To keep Shelley Long's departure from the series under wraps, three endings were shot: the aired ending, which had Diane leaving and promising to return in six months, one where Sam and Diane got married, and a third ending that the producers have not disclosed to this date.
Philip Perlman (real life father of Rhea Perlman and "Cheers" writer-producer Heide Perlman) makes an uncredited appearance as a non-speaking wedding guest (he can be seen standing behind Carla as Diane walks down the aisle). Philip would later have a recurring role as the wise-cracking bar patron Phil, essentially taking over the one-liners from Al Rosen (Al), who passed away in 1990.
In a flash-forward sequence, grandfather Sam Malone asks Cliff Clavin when he is going to retire. Exactly one week before the 15-year anniversary of this episode, Cliff celebrated his retirement in an episode of "Frasier." Also in attendance were Carla Tortelli and Norm Peterson.
Shelley Long's final appearance as a regular. She would return for the finale six years later in a guest starring role.
Because this episode ran significantly longer than most, producers debuted a truncated version of the series intro that runs only 30 seconds (the original runs about 1 minute). For the remainder of the series, the shortened intro was used occasionally to accommodate unusually long episodes. Some syndication runs of "Cheers" use only the shortened intro, so as to allow the most commercials possible.