When you picture the cast of one of the best sitcoms of all time, Cheers, you likely see Woody Harrelson in the group. He’s such an indelible part of the Cheers cast, a series that is still frequently referenced in other shows, that it’s easy to forget that he joined the series mid-way through its run during a major cast shake-up. It turns out that the core cast, including Ted Danson, decided to have a bit of fun with their new, much younger, castmate, which went very badly for all of them.
Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson both appear in a new episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast, where The Good Place actor reveals that the rest of the cast, who were all much older, wanted to show the new kid who was boss. They thought they would beat him at sports, but Harrelson showed them quickly that that wasn’t going to work for them. Danson explained:
Thirty-seven is when you realize you're no longer 25 or 24 so it was more not like hazing it, we just wanted to kick his ass in anything we could find. We started with basketball, and as you later found out in life he's a really good basketball player. So he kicked our asses there. Next, I have a vision of Johnny Ratzenberger, who played Cliff, out on the lawn by the stage doing the leg wrestling where you're both on you're back and you're trying to flip the other guy with just your leg.
Woody Harrelson would, of course, go on to star in the movie White Men Can’t Jump with Wesley Snipes, which is all about basketball. But Cheers was the actor’s first major role, one Harrelson has said he didn't really want, and so nobody knew anything about him, including that he was quite good at the game.
The image of Pixar stalwart John Ratzenberger and Woody Harrelson leg wrestling is hilarious, as is the image of Woody beating the guy, which he apparently did quite easily.
The Cheers crew didn’t stop there, however. They tried even more ways to beat the kid and even tried to outthink him when they realized they were bested physically, but that didn’t work either. Danson continued:
John is strong and got some thighs on him. Woody kicked his ass. I literally have a bad elbow to this day because I wouldn't give up arm wrestling. I did finally give up, because he was kicking my butt. So, then we moved to chess. To heck with this physical stuff, we're gonna beat him mentally. [He] killed us as chess. This is all in the first week, really. So from then on it was like if you had some awful, mean prank to pull you would not waste it on anyone else except for Woody.
It sounds like the “not hazing” of Woody Harrelson went on for some time in the form of pranks. At some point, however, he became part of the team. Harrelson and Danson are clearly friends now, having a blast together on the podcast, laughing at the story. Of course, it’s easy for Harrelson to enjoy the story, he won.
To go back and watch these two legends on Cheers, you can stream it with a Paramount+ subscription.
