Why didn't John Ratzenburg's name appear in the opening credits? It always appeared in the ending for the first season. Same goes for Kelsey.

Because they werent official cast members.

John Ratzenberger was originally in Cheers just as an extra around the bar, similiar to the character Paul. He grew as a character and shortly was promoted to a regular cast member.

Kelsey Grammer was only supposed to be around for a few episodes as a guest star, similar to Robin Colcord, but his character caught on and he became a regular character, same goes for Bebe Neuwirth, who took longer to get her name on the opening Credits. She didnt get on the opening Credits until Season 10, when in reality she was in just about every episode from Season 6-9.

Yeah, they didn't hire Bebe as a "leading" cast member until season 10, and in season 11, she decided to leave, before knowing it would be the last season, otherwise, I'm willing to bet she would have stuck it out for the rest of the year. Anyway, Lilith was considered a recurring character all those seasons, even though, especially in season 9, she was in virtually every episode. Not so much in season 6, but more and more as the seasons went on.

Neither Kelsey nor Bebe had gone on Cheers planning to be a full-time cast member. Everybody just loved the characters so much, it just sort of happened. :) As Veggie said, Kelsey was only supposed to be a Robin Colcord type character, but as they say on the E! True Hollywood Story... Kelsey's a comic genius! :) Hell, Bebe wasn't even supposed to be on any other time aside from that five minutes on "Second Time Aound." Apparently, her portrayal of the character was so unique and funny they wrote "Abnormal Psychology." Guess it was just like a tumbling effect.

As for John Ratzenberger... he wasn't supposed to be cast originally. It was between him and George for Norm, and when George got the part, John went in begging to let them try this character he had made up in his mind. They agreed to try out the character of Cliff and that's why he was only a recurring character the first season. They were just "trying him out." LOL As much as I don't like Cliff, a lot of good scenes would have been missed had he not been around. He was basically Norm's other half!