Both St. Elsewhere and Cheers were set in Boston and both were on NBC. It was bound to happen. And it happened on St. Elsewhere.

   First, the fast and furious lowdown on both shows. Cheers: the sitcom about the friendly bar where everybody knows your name. At this point in the show the central running story was about former jock owner of Cheers Sam Malone's romance with the bar's pompous and overly intellectual barmaid Diane. Carla was the bars ornery bar maid and Norm was the bar's... well, he was both a customer and a permanent fixture. St. Elsewhere was a drama about Boston's St. Eligius Hospital, nicknamed St. Elsewhere because it's never really anyone's first choice for health care. That said the doctors and nurses worked hard and were good people. Well... imperfect rather than good... especially counting Peter White the doctor who turned rapist... or the nurse who shot him... or the never caught mercy killer... but um, they had Denzel Washington on staff. And they worked hard. Maybe best just to move on with the crossover...

    After a hard day of work at St. Eligius Hospital, a couple of the doctors (I believe it was Donald Westphall, Mark Craig and Daniel Auschlander) stop by Cheers for a drink. Sam and Diane are out for the night but Carla and Norm are holding down the fort. For the most part, the bar serves simply as a backdrop in the same way any other bar would have for the scene. But we do get to hear a little input from the Cheers gang. Most memorably, it is revealed that Carla Tortelli had one of her kids at St. Eligius and that, true to the hospital's image, thinks St. Elsewhere is a truly crappy hospital. She treats the doctors with even more scorn and disrespect than usual. And that's saying something. It's also pretty odd too. How often do you see a crossover where your favorite characters from two different shows meet up and hate each other?

    An addendum to all St. Elsewhere entries: The final episode of St. Elsewhere revealed the entire series to be the daydream of an autistic child (man did this show have balls!). Given this, an argument could be made that all the crossovers with St. Elsewhere are invalid. That all the crossovers were merely part of the kid's dream. Like he watched Cheers on TV and worked it into his little fantasy and thus the shows don't really exist as part of the same reality. I count the crossovers as valid however. When all these crossovers were aired it was with the idea they were real. No one new the whole show was supposed to be a kids dream. So, since they were intended as real, I say they're legit. I actually like the idea that the kid dreamed ALL the shows connected to St. Elsewhere. In that case if you check all the pertinent crossovers you'll discover that the show Newhart was the dream of Bob Newhart's character from the Bob Newhart show who was in turn only a character in an autistic kid's head. Don't think about that too long or your head will explode.

Other Cheers Crossover Links
Cheers and Frasier
Cheers and The Simpsons
Cheers and The Tortellis
Cheers and Wings

Other St. Elsewhere Crossover Links
St. Elsewhere and The Bob Newhart Show
St. Elsewhere and Chicago Hope
St. Elsewhere and Homicide: Life On The Streets
St. Elsewhere and M*A*S*H
St. Elsewhere and Oz
St. Elsewhere and Tattingers/Nick And Hillary
St. Elsewhere and The White Shadow

St. Elsewhere Season 1 DVD article!

Click here to return to main Crossover List

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