Ted Danson Says It Was Sometimes Hard to Be in Same Room As Shelley Long

Ted Danson and Shelley Long were randomly selected to audition together for the Sam and Diane parts in the classic sitcom Cheers. “That must have just sealed it because you and Shelley had the most incredible sitcom chemistry,” concluded Will Arnett in a conversation with Danson on Smartless.

“Magic,” agreed Sean Hayes.

“Ted, you guys must have felt that was instant, right?” asked Arnett. “It was inescapable.”

Nope. In fact, Danson thought the pairing was a huge mistake. “My first reaction to Shelley while we were auditioning was, ‘Oh no, no, that’s a bad, bad idea. Horrible.’”

The Smartless guys were gobsmacked. What was the problem?

“I don’t know,” Danson admitted. “We’re so different. Our styles, our approach, our everything is really different. Which is why I think it worked because it was like this fair fight. It was hard for us sometimes to be in the room together, but when we started working, it was just fantastic. Because youvd smack her, and she’d smack you back harder. She was just brilliant.”

To be clear, Danson was talking about “smacking” in the metaphorical sense — Sam and Diane often engaged in passionate verbal fights that led to furious physical encounters of a less violent form. 

All the Shelley Long talk gave Arnett a chance to discuss his all-time favorite sitcom scene. “The funniest moment in TV history for me is this moment where Shelley Long goes, ‘You’ll never see Diane Chambers ever again. This is the last time you’ll ever hear from me.’ Ted and Woody and all those guys are standing there, they’re all watching. She makes this grand farewell, and then all of a sudden, you see the door open. She realized she forgot her coat. And you see her arm come in and start to reach for the coat rack.”

As Diane’s hand searches for the coat, Carla discreetly pulls the rack just out of reach. “And then finally she falls through the door and Carla goes, ‘Hey everybody, look, it’s Diane.’” 

“Every part of that joke to me, every bit of it just fucking works,” said Arnett. “It just makes me laugh.”

“You know it’s coming too,” marveled Jason Bateman. “You’re sort of like in awe of the way they’re still getting it through the hoop.” 

Danson reminisced about believing he was about to land the Cheers job, only to leave his fourth or fifth audition to see “every actor in L.A.” lined up outside an office to read for the part. So it was a good thing he got paired with the right actress. “I think I got Cheers because of Shelley Long,” Danson confessed. “She really nailed that part right out. She was amazing.”