The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) scene was filmed after a real taping of the show. The audience was asked to stay for an extra half-hour. It took director James Burrows only 15 minutes to shoot the Cheers scene, which took two takes.
Writer Ken Levine offered to make any adjustments to the script that Johnny Carson wanted, but Carson thought the script was great and performed it as written by Levine.
During " The Tonight Show " You can read the entire dialogue between Cliff, His Mother, Johnny, & Norm on The Cue Cards.
In a little over two weeks after this episode aired, May 22, 1992, Johnny Carson would retire after a thirty year run on The Tonight Show. Ironically nearly a year later when Cheers ended its run Carson's replacement Jay Leno would host a live broadcast of The Tonight Show with the Cheers cast from the Bull and Finch bar in Boston. The show turned out to be a disaster as most of the cast was drunk leaving Leno to ad-lib a lot of the show.
This is the only episode to show the roof of the building that is home to Cheers and Melville's.