This is a list of characters from the American television sitcom, Cheers.
Before the Cheers pilot, "Give Me a Ring Sometime", was finalized and then aired in 1982, the series originally consisted of four employees of Cheers, the bar, in the original script. There was neither Norm Peterson nor Cliff Clavin, regular customers of Cheers; later revisions added them as part of the series.
Samuel "Mayday" Malone (Ted Danson) — a bartender and owner of Cheers. Sam is also a . Before the series began, he was a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox when he became (and still is) a friend of Coach, but then he became alcoholic, which took a toll on his baseball career. He has had on-again, off-again relationships with Diane Chambers, his opposite, in the first five seasons (1982–1987). During the breaks in their relationship Sam has flings with many not-so-bright "sexy women", but doesn't pursue relationships and fails to seduce some intellectual women.
After Diane leaves Boston, he pursues Rebecca Howe, unsuccessfully. In the end, he is still unmarried, recovering from sexual addiction with help from Dr. Robert Sutton's (Gilbert Lewis) group meetings, advised by Frasier, in the penultimate episode "The Guy Can't Help It" (1993). Sam Malone was originally written as a former football player, but the casting of Ted Danson led writers to change Sam into an ex-baseball player.
Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) — a highly academic, sophisticated college student. In the pilot, Diane is abandoned by her fiancé Sumner Sloan (Michael McGuire), for whom she'd worked as an assistant, as he returns to his ex-wife. Without a job, money, or man, she reluctantly becomes a cocktail waitress. Over time, she becomes a close friend of Coach. She has an on-and-off relationship with bartender Sam Malone. When not involved with Sam, Diane dates men who fit her upper-class ideals, such as Frasier Crane. Later in the fifth season, she leaves Boston behind for a writing career and in the eleventh and final season lives in Los Angeles.