Episode 7 - Friends, Romans, and Accountants (Season 1 Episode 7)

Season One of Cheers just isn't quite itself if there isn't some creep coming in to the bar that the gang can vanquish as a team. In this episode, Norm is featured as he volunteers at work to organize the annual office party. Diane gives a throwaway idea that he should do a toga party, and Norm jumps on it. What follows is the world's worst and most awkward party.

Everyone in Norm's office shows up, but refuses to drink, smile, or even talk to anyone else. In a very odd choice, the producers packed the Cheers set with a bunch of depressed looking people dressed in 80's business attire and directed them to look forlorn and not say a word to each other. It feels less like a party and more like a wake with attendance exclusive to the mute. Norm shows up an hour late, and is also the only one dressed in a toga. He feels his party is a disaster, but can be saved if only he can find his big boss a date. The girl he had arranged to come cancels at the last moment, so Diane gets called in. Diane is reluctant at first, but when the boss walks in and he's a dashing looking young guy, she starts to throw herself at him.

The boss takes Diane to the pool room, and starts getting overly aggressive with her. Diane tries to get free by saying, "I don't believe in mauling on a first date." However, he just gets more aggressive. Norm walks in and sees his boss taking advantage of Diane and tries to extricate himself from the room, but eventually he has to step in and get a little rough with his boss. The boss fires him on the spot. Norm is bummed, but when the rest of the company hears that he got rough with their jerk supervisor, the zombies come alive and Norm becomes  the hero of the day. An unemployed hero, but a hero nonetheless.

A decent episode, but a little heavy handed. Also, no guy with those kind of looks and apparently tons of money needs one of his toadies to arrange a date for him. Also, Continuity is clearly not that big an issue with Cheers, as in the previous episode of this season, Norm brings in his boss to Cheers, and it's a totally different dude. There are a few issues with this episode, but we DO get a chance to see Norm in a toga, so not all is lost.

Best Line of the Episode:
Diane: For one terrible moment I actually saw myself through his eyes, I saw nothing but a cheap harlot.
Sam: Oh come on, we all know that you'd starve to death before you made a living with your body.

Episode 6 - Any Friend of Diane's (Season 1 Episode 6)

Watched 6-18-12

One thing I enjoy about Cheers, is even when you see a joke coming from a mile away, they still make it funny. In this episode, Diane is visited by an old college friend who is down in the dumps after being dumped by her long time beau. This friend (ironically named Rebecca) is looking for a quick night of passion with a "peasant stock" dumb guy with more brawn than brains...guess who fits that bill perfectly?

Sam is instructed by Diane to say "No" to anything that Rebecca proposes as she has just broken up with her guy, and she's vulnerable. Diane says "Remember, no matter what, just say no." So how does Rebecca proposition Sam? "Would you object to joining me in my hotel room for an afternoon of wild animal passion?" Sam does as he's told and says no. When he asks what her name is, she responds, "Does it matter?" and again, he follows Diane's instructions perfectly by again saying no. Again, you see it coming a mile off, but it still works beautifully.

That is easily the high water mark for the episode, although there are some good moments later on when Diane pretends to be dating Sam in an effort to spare Rebecca's feelings. We also get a terrific Norm moment when he brings in his boss and tries to pretend that he's not a barfly and asks everyone to NOT act like Cheers is his second home. His boss says he can't stand a man who can't control his urges for liquor, and Norm does his best to pretend he's not an alcoholic, but he does get one beer and out of force of habit, he slurps the entire thing down in one gulp and then tries to act nonchalant as his boss nurses that one beer much much longer than Norm is comfortable with.

This episode really hits on a lot of the great Cheers themes including some Sam and Diane moments, Norm the drunk, Carla the absentee mother, and we even start to get a little bit more Cliff being used in the show in this episode. Quite a good one.

Best Line from the Episode:
Coach: How's life treating you, Norm?
Norm: He caught me in bed with his wife

Episode 5 - Coach's Daughter (Season 1 Episode 5)

Watched 6-16-12

Somewhat of a weak episode, although it does have a tremendous running gag of Diane saying, "Call me crazy" and then everyone saying "You are crazy".

The episode centers around Coach's daughter who is a bit homely. (To quote Mike Dell of LCS Hockey, she's uglier than homemade shoes.) She is a regional manager of door to door suit sales company, and one of her employees has proposed to her. She's very excited, because she never felt anyone would ask her to marry her. Problem is, dude is a douchepickle. He comes across as a lowlife to everyone at Cheers...so that's a low bar.

Problem with this episode is that the guy, while unlikable and douchey, doesn't really come off as evil enough...and the girl who plays Coach's daughter brings nothing interesting to the table. At least we get Diane trying to be the "Cheers Caricaturist" and failing miserably, so not all is lost. Still, they can't all be homeruns, and this episode definitely falls flat against some of the better ones.

Best Line from the Episode:
Coach: I was glad to be there Sammy to help out.
Sam: I'm glad you were there too, Coach. Cuz if you hadn't have said that, my career might have ended that day instead of when it did...a couple of weeks later.

Episode 4 - Sam at 11 (Season 1 Episode 4)

Watched 6-5-12

A classic character in the Cheers universe in introduced in the open of this episode...The Flim-Flam man Harry, played by Harry Anderson before Night Court made him into a famous wacky judge. In this episode alone he steals ten bucks from Coach, cons Norm out of 10 bucks, gets a 3 card Monte game going at the bar, and steal a Honda. Somehow, you still love him.

The story in this episode is a little lackluster, however. Sam gets interviewed by an old teammate who is now a local sportscaster named Dave. (Played by Hunter star and former Los Angeles Ram, Fred Dryer) The whole bar is excited to have Sam on TV, but Diane finds the whole thing sad, as if Sam is punctuating how washed up he is by agreeing to be on TV.

Turns out that Dave is only interviewing Sam because a bunch of other Boston sports heroes cancelled. When Dave gets told that John McEnroe "wants to get something off his chest", he ditches Sam mid-interview and Diane is left to pick up the pieces of Sam's fragile ego. She does so by encouraging him so much that he spontaneously steals a kiss, causing her to use her "Practical Feminism" training and flip him on to the pool table.

Best Line from the Episode:
Coach: You're right Carla, I don't know what it is. Sometimes, I just think of the smartest thing to say, and then it comes out so stupid.

Carla: That doesn't make any sense.

Coach: Well, you should have heard it before I said it.

Episode 3 - The Tortelli Tort (Season 1 Episode 3)

Watched June 2, 2012 -

This episode dealt with something near and dear to my heart: Namely...hating the Yankees and their obnoxious fans. Calling Yankees fans scum is quite frankly not fair to scum. Carla goes nuts on a particularly loud and skeezy Yanks fan who comes into the bar after attending a Yankees-Sox game at Fenway. The gang at the bar had been watching the game, which the Yanks won 5-0. This prompted Carla to stand on the bar and announce that "As of this moment, she is no longer a Red Sox fan". This would seem like a major announcement if the entire bar wasn't chanting along with her every word...the joke being that Carla has made this announcement a few times.

When Big Eddie (The Yankee fan) comes in, he starts talking smack to the entire bar. He gets particularly cruel and mean, and even goes after Sam, who of course used to pitch for Boston. It becomes too much for Carla, and she goes nuts on Eddie. She assaults him from behind and slams his head into the bar several times. Eddie threatens to sue unless Carla is fired. Diane suggests therapy for Carla rather than firing her, and Carla meets with a psychologist. This sets up the climax as Big Eddie returns to the bar. He doesn't believe Carla has changed, and he tests her by unleashing a string of hurtful anti-Boston remarks. Carla just stares ahead glassy eyed and doesn't give in to his taunts.

Eddie leaves the bar and says he's going to drop the whole lawsuit, and as he's leaving, finds a little trouble of his own with a Boston Bruin who had been sitting and listening to some of the awful things Eddie had been saying...many of which centered around the Bruins.

This was a fun episode, but a bit of a letdown after Episode 2. Cheers is at it's best when Diane and Sam are at each others throats, and we don't get too much of that dynamic in this one. Coach has some awesome moments including buying a huge amount of cheesy napkins of which he tries to extol the virtues to a customer base that hates them, and the best moment in the show when he shows Diane his prowess at getting hit by a pitch. Coach is the best!

Best Line from the Episode:


Carla: You homesick for the Bronx?
Big Eddie (Obnoxious Yankee fan): Yeah
Carla: (Sticks out her tongue and blows raspberries at him)
Diane: You'll have to forgive Carla, sometimes she gets a little over emotional at times. But please bear in mind, you are in an alien camp. Tact is perhaps your wisest recourse.
Big Eddie: What'd you get? A vocabulary for Christmas?

Episode 2 - Sam's Women (Season 1 Episode 2)

Watched June 2, 2012 -


Sam's success with women is matched only by his insecurity. A beautiful (but stupid) blonde walks into the bar, and Sam puts the moves on her. It's working, but Diane is openly mocking the bimbo for being stupid. Her name is Brandee. "With two e's," she is quick to add. The best line to prove that she's no Mensa candidate is when she says she doesn't want to go to an Australian movie because she doesn't like subtitles.


For the rest of the episode, Sam is serial dating some of his favorite chicks and becoming increasingly frustrated as he realizes that Diane is right, and all of his girls are dumb. He tells Diane he doesn't want to date any intelligent girls, to which Diane thanks him on behalf of all intelligent women. The comedy chemistry between Sam and Diane is already on fire in just the second episode in the series.


Sam's insecurity comes in when he brings in his ex-wife who he took on a date. Allegedly they went to see Mozart's Symphony #42 at Symphony Hall, but the program from the concert is two years old. The rouse doesn't hold up under Diane's cross-examination, and it turns out they just went to see Star Wars again.


Best moment of this episode comes as a result of Diane telling Sam that an intelligent woman would see right through him. Sam lays it on thick on Diane when she isn't expecting it...and lets just say she doesn't see it coming.


Cliff Claven Factoid:  If you take your average whale's intestines and stretch them out you're looking at three miles and change


Best Line from the Episode: 


Cliff: He's (Sam) been out with a different beautiful dolly each night this week.
Diane: He's over-compensating for feelings of inadequacy with an ostentatious display of hormonal activity.
Norm: That's our Sammy!

Episode 1 - Pilot: Give Me a Ring Sometime (Season 1 Episode 1)

Watched: May 30, 2012 -

First scene of the entire show is an underage kid trying to get a beer from Sam. It actually works alright, as the kid hams it up to a spectacular degree.

The episode really gets going when Diane walks in with a goober (Actually, Sam prefers to call him "Goofy") professor named Sumner Sloane whom she is about to marry that night in Barbados. They have decided they will get married on a whim, only he wants Diane to have his grandmother’s wedding ring. He leaves her at the bar to get back his grandmother’s ring from his ex-wife. Sam and Diane’s sexual tension starts pretty much immediately. Norm gets a “NORM!” on his very first trip into the bar. Cliff Claven is sitting on the opposite side of the bar from Norm. (Norm sits in his usual seat.)

Lots of sports talk in this one centered around coach who thinks the Patriots drafting a linebacker is terrible, then good, then terrible, then good…he just adapts the opinion of the last person he speaks with.

Carla is still a work in progress as a character as she seems very apologetic over being a few minutes late…later on as the character develops there is NO WAY Carla would apologize for anything. Interesting to see these characters before they really get established later on.

The main story of the show has Diane getting ditched, as Sumner goes back to his ex-wife. Feeling sorry for her, Sam offers her a job as a waitress which she initially thinks she's too good for, because...well, she's Diane. When she perfectly remembers an order given to Sam, she decides to take the job at Cheers since she has no other prospects.

The show is a bit formulaic, which you’d expect from a pilot. Still, you can see the seeds of a classic show already starting to bloom.

Best line from the episode:

Coach: (Announcing to the entire bar with his hand over the phone) “Phone call for Ernie Pantuso!”
Sam: “That’s you, Coach”
Coach: (Goes right back to the phone) “Speaking!”