The Tortellis


The Tortellis is an American sitcom television series and the first spin-off of Cheers, starring Dan Hedaya and Jean Kasem. It aired on NBC from January 22 to May 12, 1987.

Synopsis

Hedaya and Kasem had appeared on Cheers on several occasions as Nick and Loretta Tortelli, who were Carla Tortelli's loutish ex-husband and Nick's cheerful, bubble-headed new trophy wife. The series co-stars Timothy Williams as Anthony Tortelli, Nick and Carla's teenage son, and Mandy Ingber as Annie Tortelli, Anthony's young bride, reprising their roles from Cheers.
At the beginning of the series, Loretta leaves Nick and moves to Las Vegas to live with her sensible, divorced sister Charlotte, and Charlotte's young son Mark. The series follows Nick as he moves to Las Vegas to try to reconcile with Loretta, vowing to change his sleazy, conniving ways in the process. Nick and Loretta tentatively get back together, and Nick sets up a TV repair business and tries to reform—not always successfully. Anthony and Annie follow Nick to Las Vegas, and all six characters live in the same house.
After the series was canceled, all four Tortelli characters made return appearances on Cheers, where it was revealed that Nick's TV repair business went under, but that Nick and Loretta were still together and had presumably moved back to Boston.
The characters of Charlotte and Mark Cooper were never seen or even referred to on any episode of Cheers, either before or after The Tortellis run.

Cast

The series drew low ratings, ranking 50th out of 79 series with an average rating/share of 13.3/20. As a result, NBC canceled The Tortellis after 13 episodes. The next attempt at a Cheers spin-off, Frasier, was considerably more successful, running for 11 seasons.

Episodes