Kelly Kelly: Shelley Long and Robert Hays - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

Kelly Kelly aired from April until June 1998 on The WB.

This comedy was set in the New Jersey suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Kelly ( Shelley Long), was a fluttery, status-conscious college professor who, while trying to keep her suicidal teaching assistant from ending it all, fell ( literally and figuratively) for the handsome fireman who was trying to rescue him. She was chairperson of the English department at an unnamed Ivy League College. Doug ( Robert Hays), was a blue-collar widower with 4 kids, all of whom considered Kelly snooty and not what they were looking for in a new mother. At the end of the premiere episode he proposed, and in the 3rd they got married. Mo ( Ashley Johnson), Doug's only daughter, was a tomboy starting to mature into a woman, and Kelly tried, in her well-meaning, meddling way, to help things along. Sean ( Will Estes), was a manipulator who spent to little time studying, and his grades suffered accordingly. The other 2 kids were Brian ( Bug Hall), age 13; and cute 6 year old Casey ( Gemini Barnett). In every episode Kelly and Doug had passionate moments inspired by inuendoes which led them to rush somewhere else to make love.

A Review from The New York Times

By ANITA GATES
Published: April 18, 1998

'Kelly Kelly'
WB, Monday night at 9

If only Diane Chambers had married Sam Malone! They might have lived happily ever after, the prissy educated woman and the practically illiterate sexist playboy, battling and passionately making up, if only in the minds of ''Cheers'' fans.

The creators of ''Kelly Kelly'' had to be thinking the same thing when they cast Shelley Long (a k a Diane) as a brainy English professor and threw her into the arms of a handsome firefighter (Robert Hays). And just in case there was any doubt about the couple's problematic differences, the writers gave Mr. Hays a firefighter father who announces in the first episode that the son has nothing in common with ''these university types.''

''Being with her,'' Dad continues, ''is going to be like watching PBS all day long.''

But that's where the similarities in the romance end. Far from being a playboy, Doug Kelly, the firefighter, is a widower with four rowdy children. He doesn't mind Kelly Novak's pedantry or pretensions, and she doesn't object to his rough edges.

Kelly is entirely too happy, in fact. On ''Cheers,'' Diane was miserable because she had to work as a barmaid despite her degrees; Kelly is the chairwoman of the English department. Diane was horrified by the gaps in Sam's knowledge; Doug hasn't revealed any so far. And come to think of it, the only signs of Kelly's academic leanings are a sentence about ''the myth of the popular hero'' and a mention of Romulus and Remus.

The only time Ms. Long's characters shows a spark of her comic gift is, oddly enough, in a catfight with an obnoxious mother who is being mean to Doug's youngest.

Kelly and Doug became engaged at the end of the sitcom's first episode. Between now and the wedding (when she becomes the repetitively named title character), the producers may want to call the ''Frasier'' writers and ask for tips.

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on May 1, 1998

Encore
The Long Goodbye
11 years ago ''Cheers'' bid farewell to Shelley Long -- The actress left for the movies, but never strayed too far from her TV roots

Tom Hanks did it. So did Michael Douglas. David Caruso tried it, though he wasn't quite as successful. For Shelley Long, the decision to abandon a hit TV career to try her hand at the movies was clearly a risk. But with her final episode as Diane Chambers, after five seasons, on NBC's Cheers on May 7, 1987, Long packed up her Q rating and headed for the movies.

In the early '80s, Long's film prospects seemed promising, after a role in Ron Howard's 1982 Night Shift — even as Cheers languished at the bottom of the ratings in its first season. Five years later, Long was a bona fide TV star. Cheers finished the 1986-87 season at No. 3, largely because of Diane's chemistry with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Her flair for comedy also won her two Golden Globes and an Emmy.

But behind the scenes, she had a bad reputation, clashing with her costars, including Danson and Kelsey Grammer. ''Diane was...a pain in the butt...and I think the people of Cheers got me confused with that,'' she said in 1993. ''Maybe I did too, which convinced me it was time to let go of that persona.'' It helped that by then she'd had a hit movie, 1987's Outrageous Fortune.

Even so, her exit elicited anything but cheers from some Cheers folks. ''I guess... they felt that I abandoned them,'' Long said. Critics wondered what would happen without Diane — and even its writers and producers weren't sure (she broke off her engagement to Sam to go off and finish her novel). Director James Burrows, though, saw the shake-up as salutary. ''Shelley's leaving reenergized the bar,'' he said. Viewers agreed: In its ninth season, with replacement Kirstie Alley, Cheers was No. 1.

Nowadays, Long, 48, lives in L.A. with husband Bruce Tyson, an investment adviser, and daughter Juliana, 12. Ironically, that dearly bought movie career hasn't taken her far from TV. Of her post-Cheers projects, there have been six TV movies; the two big-screen Brady Bunch films; and one CBS sitcom, Good Advice. She's also appeared on Frasier and even on Cheers' 1993 finale, in which Sam and Diane briefly reunite. And just last week, her new sitcom, Kelly Kelly, costarring Robert Hays, premiered on the WB network. It's been a long time coming.

For a Website dedicated to Will Estes go to http://www.willestes.com/

For a Website dedicated to Ashley Johnson go to http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/elystan/81/welcome.html