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remembers her time with the show fondly, and says that strict standards
and practices forced her and the rest of the staff to get more creative. The
inside of that writers’ room was “raucous and fun,” according to Cheri: “I
can’t say it was ‘
anything
goes,’ but almost anything went.”
That formative time on
The Jeffersons
helped to prepare Cheri for her
run on
Cheers
. She calls the show a “writer’s paradise” due to the trusting
relationship between the writers, the studio, and the network. That writerly
skirting of standards and practices honed on past jobs came in handy.
“Sometimes we would just get ridiculously creative,” Cheri says, citing the
program’s ability to introduce words and phrases into the popular lexicon.
(The show, for example, might not have been the first to employ the word
“boink,” but it helped popularize it.) She and the
Cheers
team would go on
to win two primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series.
When
Cheers
ended in 1993, Cheri and Bill stuck around L.A. for a
few more years and a few more jobs. They wrote for
Bob
, an ill-fated Bob
Newhart sitcom. “It was heavenly six days a week,” Cheri deadpans, “and
on the seventh day we got the ratings.”
Soon, the husband-and-wife team started to think that they might
not be able to reenter the paradise of
Cheers
: “It took us a couple more
tries to realize we had had it; we had the best experiences we could have.”
That realization and shifting priorities contributed to their move to
Montecito. “I really wanted to pick the kids up after school,” says Cheri,
“I wanted to drive on field trips. I wanted to be there.”
So for Cheri,
being there
meant being
here
. Santa Barbara was already like a
second home to her. Growing up in Fullerton, California, she often visited her
grandparents in Goleta. “Waving to Santa [Claus, on Santa Claus Lane] when
he was on the left hand side of the 101 north,” Cheri laughs, “that was the first
sign you were close.”
When she introduced Bill to Santa Barbara, the couple felt this was where
they were meant to be. “In Santa Barbara, even when we thought we were
lost, we would end up where we meant to go,” she says. The
Steinkellners have been in the same Montecito home since their
move north from L.A. in 1996. “There was the assumption – never
assume – that we could go back anytime,” says Cheri, “but it didn’t
matter because this was now, and Billy and I really wanted to be
with our family.”
Writing From Home
Soon, Tinseltown came to them. When Disney called with
an offer to create Saturday morning cartoons, they had one
condition: that they could work from home. “If you’re working
in Burbank,” Cheri says, “you can’t pick up your kids from
Montecito Union.” They accepted the offer, created
Teacher’s Pet
,
and picked up a couple more Emmys for the trophy case.
Cheri and Bill’s work for Disney continued with
Sister Act
, a
Profiles
:
74
winter
|
spr ing
Cheri with
Bob
cast member Betty White on set
“These are the songs that my mom and grandma sang to me, and I really like
them,” Cheri says about the songs in her musical
Hello! My Baby
. “And they’re
really fun to sing, and anyone can sing them.”