When Woody Harrelson came onto Cheers, he had big shoes to fill, serving as a replacement for Nicholas Colasanto and his character Coach following the actor’s death prior to season four. And his fellow bartenders and patrons didn’t take it easy on him, challenging him to tasks both physically and mentally.

As Ted Danson (Sam Malone) recently recalled on Conan O’Brien’s podcast (via EW), having such a young guy on the set allowed for some of his fellow cast members to put him to the test. “Thirty-seven is when you realize you’re no longer 25 or 24. So it was more not like hazing him, we just wanted to kick his ass in anything we could find. We started with basketball and as you later found out in life, he’s a really good basketball player, so he kicked our asses there.” In other words, the white man could jump!