Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 86
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The Popular Culture Review
friend visit "Cheers" and when their manners and mannerisms clash
with the bar's simplicity and crudeness. But the upper-class
characters Diane, Frasier, and Lilith do illustrate the statement of
the opening song that "people are all the same." Although more
wealthy and educated, they are driven by the same motivations as
lower-class figures; they are equally shallow tricksters and look for
acceptance in the "Cheers" family.
After Shelley Long has walked up the stairs from "Cheers"
for the last time in 1987, Diane is replaced by Rebecca Howe (played
by Kristie Alley), who is employed as manager by the corporation
that buys "Cheers."
Rebecca is an assertive but insecure
businesswoman who never quite achieves her goals. Her last name,
"Howe," is again a telling one: she never quite knows how to make
things work out for her, how to become romantically involved with
Evan Drake, the company's vice president, or how to get ahead in her
career. When she breaks a vase at a cocktail party of one of her
company's executive directors, she doesn't know how to take the
blame and when first Woody and then Sam confess that they