Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 86

82 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