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Don’t let George Wendt’s mild-mannered portrayal of loyal “Cheers” regular Norm Peterson fool you; the late actor had some pretty wild times with the cast.
Wendt, who died on Tuesday at 76 years old after suffering from health issues, was cast on “Cheers” in 1982 following an audition that involved just one word: “beer.”
But his subtle comedic timing and authenticity quickly made his character an icon of 1980s television.
Wendt reunited with former “Cheers” cast members Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson last year on their “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast, and the trio quickly began to reminisce about the shenanigans they got up to, which closely resembled the way their characters joked around with each other.
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George Wendt drinking with the cast of “Cheers” outside of the Boston pub that served as the exterior of the bar on the show during a live episode of “The Tonight Show” in 1993. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Danson revealed that when the cast noticed during rehearsals that another actor was “having trouble with a pretty hefty speech or something, we would get glints in our eyes and we would go ‘Oh, we’ll be there for you on the night.’”
But instead of being supportive while filming, the cast would shoot spitballs at the actor.
He continued of Wendt, “And there was actually a shot, I think, or at least this is the urban legend, where you can see a spitball in your hairline where one of us had managed to land one while you were doing your [speech].”
“I’ll never forget I hit you right in the uvula once,” Wendt replied. “You were laughing like that and your mouth was that open, and I saw it, and it was a Zen moment.”
Danson also remembered the time the cast got drunk before going live on air with Jey Leno to do a special interview following the last episode of the show in 1993.
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He said the cast was brought into Boston’s Bowl and Finch Pub, which served as the bar’s exterior on the show, early in the afternoon hours before they went live on “The Tonight Show.”
“What do you do at a bar? You start drinking, and later you start smoking, so by the time literally that Jay Leno, he looked up from his notes, and they were going, ‘five, four, three, two..,’ he looked up and saw us all really for the first time and his eyes start to spin going, ‘Oh my –.’ We got a lot of s— for that, remember?” Danson said.
George Wendt as Norm Peterson on “Cheers.” (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Wendt said that may have been Leno’s first live show, adding that the “Tonight Show” host might have never done another live show again after that.
“I wouldn’t blame him, we were in poor shape to be doing anything,” Harrelson said.
Wendt, who came from an improv background at Chicago’s Second City, revealed that the cast kept the show fresh through its eleventh season by not over-rehearsing, which they may have overdone.
“After a while, John [Ratzenberger] and I would be sitting there next to each other – I’m talking about year eight or nine or something – and they’d go , ‘OK, next scene, standby,’ and I’d look at John and say, ‘Any idea?’ He’d go, ‘Nope.’ … So, you’d prayed that the first line wasn’t your bit.”
The cast also like to prank each other.
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Danson remembered that around six months after he’d “pantsed” Harrelson during a show, Wendt and Kirstie Alley, who came onto the show as bar manager Rebecca Howe in the sixth season, and Wendt got him back.
He said he went into his dressing room to take a shower and Wendt knocked on the door and says, “‘You mind if I come in and shave while you’re in the shower?’ I went, ‘No, that’s fine.’ So, the door is primed by you to be open. And I can’t quite remember, I think you dove in, grabbed the shower door and swung it open and Kirstie took a Polaroid of me in all my glory. And then it showed up during the wrap party.”
The cast of “Cheers.” ( Aaron Rapoport/Corbis via Getty Images)
In fact, Wendt and Ratzenberger, who played know-it-all Cliff, helped Alley start the show with a bang.
In 2023, during a cast reunion at the ATX TV Festival in Austin, Texas, Wendt said the cast was having dinner before Alley’s first show when they realized they should have bought the actress – who wasn’t at the dinner – a gift.
Danson, Harrelson, and Rhea Perlman, who played Carla on the show, all said they were busy, so Wendt and Ratzenberger were entrusted to get the gift.
While driving down Melrose in Hollywood, they saw a Big 5 Sporting Goods store.
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“And John goes, ‘You wanna buy her a shotgun?'” Wendt told the audience.
“And, like you, I laughed for about five minutes,” he told the crowd. “And then immediately pulled into the parking lot, and we bought her a freakin’ shotgun.… John and I were never tasked with the gifts again.”
Ratzenberger added, “I think you even wrote on the card, ‘You’re gonna have to shoot your way out.’”
“Cheers” star George Wendt died peacefully in his sleep on May 20. He was 76. (Getty Images)
Wendt told the “Still Here Hollywood” podcast last December that the cast was “horrified” by the present, but “Kirstie loved it.”
On Danson and Harrelson’s podcast, Wendt recalled the time the men in the cast played “hooky” from the show during a “female-heavy” episode focused on Shelley Long’s character Diane and Perlman’s Carla.
“John had just bought a boat, and he was anxious to show it off, so we cooked up this getaway,” Wendt said.
Danson said when he and Harrelson arrived at the boat they were “already stoned” and they all called into the show from a payphone saying they weren’t feeling well.
“I think somebody said, ‘I’m seasick, heh heh,’” Wendt, added, joking, “I got peer pressured.”
Danson said before the ride, Harrelson got him to try mushrooms for the first time.
“And ate, I think, an extraordinary amount of mushrooms,” he added.
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The men then took off for Catalina, a resort island off the coast of Los Angeles, and quickly hit leftover waves from a hurricane in Mexico.
“There was still a huge swell, so people not on mushrooms would be seasick pretty much. But I sat there getting more and more freaked out and whatever it is you get, stoned, or whatever it is on mushrooms,” the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star remembered.
Danson said that he saw Harrelson looking relaxed, stretched out on a bunk, so he decided to go up on deck to attempt to calm down.
He told Wendt: “And I came and sat down next to you, and you looked at me and you went, ‘You’re high on something aren’t you?’ I kind of nodded sheepishly and John was like, ‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ But you spent the whole next 45 minutes poking me about every minute or two and said, “Breathe,” because I would literally forget to breathe and feel like I was dying and you’d poke me.”
George Wendt and John Ratzenberger as Norm and Cliff on “Cheers.” (NBCU Photo Bank)
“He was our lifesaver,” Danson added of Wendt, who said while he didn’t do any mushrooms, he was seasick on the ride.
Danson called the ride there and back the worst four hours of his life.
The actors all got chewed out the next day.
“And John goes, ‘You wanna buy her a shotgun?'”
Wendt remarked, “It would have been extravagant, but I thought [James] Burrows, [the co-creator of ‘Cheers’], should have rented a helicopter with the girls and brought them and meet us on the pier, and when we got off the boat go, ‘OK, A scene is up.’ ‘What? Oh, Jesus.’”
Danson said the producers told them they would have let them go out on the boat if they had let the show know, “’But that’s not hooky, Jimmy,’” he said he told Burrows.
While often goofing off, the cast was also sentimental.
George Wendt with the cast in a “Cheers” reunion during the 2024 Emmy Awards. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
Danson remembered before Nicholas Colasanto, who played Coach on the show, died during the third season, his heart condition had left him forgetful, and he began to cover every surface of the set with his lines, including one about a friend who’d died that read: “It’s almost as if he’s still here with us.”
He said the cast noticed the line the first time they came back to the set after Colasanto’s death.
“I think we all basically burst into tears ‘cause it was how we were all feeling. And then we would make a ritual, for the next four or five years, as we came down to greet the audience, everyone would touch the [line] ‘It’s almost like he’s here with us.’”
One day, set painters painted over the line on the wall in the off-season, he said, “and we all damn near quit, we were so angry when we came back.”
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The cast also insisted that a photograph of Geronimo that Colasanto had in his dressing room be hung on the wall of the set in memory of him.
On Tuesday, Danson paid tribute to Wendt, saying in a statement to several outlets: “I am devastated to hear that Georgie is no longer with us. I am sending all my love to [Wendt’s wife] Bernadette and the children. It is going to take me a long time to get used to this. I love you, Georgie.”