Boston Globe - Three 'Cheers' for one bar

Why, you might ask, would Tom Kershaw want to make a copy of a copy, especially when he already owns the original? For roughly four million reasons a year, that's why.

Kershaw is the 62-year-old Beacon Hill entrepreneur whose Bull & Finch pub was in the right place at the right time 20 summers ago. That's when the producers of "Cheers" selected the subterranean neighborhood bar as the inspiration for the setting for their eventually-to-be-a-smash NBC television series. They more or less replicated the place, thereby turning it into a full-blown local tourist attraction that Kershaw says draws more than 750,000 camera-pointing patrons per year, 95 percent of them out-of-town visitors. Now he's planning to more or less replicate the replication by opening a duplicate of the show's set in Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

And why not? Despite the fact that "Cheers" went out of production in 1993 and that his merchandise revenues have subsequently dropped, Kershaw - who has been chairman of the board of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau for 15 years - points out that he still grosses $4 million a year from licensed goods. The Bull & Finch may be a place "where everybody knows your name," but it's also a place where everybody leaves with a T-shirt, a keychain, a cap, or something else with the "Cheers" logo emblazoned on it.

"I worry that the day is coming when everyone will have a “Cheers" T-shirt and no one will need one anymore," Kershaw says. Nevertheless, he hopes to sign a lease for the new two-story Cheers this week, and to open when Faneuil Hall celebrates its 25th anniversary in late August.

Inside the new watering hole, you certainly won't find yourself perched on a stool next to such "Cheers" icons such as Cliff Clavin or Norm Peterson. And you won't be served a draught beer by Sam "Mayday" Malone or "Coach" Ernie Pantusso. In fact, you won't even belly-up to the real "Cheers" TV bar, which is keeping company with the rest of the show's set at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Hollywood.

Still, to satisfy America's thirst for entertainment memorabilia - consider, for example, the bric-a-brac decor of the Hard Rock Cafés - Kershaw has already begun to acquire a stash of "Cheers" TV stuff to display. Among the trinkets, he's procured a Red Sox satin jacket worn by Malone (Ted Danson), a dressy letter-carrier suit worn by Cliff (John Ratzenberger), and a Miss Miracle Buff satin sash worn by Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley). "I think we can get more," he says. "Maybe Carla's [Rhea Perlman's] apron or Norm's sports jacket."

The items have been arriving from Paramount Pictures, which owns the rights to all things "Cheers" and with whom Kershaw recently renegotiated his licensing deal. By agreeing to pay royalties on food and drink as well as merchandise, he says, he acquired the rights to open more "Cheers" theme bars. (Viacom also licensing HMS Host Corp. to use the name on 17 eating and drinking establishments, including one in Malaysia.) Kershaw points out proudly that his first licensing contract was dated a week after the initial "Cheers" broadcast on Sept. 30, 1982. "We started with a few T-shirts behind the bar," he says. "After a while, we were selling more shirts than drinks."

Small wonder. After a slow start that nearly resulted in cancellation, "Cheers" began a long build-up that elevated it to television's number one ratings spot during the 1990-1991 season. But when Danson announced he would leave in 1993, the producers decided not to continue without him. After the final (and 275th) episode, broadcast on May 20, 1993, the "Tonight" show aired live from the Bull & Finch. "That was really what put us on the map," Kershaw recalls. "It showed people there was a real place behind the show."

Actually, the Bull & Finch was discovered rather by accident . It had been a rather ordinary local bar since 1969, when Kershaw purchased the 58-year-old, six-story Hampshire House on the flat of Beacon Hill and stuffed its basement with a pub designed in Canada and built in England. During the summer of 1981, TV producer Glen Charles, on his way to a family vacation in Maine, stopped in Boston to search for a setting for a new sitcom he was co-creating. He found Bull & Finch in the Yellow Pages, paid a visit, liked what he saw, and took dozens of photographs. "He even took pictures of the doorknobs," recalls Kershaw, whose home is on the top floor of the Hampshire House.

Tourists have never seemed to mind that the "Cheers" set was never a faithful copy of the Bull & Finch. Yes, it had captain's chairs, a wooden Indian, and brick walls. But it also had a number of features that B&F doesn't: an island bar, a Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox, an upright piano. So these days Kershaw is laboring over color photos of the TV barroom, trying to create an exact copy of what was an inexact copy. "We'll even have the overhead TV lights and catwalk," he says.

And folks will no doubt come. Despite the fact that it departed from network television eight years ago, "Cheers" persists in Boston as a pop icon, a tourist hot spot. "There just aren't many places like this that are connected to a popular TV show," Kershaw says. "People are thirsty for this type of thing. They want to touch it. They want to feel it."