ring Sometime" (1982) to "One for the Road" (1993). Kirstie Alley was cast in the role of Rebecca Howe after Long's departure, from the Season 6 premiere "Home is the Sailor" (1987) to "One for the Road" (1993).

Casting and development

The original concept of Sam and Diane was of the "love-hate" relationship between the executive businesswoman and the ex-athlete, inspired by works about "mixture of romance and antagonism of two people, , in a competitive situation." The concept evolved into a "pretentious, college-student relationship with Sam," an ex-baseball player. After Shelley Long's departure, the original concept was revisited, with Long's replacement, Kirstie Alley, as Rebecca Howe.

Before Cheers premiered in September 1982, the creators Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows were holding auditions for two other actors and two other actresses besides Shelley Long and Ted Danson for the roles of Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. Two other pairs were tested: William Devane and Lisa Eichhorn, and Fred Dryer and Julia Duffy.

Originally, Sam Malone was supposed "to be a former wide receiver for the New England Patriots," and Fred Dryer was initially chosen for that role due to his status as a former football player. NBC executives witnessed the chemistry between Ted Danson and Shelley Long, so the creators chose Ted Danson instead. Sam then evolved into a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

I had auditioned for Jimmy Burrows maybe a year or two beforehand, for a show that I did not get, and he remembered me. And then when we actually auditioned for it in front of the network and everything, they had three actors and three actresses to play Sam and Diane and they had a little stage set up, and it was this little act-off, you know, where each couple would come out and do a scene and then leave, then the other couple would come out, and that - I think I got the part because Shelley and I were good together. Shelley was remarkable, and I think I got the part because Shelley was so good, and I worked well with Shelley, to be honest. I think that's how that happened.
— Ted Danson, NPR, September 17, 2009

In January 1983, Shelley Long said: "the core" of Cheers are Sam and Diane because of the "chemistry" and the resistance toward each other, yet the producers felt that the relationship must consummate at the right time. Even the creators stated that Long and Danson "were easier to write for and had more potential than ." A TV critic, Mike Booke, wrote, "Sam and Diane had nothing in common beyond a mutual physical attraction which he spent the first season trying to exploit while she kept him at bay with witty put-downs".

Charles brothers remarked in 1984: Sam and Diane love and abhor each other, especially in the first two years (1982–1984), with physical and intellectual attraction, honesty and dishonesty, and arguments toward each other.

Pregnancy of Shelley Long

In Season 3 (1984–1985), Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was introduced as Diane's boyfriend and a rival of Sam Malone and intended by producers as part of their love triangle. Meanwhile, in summer 1984, Shelley Long was married to stockbroker Bruce Tyson and pregnant with his child, and the storyline of Diane Chambers's out-of-wedlock pregnancy was planned with "health, diet, and exercise," as the father of the child would have been either Sam or Frasier. Eventually, however, the producers deemed the pregnancy plan as undesirable and abandoned it. Instead, Diane became written as childless, and Diane and Frasier were written to be wed in Europe. During the filming of Season 3, Long was shot on camera either from above her waist or while she stood behind the bar, to disguise her pregnancy. In March, she gave birth to a baby girl.

Departure of Shelley Long

Sam and Diane were the center of 'Cheers' as a partnership, and now the partnership is gone. There will be huge comparisons made.

—Ted Danson, The New York Times, September 23, 1987

In December 15, 1986, Shelley Long decided to leave the permanent cast of Cheers as Diane Chambers, even though she and Ted " done some really terrific work at Cheers". Instead, she wanted to pursue a movie career and family. The creators, in February 1987, decided to find a female lead replacement whose hair was not blonde and who did not resemble Shelley Long. Meanwhile, Ted Danson signed a contract for Season Six (1987–1988).

During production of the Season Five finale, "I Do, Adieu" (1987), the producers were developing stories to separate Sam and Diane, to keep Sam and write Diane out, without risking quality and alienating the audience; some ideas were discarded by producers, such as the conception of Sam and Diane's child, as Sam would have been a single father and Diane a deadbeat mother, and another man to take Diane away from Sam. The eventual decision was to write Diane out by having her leave to pursue her writing. Before the completion of the Season Five finale, three endings were filmed: 1) Sam and Diane become married; 2) Diane accepts an offer to finish a novel; 3) not revealed by creators.

The producers, as James Burrows explained, intended Cheers to be a comedy about " bar with a relationship in the bar" as its initial premise since the show's 1982 debut. Eventually, "the relationship became very strong and dominated the bar," said Burrows. If Shelley Long stayed longer after "I Do, Adieu" (1987), Sam and Diane would have been married, and the show would have been a "domestic sitcom," been predominated by their marriage, and lost its initial premise, the "bar"; Burrows found this possibility "unappealing." When Long decided to leave Cheers, the producers made plans to do "major retooling" while retaining the initial premise, and then credited Long's departure for " the series" survive. As Les Charles observed, Sam was a "straight man" to Diane; after Long's departure, he became more "carefree" and a "goof-off."

Storyline

In the series premiere, "Give Me a Ring Sometime" (1982), Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), a college student, comes to Cheers and meets Sam Malone (Ted Danson), a recovering alcoholic and a womanizer, for the first time. While she waits for her fiancé Sumner (Michael McGuire), Diane realizes that Sumner is not coming back to her, and she is jobless and penniless, with nothing else left in her life. Sam offers Diane a job as a cocktail waitress, and she accepts.

During Season 1 (1982-1983), Sam and Diane are involved in numerous scenes of romance and flirtation, yet their relationship never consummates until the Season 1 finale, "Showdown, Part 2" (1983). During Season 2 (1983-1984), the relationship of Sam and Diane continues but eventually goes sour; in the Season 2 finale, "I'll Be Seeing You, Part 2" (1984), Sam and Diane break up.

Sam and Diane have other relationships in Seasons 3 (1984-1985) and 4 (1985-1986) after their first on-screen breakup. Months before the two-part Season 3 premiere in 1984, "Rebound," Diane starts dating Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), a rival of Sam in Season Three who becomes a friend of Sam in later seasons of Cheers. Meanwhile, spurred by the collapse of his romance with Diane, Sam begins simultaneously relapsing into alcoholism and womanizing. With the help of Diane and Frasier, Sam regains his sobriety. In the three-part episode, "Strange Bedfellows" (1986), Sam dates an intellectual politician (Kate Mulgrew), a rival of Diane.

In Season 5 (1986-1987), Sam proposes to Diane numerous times, yet Diane rejects numerous times until she finally accepts in "Chambers vs. Malone" (1987). In the Season 5 finale, "I Do, Adieu" (1987), Sumner, Diane's ex-fiancé, returns to Cheers to give Diane a proposal for her writing career. Sam and Diane postpone the wedding, and then their relationship, so she leaves Boston, including Cheers, to pursue her writing career.

In the series finale, "One for the Road," Sam and Diane are reunited after a six year gap, engaged again, and planning to move together to Los Angeles. However, they have second thoughts about their relationship and end it once more. Sam returns to Boston, and Diane returns to Los Angeles.

Reception

Some considered them influenced by Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and Joe (David Groh) of 1970s show Rhoda, with respect to the decline of the show and of the relationship itself, especially after marriage and divorce, and Beatrice and Benedick of the Shakespearean play Much Ado About Nothing.

According to the April 1–4, 1993, telephone survey of 1,011 people by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center), Sam Malone was voted a favorite of 26%, and Diane Chambers was a favorite of 4%. For a question as to whom he should marry, 21% voted Diane Chambers, 19% voted Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), 48% voted Sam to stay single, and 12% had "no opinion" on this matter. Critics and celebrities debated whether Sam should be with either Rebecca or Diane, and a novelist-archaeologist Clive Cussler perceived Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) as "Sam's best bet."

Critical reaction

James Burrows: The three of us have been with Sam and Diane a long time, and we're a little tired of their shenanigans.

Les Charles: A little bored and amazed America was so passionate about them.

September 23, 1987, The New York Times

The relationship of Sam and Diane has received mixed reviews. Some critics observed that, once the relationship was consummated, and the sexual tension removed, the subsequent relationship of Sam and Diane may have alienated the audience somewhat. The number of stories about Sam and Diane may have simultaneously been too dominant in Cheers, whilst ideas had been rather exhausted.

Walter Podrazik, the co-author of Watching TV, considers the couple, Sam and Diane, the central focus of Cheers until Shelley Long left in 1987. Because Cheers was percieved to be dominated by Sam and Diane during Season Two (1983–1984), even some people felt that Cheers, even if it won, did not deserve to win Outstanding Comedy Series of 1984 Emmy Awards.

A TV critic, Rick Sherwood, was concerned that abandoning the "love-hate" romance of Sam and Diane, especially during Season 3 (1984–1985), would take away Cheers's "edge" and alienate some viewers, and that re-introducing the initial premise in later seasons, such as Season Three, of Cheers would not help resolve matters. Even a 1984–1985 love triangle storyline of Sam, Diane, and Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), introduced as her then-"love interest" and Sam's then-rival, did not increase Sherwood's interests on the television series. Nevertheless, in 1985, Sherwood was relieved that he enjoyed the show again in Season Four (1985–1986), yet he called an affair of Sam and Diane the end of "excitement of the chase" between Sam and Diane.

Some considered them "mismatched as baseball spikes and dress pumps." In the 2003 journal article, Sam and Diane are called "a pair of frustrated lovers." Julia Ward from Huffington Post considers their relationship one of "inevitable, yet doomed romances."

Breakups of Sam and Diane have been reviewed. Oliver Miller from Huffington Post called their breakups "devestating" and their last on-screen breakup in the 1993 series finale, "One for the Road," "an absurd protracted double-gut-punch break-up." Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly called their breakup in the Season Five finale, "I Do, Adieu," (1987), one of "all-time best TV breakup scenes." At the 2009 Comic-Con, Johnny Galecki, the actor of the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, "pointed out that not all couples meet, get together, and marry" and called the relationship of Sam and Diane "an example of a non-traditional relationship" with "awkward breakup stories."

Erich Kuersten from Bright Lights Film Journal criticizes this couple for agonizing viewers by their "will-they-or-won't-they" tensions and relationship consummations, even when an amount of seasons is enough. In 2010, Sharon Knolle of Huffington Post ranks them #4 of the top 10 "Worst TV Couples Ever." In 2012, Steve Silverman from the Screen Junkies website considered Diane "too needy and insecure for anyone, , to have a legitimate relationship with."

On the other hand, relationship between Sam and Diane has received positive reviews. In the book Let's Get Together: Building Community in the Church, the relationship of Sam and Diane is considered full of "childish love banter and tumultuous romance" yet intrigues the author. Critics from The A.V. Club consider the relationship of Sam and Diane not a ruination of Cheers. One critic from CraveOnline credits Sam and Diane to make Cheers one of "the Best TV Romance Shows" as of January 28, 2011. Noel Murray from The A.V. Club calls them one of "10 TV Romances For The Ages." Xfinity considers them one of "the 50 Greatest TV Characters" of all-time, their relationship "one of TV's greatest on-and-off love-hate relationships," and their kiss one of "Top 20 TV Kisses" of all-time.

In 1993 from TV Times, a TV listing magazine of Los Angeles Times, George Wendt, portrayer of Cheers character Norm Peterson, declared "the first two or three years" of stories of Sam and Diane as his favorite of Cheers. In 2002, one critic of The Boston Globe considered Sam and Diane one of "TV's classic couples." In 2004, they were ranked by cable channel Bravo #50 of "Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters" of all-time. In that same year, Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered the couple one of her favorite couples from sitcoms. In 2007, IGN ranked Sam and Diane #1 of the IGN's Top 10 Favorite TV Couples. In 2008, the blog Mostly Modern Media called their relationship a type of "can’t live with, can’t live without" and "wonderfully complex."

Analysis and impact

In 1994, Bret Watson from Entertainment Weekly addressed bartender Sam's flirtation on waitress Diane as a political incorrectness of "sexual harassment" by 1990s standards.

In the book Primetime Propaganda, an author Ben Shapiro analyzes Sam and Diane as each other's opposites, who clash each other over class and then resolve their differences. Sam Malone is represented as a "lower-class conservative" and considered "a dog, a femininist caricature of men." Diane is represented as an "elitist liberal" of a "high culture" and is considered "the conscience of the show and solid feminist," who outsmarts Sam and other male lower-class conservatives over morality. Diane's taunting toward Sam and his class " the first inkling of the yuppie conundrum that would haunt liberals throughout the 1980s."

Later then, Diane starts to ease "her disdain for Sam and to learn from his blue-collar authenticity;" Sam starts to appreciate her intelligence and beauty. In the Season One episode, "No Contest" (1983), Sam registers Diane into a beauty contest of waitresses; Diane objects as a feminist. Eventually, Diane becomes "the sexualized feminist the liberated woman" by accepting prizes that she won, including a trip to Bermuda with "a gentleman."

Inspiration of other couples

Sam (Ted Danson) and Diane are one of opposite-sex couples of the 1980s and early 1990s with sexual tension, delayed consummation, and viewer titillation. Other couples of that era are Laura (Stephanie Zimbalist) and Remington (Pierce Brosnan) of Remington Steele, David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepard) of Moonlighting, Angela (Judith Light) and Tony (Tony Danza) of Who's the Boss?, Sam and Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) of Cheers, and many more.

Media have analyzed Sam and Diane in, usually, terms of sexual tension and delayed romance along with other couples to whom they compare. Producers of Moonlighting and a female character of the novel When Angels Fail to Fly compare them to David and Maddie of Moonlighting for sexual tension. As an example of "The Odd Couple" metaphor, they are compared to a gay male character Will (Eric McCormack) and a straight female character Grace (Debra Messing) of Will & Grace.

Sam and Diane are considered inspiration of television couples of later era by media. In 2010, Erich Kuersten from Bright Lights Film Journal compared them to other two pairs in terms of "'will they or won't they’ " and "'put up or shut up' ": Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) of the series Friends, and Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) of The X-Files. In the 2011 book, The Philosophy of Charlie Kaufman, Sam and Diane were compared to Ned (Thomas Haden Church) and Stacey (Debra Messing) of Ned & Stacey. In the 2012 Huffington Post article, Laura Prepon compares them to Chelsea (Laura Prepon) and Rick (Jake McDorman) of Are You There, Chelsea?

On the other hand, Sam and Diane are contrasted to an investigation pair, Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni), of the crime drama Law & Order: SVU, who, despite presumed chemistry between them, according to Hargitay, would not be planned to be paired romantically by producers in the meantime.

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Notes

The margin of error in the survey was ±3, according to sources.
In 1994, the 1990s standards were "today's standards."

v t e Cheers
Seasons	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Episodes	"Give Me a Ring Sometime" "Coach's Daughter" "The Boys in the Bar" "Showdown" "Thanksgiving Orphans" "I Do, Adieu" "Home Is the Sailor" "The Gift of the Woodi" "What Is... Cliff Clavin?" "Woody Interruptus" "One for the Road"
Characters	Sam Malone Diane Chambers Coach Ernie Pantusso Carla Tortelli Norm Peterson Cliff Clavin Frasier Crane Woody Boyd Lilith Sternin Rebecca Howe
Spin-offs and related series	The Tortellis Wings Frasier revival series Cheers (Spanish TV series)
Other	Awards "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" Sam and Diane Cheers Beacon Hill "Fear of Flying" (The Simpsons)
Category