The sudden loss of a cast member has derailed plenty of TV shows over the years. (We're still mourning the untimely death of Phil Hartman, and what that meant for NewsRadio.) Thirty years ago this week, Cheers faced that same dilemma when co-star Nicholas Colasanto passed away from a heart attack at the age of 61.

For three seasons, Colasanto played sweet, simple-minded baseball coach-turned-bartender Ernie "Coach" Pantusso on the NBC sitcom, and his death left a sizable void in the show's ensemble cast. But Cheers didn't miss a beat, bringing in Woody Harrelson the following season to play farm-boy barkeep Woody Boyd in one of the smoothest TV cast transitions we can remember.

To honor Colasanto's legacy, and to dive deeper into the Coach-to-Woody transition, Yahoo TV spoke with legendary director James Burrows, who directed 237 episodes of Cheers and executive produced the show along with creators Glen and Les Charles.

Related: The Inside Story Behind the 'Cheers' Theme Song

Before Cheers, Colasanto was known more as a TV director than an actor, and certainly not as a comedian; his most prominent role was playing a dead-serious mob boss in Martin Scorsese's 1980 film Raging Bull. But Burrows says they liked the fact that Colasanto wasn't known for making you laugh.

"We always like to cast people who you don't think are funny, and then they become funny, because it makes them even funnier," Burrows tells us. "If you have a stand-up comedian on your show, you know he's funny. With Nick… when he said something funny, the element of surprise was in there, and it made it even more enriching."

Colasanto was added to the cast for the show's September 1982 debut, and quickly settled into his role as the on-set dad for the rest of the Cheers gang. "He was definitely the oldest in the cast," Burrows remembers. "He was probably older than me, and I was the ancient one. He was a father figure."

CHEERS -- Pictured: (l-r) Nicholas Colasanto as Ernie 'Coach' Pantusso, Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli, Ted Danson as Sam Malone, Shelley Long as Diane Chambers (Photo by Herb Ball/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) More

But health problems began to take their toll on the veteran actor; a severe case of heart disease led to noticeable weight loss. Burrows says the producers realized Colasanto had a heart problem, but "we didn't know how dire it was. Nick had trouble remembering lines. I'm sure it had a lot to do with the blood getting to the head. But we always compensated for it, because he was such an integral part of the show."



Compensating for it sometimes meant a bit of showbiz trickery, Burrows remembers; Colasanto would write down his lines in places only the actors could see. "If you look at some of the back walls that aren't visible to the audience, you can see Nick's lines written there. And they're all over the bar. So he did that. And then if that got too difficult, we'd shorten it. We made the lines easier."

Things took a bad turn, though, midway through Season 3; Colasanto was hospitalized with water in his lungs after the holiday break, and his doctors recommended that he not return to work. His last full episode on the show was "Cheerio, Cheers," filmed in November 1984. (He later appeared in the cold open of the Season 3 finale, but that was also filmed before his hospitalization.)

CHEERS -- Coach in Love: Part 2 Episode 7 -- Air Date 11/15/1984 -- Pictured: (l-r) Nicholas Colasanto as Ernie 'Coach' Pantusso, Ted Danson as Sam Malone (Photo by NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) More