| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cheerstitlecard.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ->''"Making your way in the world today takes everything you got.\ |
| 4 | Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.\ |
| 5 | Wouldn't you like to get away...?\ |
| 6 | Sometimes you want to GO--\ |
| 7 | Where everybody knows your name....\ |
| 8 | And they're always glad you came....\ |
| 9 | You wanna be where you can see\ |
| 10 | Our troubles are all the same\ |
| 11 | You wanna be where everybody knows your name....\ |
| 12 | You wanna go where people know\ |
| 13 | People are all the same\ |
| 14 | You wanna go where everybody knows your name...!"'' |
| 15 | -->-- "'''Where Everybody Knows Your Name'''" by Gary Portnoy, the show's iconic ThematicThemeTune |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ''Cheers'' was a hugely popular {{sitcom}}, which aired on Creator/{{NBC}} for eleven seasons (1982–93), about the goings-on at a [[LocalHangout friendly neighborhood bar]] in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}. When it began, it was notable for the fact that the entire show took place in the bar, never venturing outside, but this was dropped after a while. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | The bar was owned for much of the series' run by Sam Malone (Creator/TedDanson), a former [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} relief pitcher]] for the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox]] whose career was cut short by alcoholism. His employees include short-statured and short-tempered waitress Carla Tortelli (Creator/RheaPerlman) and absent-minded bartender Ernie "Coach" Pantusso (Creator/NicholasColasanto), his former pitching coach at the Red Sox. Bar regulars include underemployed accountant and armchair philosopher Norm Peterson (Creator/GeorgeWendt) and KnowNothingKnowItAll mailman Cliff Clavin (Creator/JohnRatzenberger). The lives of the Cheers staff are shaken up when book smart but street dumb Boston University graduate student Diane Chambers (Creator/ShelleyLong) is dumped by her fiancé while waiting for him at the bar; at a loose end, she accepts a job as a waitress. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | ''Cheers'' can be neatly divided into the Diane years (Seasons 1-5) and the Rebecca years (Seasons 6-11) - in the transition from Diane to Rebecca, the show's production company Creator/{{Paramount}} Television also changed its logo (in fact, other than ''Entertainment Tonight'', it was the last Paramount production from its "[[Main/VanityPlate Blue Mountain]]" era still producing new episodes). During the first five seasons, the Sam-Diane romance was the central theme. Their relationship was the most over-elaborate in television history, until [[Series/{{Friends}} Ross and Rachel]] came into the picture. After an acrimonious breakup at the end of Season 2, Sam had a relapse of his alcoholism while Diane voluntarily committed herself and fell in love with her psychiatrist, [[Characters/CheersFrasierCrane Dr. Frasier Crane]] (Creator/KelseyGrammer), who returned with her to Boston to help Sam kick the bottle. However, Diane's feelings for Sam had not gone away, and between Seasons 3 and 4, she left Frasier at the altar and, after trying to find herself through first hedonism, then asceticism, returned to her old job at Cheers. After Nicholas Colasanto died of a heart attack in 1985, [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim Coach was likewise written out as having died between seasons]], and in Season 4, he was replaced by his friendly but naive young penpal, Woody Boyd (Creator/WoodyHarrelson) of Hanover, Indiana. Meanwhile, just as Diane had moved on from her broken engagement to Frasier by re-kindling her romance with Sam, so Frasier found an unlikely new love in fellow psychiatrist Dr. Lilith Sternin (Creator/BebeNeuwirth) in Season 5; they married in Season 6 and became parents to a son, Frederick, in Season 8. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | After Season 5, Long left for a [[{{Understatement}} less-than-brilliant career in movies]], and to raise her child, so the five years of WillTheyOrWontThey culminated in Diane calling off her wedding to Sam to pursue her writing career at the urging of both her ex-fiancé and Sam himself. In Season 6, Creator/KirstieAlley joined the cast as Rebecca Howe, an ambitious but neurotic executive at the corporation to which Sam sold Cheers after Diane left; although Sam was given his job back as a bartender, ownership of Cheers was traded between Sam and Rebecca several times. Though the sexual tension between Sam and Rebecca remained a plot element, the show became more of an ensemble for its last six seasons. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | For its first couple seasons, ''Cheers'' was teetering on the brink of cancellation despite acclaim from critics and actually came in dead last in the ratings its first year. [[NetworkToTheRescue However, it slowly became one of the most popular shows on television.]] Its final episode, which aired on May 20, 1993, was one of the most watched finales for a sitcom in American television history. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | The first draft of the ''Cheers'' script was originally set in a hotel of all places, with wacky guests coming and going (the creators were inspired by ''Series/FawltyTowers''). After the vast majority of script ideas ended up set in the hotel's bar, the producers just dropped the hotel concept entirely. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Cheers was modeled after the real-life Boston bar [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheers_Beacon_Hill the Bull & Finch Pub]], which was used as the [[EstablishingShot exterior]]. The two bars do not share a layout indoors, the Bull & Finch--renamed Cheers Beacon Hill in 2002--being completely different, so a replica of Cheers as it appeared on the show was built at Faneuil Hall. The replica bar closed in August, 2020. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | The show produced two spin-offs: ''Series/TheTortellis'', a mainly forgotten one-season show featuring Carla's ex-husband Nick and his family, and the very successful ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', featuring occasional guest appearances by the ''Cheers'' cast (most frequently Lilith and a twice-recast Frederick), which ran for another 11 years and would eventually be [[Series/Frasier2023 revived in 2023]]. The show is also part of a SharedUniverse with ''Series/{{Wings}}''. |
| 32 | ---- |
| 33 | !! "Sometimes you wanna go, where everybody knows your trope": |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder: #-A]] |
| 38 | * NumberOneDime: Sam's [[LastUnsmokedCigarette lucky bottle cap]], from the last bottle of alcohol he drank before quitting. |
| 39 | * FiveFiveFive: Carla's phone number is 555-7843. A phone number begins with 555 in "Any Friend of Diane's," "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Everyone Imitates Art," "Never Love a Goalie (Part 1)," and "How to Win Friends and Electrocute People." |
| 40 | * SixIsNine: The bar has a raffle using numbered ping-pong balls. Number 99 gets chosen, but Sam points out that the 99 looks like a 66. HilarityEnsues. |
| 41 | * EightiesHair: OK, besides the hair, the show dates very well. |
| 42 | ** In the first two seasons, SeventiesHair is still quite pervasive. Season three is the first where 80's hair is almost 100% prevalent. |
| 43 | * AbhorrentAdmirer: |
| 44 | ** Martin Teal, who tries to pressure Rebecca into marriage in Season 7. He looks like he's about sixteen and is five feet tall if he's lucky--but he's also her boss, so corporate lackey Rebecca has a hard time saying no. |
| 45 | ** Later, she suffers from the advances of Woody's cousin Russell--who becomes a StalkerWithACrush. And then later on, Carla's doofus son Gino. |
| 46 | ** Sam is also this to Rebecca off and on, especially early in Rebecca's run. While the attraction isn't as one-sided as Rebecca tries to convince herself of, they never fully become a couple and end up best friends. They agree to platonically co-parent a child, but change their mind as it begins affecting their friendship. |
| 47 | * AccidentalAdultery: PlayedWith. Cliff gets bitten by a dog on his route and decides to sue the owner. The owner then starts up a relationship with him instead. Eventually, she gets him to sign a document dropping the lawsuit and checks her messages. One of them is from her husband who disappeared in Vietnam and just came back. (It was a con, and Cliff knew it. When he blundered and signed, the call came and Cliff muttered "[[GenreSavvy Uh oh]]", knowing she was about to dump him with the lawsuit gone.) |
| 48 | * AchievementsInIgnorance: In "They Call Me Mayday", Coach is able to do handstand push-ups (''one-handed'' handstand push-ups, even) when he remembers doing them during Spring Training. When Sam points out it was actually someone else who was able to do them, Coach immediately collapses. |
| 49 | * ActorAllusion: A strange case. For a while, Carla's ex-husband Nick was TheFaceless, and was described as Creator/DannyDeVito. Rhea Perlman played Zena, [=Louis DePalma's=] girlfriend on ''Series/{{Taxi}}''. [=DeVito=] was going to play Nick, but his movie career took off and Creator/DanHedaya was hired to play the role instead. |
| 50 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: |
| 51 | ** In "Sam Turns The Other Cheek", Diane can't resist dropping one {{Pun}} after another when Sam reveals to her that he accidentally shot himself in the behind. Even Sam soon finds himself struggling to keep it together at her quips. |
| 52 | ** |
| 53 | -->'''Carla''': I've got it! I've got it!\ |
| 54 | '''Diane''': What, you've actually managed to conjure up something besides yet ANOTHER illegitimate child?\ |
| 55 | '''Carla''': Ooooh, a completely unprovoked personal attack...I like it! |
| 56 | * AirplaneOfLove: In "Showdown, Part I," when Sam thinks he's lost his chance with Diane due to his brother, he hears a plane fly overhead and turns to look upward.... (To Be Continued....) |
| 57 | * TheAlcoholic: Sam is a recovering one. When asked what happened to his baseball career, he says, "Elbow trouble. Bent it too often." |
| 58 | * AlcoholInducedIdiocy: In "[[Recap/CheersS3E18BarBet Bar Bet]]", Sam almost loses the bar when he falls off the wagon and makes a drunken bet to marry Creator/JacquelineBisset within one year. (The sleazy guy trying to take the bar from Sam is Creator/MichaelRichards). Diane brings up the fact it's not enforceable, but Sam wants to keep it quiet because he's ashamed of getting drunk again. |
| 59 | * AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Sam is a definite beneficiary of this trope. It's even lampshaded in one episode when Lilith invites him to appear on a television show to promote a book she's written about the phenomenon. And then it turns out even Lilith is not immune to this one. |
| 60 | * AllPartOfTheShow: In "[[Recap/CheersS2E4HomicidalHam Homicidal Ham]]" Diane and crazy Andy are performing Theatre/{{Othello}}'s murder of Desdemona. Andy really begins to strangle Diane. She struggles, causing the present acting scout to exclaim, "[[AlternateCharacterInterpretation I love it! A Desdemona who fights back!]]" Sam still briefly checks with the acting coach to make sure "Help me! This psycho's trying to kill me!" isn't part of the original text of the play. Coach exclaims, "That's the only line of Shakespeare I ever understood!" [[invoked]] |
| 61 | * AlternateCatchphraseInflection: Inverted. When Norm enters the bar, he usually gives a cheerful greeting and everyone says his name in an equally cheerful voice. In one episode, he enters the bar and while he still sounds cheerful, he looks devastated. Everyone says, "Norm?" in a confused, concerned tone. |
| 62 | * AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Sam's never-seen brother Derek is wealthier, more popular, and more attractive to women than Sam, giving Sam a lifelong inferiority complex. |
| 63 | * AmateurFilmMakingPlot: Woody wants to make a video for his parents to convince them to let him stay in Boston. Diane takes over production and makes it into a pretentious LeFilmArtistique, ''Manchild in Beantown''. |
| 64 | * AmazingFreakingGrace: "Coach Buries a Grudge", wherein Coach and his old friends get together to bury a deceased teammate, and they get caught up in how much they hated him until Diane leads everyone in the hymn. |
| 65 | * AmbiguouslyGay: Philip Semenko, played in a memorable guest role by Creator/ChristopherLloyd. |
| 66 | -->'''Phillip:''' I make love to everything I paint!\ |
| 67 | '''Diane:''' Your most famous painting is of the Harvard-Yale football game!\ |
| 68 | '''Phillip:''' Yes, I spent three months in jail. College types don't ''understand'' me. ''[wistfully]'' I do, however, still get a few Christmas cards. |
| 69 | * AnachronismStew: [[ConversationalTroping Discussed]] in "[[Recap/CheersS5E4AbnormalPsychology Abnormal Psychology]]" after Norm and Cliff return from watching a gladiator movie. |
| 70 | * AnchoviesAreAbhorrent: Norm likes his pizza with anchovies, which also assures that nobody asks him to share it. |
| 71 | * AndImTheQueenOfSheba: Having come BackForTheFinale, Diane smilingly reacts this way when Woody tells her of his recent election to the city council, claiming she's "next in line for the throne of England!" [[SarcasmBlind Woody thinks she means it]], catching Diane off guard as she realizes he's serious.... |
| 72 | * AndStarring: George Wendt was billed last in the opening credits for the entire duration of the series, but the "And" wasn't added until the 4th season. |
| 73 | * AndTheAdventureContinues: Despite a lot of the characters getting better jobs in the finale, it's strongly implied that their everyday lives will continue to be mostly the same as they have been throughout the series. Even Woody, who was elected to the city council, says that he intends to carry on working in Cheers whenever he has the time to do so. The only major change is Rebecca quitting to get married, and even then we later find out in ''Frasier'' that it lasted barely a year. |
| 74 | * AntennaAdjusting: TheTeaser of "Dance, Diane, Dance" from Season 5 finds the Cheers crowd watching a football game when the picture quality suddenly drops. Sam sends Woody over to the set to adjust the antenna, which involves balancing on the panelling while hanging onto the set; inevitably, he loses his footing, but as he hangs from the set, several feet off the floor, the picture clears up - almost. Cliff makes a minor colour adjustment by picking up one of Woody's legs to balance his foot on top of the panelling. |
| 75 | -->'''Woody:''' Wow, I sure hope this game doesn't go into overtime! |
| 76 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: Part of Norm's HiddenDepths is his occasional skill with these. |
| 77 | ** In "Simon Says", Diane is angsting over Simon Finch-Royce telling her and Sam that they should not only not get married, they should never see each other again, as they have absolutely nothing in common. Norm asks, "Excuse me, Diane: what exactly ''do'' you two have in common?" Diane is unable to answer. |
| 78 | ** In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't", Frasier is brushing off the fact that he didn't tell Lilith about his brief marriage to Nanette Guzman, now known as beloved children's singer Nanny Gee. Norm asks, "Yes, Frasier, but ''why'' didn't you tell her?" Frasier doesn't have an answer.[[note]] Although Norm follows this with a speech about marriages being built on trust, which even a casual viewer knows is not remotely true of his own marriage to Vera... and which he admits to Cliff is paraphrased from an episode of ''Series/{{Matlock}}''.[[/note]] |
| 79 | * ArtImitatesArt: The opening credits try to match up the tavern-goers in the painting with the characters on the show as the actor credits flash by. |
| 80 | * ArtisticLicenseReligion: Woody and Kelly are on opposite sides of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod/Evangelical Lutheran Church in America schism; this is played up as a parody of more severe religious disputes between couples, as represented by Frasier and Lilith (neither side believes that members of their competing denomination worship Satan). |
| 81 | * ArtisticLicenseSports: There is absolutely ''no way'' a sports bar in Boston wouldn't know the nickname of the [=UConn=] sports teams, the Huskies, especially since they're traditional rivals with Boston U in NCAA basketball. |
| 82 | * AscendedExtra: Several. |
| 83 | ** Most surprisingly, Cliff Clavin was a background character when the show premiered, one of the barflies with a line or two an episode. John Ratzenberger was not promoted to the main cast credits until the second season. |
| 84 | ** Creator/KelseyGrammer was originally supposed to guest star in a handful of Season 3 episodes as Diane's new boyfriend. He parlayed that into a featured role and then into his own SpinOff. |
| 85 | ** Lilith (Creator/BebeNeuwirth) first appeared in one Season 4 episode in which Frasier has a disastrous date. The character returned in Season 5 and eventually Neuwirth joined Grammer in the opening titles. |
| 86 | ** Paul, originally just a background character, was promoted to semi-regular status in the last couple of seasons. |
| 87 | ** What with the show being set in a bar, there were a lot of permanent extras that could qualify as ascended extras and were often referred to by name (Cheers was, after all, the bar "where everybody knows your name"). While they normally only said a throw-away line or two, it's a testament to the excellent writing that they were given significant character development and were able to easily fit in with the regular cast. |
| 88 | * AsHimself: Many Massachusetts athletes and politicians appeared as themselves, as well as an assortment of TV personalities. |
| 89 | ** The series' first guest star to appear as himself was Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, then-US Congressman for the district including Boston and Speaker of the House of Representatives, in Season 1's "No Contest"; Carla initially asks if anyone has ever told him he looks like Tip O'Neill, and he jokes that they have, but he thinks he is much better-looking. He then reveals that he has ducked into Cheers to get away from a woman who kept talking his ear off about her philosophies of everything. Said woman turns out to be Diane, who enters and tries to pick up where she left off until Sam ushers her into his office. |
| 90 | ** In Season 2's "They Called Me Mayday", TV interviewer Dick Cavett appears as himself, and gives Sam the idea to write a book about his baseball career with ghostwriting help from Diane. |
| 91 | ** In the second part of Season 4's three-part finale "Strange Bedfellows", then-US Senator Gary Hart appeared as himself, having met Sam through Boston city councilwoman Janet Eldridge (Creator/KateMulgrew) and partnered with him for a game of Trivial Pursuit. |
| 92 | ** Creator/RobertUrich appeared in Season 6's "Woody for Hire, Meets Norman of the Apes" in his capacity as the star of ''Series/SpenserForHire'', on which Woody claims to have been an extra. |
| 93 | ** Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox showed up in Season 6's "The Bar Wars" as himself - not that the Cheers gang believed he was who he said he was until they pantsed him and looked at his wallet... |
| 94 | ** "Hot Rocks" from Season 7 features an appearance by Admiral William J. Crowe, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who wows the staff and regulars at Cheers with his stories but then, after he has departed, becomes the prime suspect in the theft of Rebecca's $32,000 diamond earrings. |
| 95 | ** Creator/AlexTrebek appeared as himself in his role as host of ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' when Cliff appeared as a contestant in "What Is... Cliff Clavin?" in Season 8. |
| 96 | ** The two members of Music/TheRighteousBrothers appeared as themselves in separate episodes; Bill Medley in Season 8's "Finally!, Part 1" to serenade Rebecca on Robin's behalf with "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling", and Bobby Hatfield in Season 9's "Wedding Bell Blues" to perform "Unchained Melody" at Rebecca's aborted wedding to Robin. |
| 97 | ** Season 9's "Where Nobody Knows Your Name" features an appearance by Creator/ArsenioHall on the Cheers TV, promoting an upcoming episode of ''Series/TheArsenioHallShow'' with guests Creator/MichaelCaine, Music/MCHammer, and Jeanne-Marie Beaulieu, who has falsely claimed to be the woman for whom Robin Colcord went to prison (thus getting money and fame that Rebecca believes is rightly hers; such is her anger that she pulls the TV off the shelf, smashing it beyond repair). |
| 98 | ** The 200th episode special in Season 9 featured a Q&A session with the cast presided over by John [=McLaughlin=], chairman of the political discussion series ''Series/TheMcLaughlinGroup''. |
| 99 | ** Former Massachusetts governor and unsuccessful 1988 US presidential candidate Michael Dukakis appears in the Season 9 episode "Sam Time Next Year" as himself. |
| 100 | ** Kevin [=McHale=] of the Boston Celtics starred in two different episodes, Season 9's "Cheers Fouls Out" as a ringer for the Cheers basketball team in a game against Gary's Old Towne Tavern, and Season 10's "Where Have All the Floorboards Gone?" in which the Cheers gang get him obsessed with the number of nails in the floor of the court at Boston Garden, causing his performance to nosedive. |
| 101 | ** Then-Massachusetts Senator John Kerry appeared as himself in TheTeaser of the Season 10 episode "Bar Wars VI: This Time It's for Real"; however, Norm and Cliff, whom he meets outside Cheers, have only a vague idea of who he is even after he tells them. |
| 102 | ** The Season 10 episode "Heeeeeere's Cliffy!" featured ''Series/TheTonightShow'' host Creator/JohnnyCarson and his in-house bandleader Doc Severinsen as themselves after Cliff goes to a recording to see Carson tell jokes he supposedly wrote and sent in for the show. |
| 103 | ** TheTeaser of Season 11's "Daddy's Little Middle-Aged Girl" features Ethel Kennedy, widow of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (younger brother of former president UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy), and several other members of her family (who are uncredited); Norm and Cliff see them standing outside Melville's as they exit Cheers and try to get a picture with them, but after a miscommunication, Ethel takes a picture of Norm and Cliff with each other instead, and they don't realise the mistake until the Kennedys have gone. |
| 104 | ** Former ''[[Film/TheLittleRascals Our Gang]]'' star George "Spanky" [=McFarland=] appears as himself in TheTeaser of "Woody Gets an Election" in Season 11 (his last TV appearance before his death in 1993); however, when Cliff introduces himself, he comes across as such a scarily obsessive Little Rascals fan that [=McFarland=] lies and says he isn't actually who Cliff believes him to be. He confesses the truth to Norm after Cliff leaves. |
| 105 | * AtTheOperaTonight: "[[Recap/CheersS4E22DianeChambersDay Diane Chambers Day]]". Even Diane falls asleep. |
| 106 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Diane and Carla, in the ending sequence of "Truce of Consequences." After they share a BIG laugh (with Sam) over the episode's events (involving a lie Carla had told Diane during a prior attempt to "reach out" to each other), the two women have a warm exchange that points towards [[VitriolicBestBuds a legitimate friendship beneath all the surface volatility]]. |
| 107 | -->'''Carla:''' Hey, look, uh, Whitey--I'm sorry. I know I can be a real ''pain'', sometimes....\ |
| 108 | '''Diane:''' And I know, that--I take things a little too ''seriously'', at times. I guess I need to be ''reminded'' of that.\ |
| 109 | '''Carla:''' Well--I'll always be there for ya! ''[Pats Diane on the back]''\ |
| 110 | '''Sam:''' Listen--I want you two to, uh...shake hands.\ |
| 111 | ''[They do. Pause]''\ |
| 112 | '''Carla:''' ''[Hesitates; shrugs]'' You're all right. ''[Beat]'' Hey--maybe we can go to a movie, one night!\ |
| 113 | '''Diane:''' Fine! When?\ |
| 114 | '''Carla:''' ''[{{Beat}}]'' I'll get back to ya.... |
| 115 | [[/folder]] |
| 116 | |
| 117 | [[folder: B]] |
| 118 | * BabyFeverTrigger: Sam is asked to babysit Frederick Crane in one episode. He enjoys it so much that he tries to spend more time with him, only to be rebuked by Frasier who tells him to get his own child. This leads to Sam looking through his past romances to find one who would be willing to have a child with him. He eventually dreams that Music/ElvisPresley tells him to try for a baby with Rebecca. They try repeatedly for about half a season before deciding they're not ready to become parents. |
| 119 | * BabysittingEpisode : Two in Season 10, the first when Sam babysits Frederick, and the second when Sam and Rebecca stay with Carla's brood. |
| 120 | -->'''Rebecca:''' What's (Anthony) doing?\ |
| 121 | '''Gino:''' Time. |
| 122 | * BachelorAuction: Occurs in "Bidding on the Boys." |
| 123 | * BackForTheFinale: Diane, after Sam sees her accepting an Emmy for writing a TV movie and calls her up. |
| 124 | * BadBadActing: In "Two Girls For Every Boyd," when Woody, cast in a community theater production of ''Theatre/OurTown'' opposite a young [[Series/{{Friends}} Lisa Kudrow]], is too nervous about a love scene to act competently. |
| 125 | ** Woody is also portrayed as a terrible actor to start with, as even his community theater group won't hire him for anything unless they're absolutely desperate. Becomes a ZigZaggedTrope later, as Woody gives a beautiful performance as Mark Twain in Season 6. |
| 126 | * BaldOfEvil: John Hill to Sam. |
| 127 | * BarBrawl: Woody's desire to kick Henri's ass in "Home Malone" leads him to run right into another bar patron, who then throws him across the bar, triggering a bar brawl. |
| 128 | * BarredFromEveryBar: |
| 129 | ** It's a RunningGag that Norm is TheScrooge and absolutely refuses to pay his (quite extensive) bar tab at Cheers. It's quite heavily implied that the other bars in town have decided to just bar him from entrance (and Cheers is thinking it over) as a result of this, with one episode having Norm arriving to a different bar because of the episode's events and the bartender yelling out a "Get out of here, Peterson!" five seconds later. |
| 130 | ** Downplayed when he gets picked as the bar's designated driver for the night. After dropping off his first patron, he returns and Carla reminds him that he's the designated driver. He replies "I know that and you know that, but did you have to call every bar in town and tell ''them''?" |
| 131 | * BarSlide: Sam has a trick where he can slide a glass of beer around a corner to a customer. |
| 132 | * BathroomStallGraffiti: Many times and examples. See also the entry JennysNumber. |
| 133 | -->'''Frasier:''' It took all afternoon, but I finally washed off all of Carla's phone number in the men's bathroom.\ |
| 134 | '''Carla:''' ''[Appalled]'' Would you mind your own business?! |
| 135 | * BatmanGambit: Robin Colcord and Gary of "Gary's Olde Towne Tavern" pull these a lot. And though Harry The Hat usually just cons people or steals from them when he appears, he also has two spectacular {{Batman Gambit}}s to his name, both of which helped Sam. |
| 136 | * BatteredBouquet: An episode has Carla celebrating her anniversary and expecting a gift from Eddie. At one point, she receives a bouquet of flowers addressed from him. Then Carla throws them on the floor and wrecks them. It turns out that Eddie always signs letters to her with his real name, Guy, and she knows they're not from him. |
| 137 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In "Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey", Cheers loses a bet to Gary's Olde Towne Tavern regarding which bar will make more money on St. Patrick's Day, and Sam tells Woody, Norm, and Cliff to go with him to Gary's to perform the forfeit. Paul says that just once, he'd like to be included in something the others do, so Sam invites him along. The forfeit is standing on the stage at Gary's to sing [[Theatre/TheKingAndI "Getting to Know You"]] - [[NakedPeopleAreFunny stark naked.]] |
| 138 | * BedTrick: Woody and Sam get into a little contest in which the winner is the one who kisses Rebecca. She gets wind of it from Carla, and ochestrates it so that Sam and Woody kiss in the dark. Both are disgusted, but Woody makes Sam uncomfortable when he asks him to rate his kissing ability. |
| 139 | * BelligerentSexualTension: |
| 140 | ** Sam and Diane are one of the most famous examples in TV history. |
| 141 | ** Carla and John Allen Hill have this in later seasons. |
| 142 | * BenevolentBoss: Sam is usually this. He's friendly with most of his employees and generous with pay, giving Carla a raise whenever she got pregnant, for example. He also lets them get away with a ''lot'' without firing them. |
| 143 | * BerserkButton: |
| 144 | ** Never talk smack to Cliff about the U.S. Postal Service (e.g., merely saying "Federal Express"). |
| 145 | ** Don't make jokes about Sam's alcoholism in front of Carla. |
| 146 | ** If Diane has left (even only for what the characters didn't know would be a summer break and the season premiere), do ''not'' mention her around Carla. |
| 147 | ** Diane loses it in "I Call Your Name" when Sam reveals that he knows she's been calling ''his'' name during her nights with Frasier. HilarityEnsues as she struggles with exactly ''how'' she should vent (including grabbing Sam by the shirt). |
| 148 | ** Do ''not'' insult or offend the memory of Diane's beloved [[GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals stuffed animal collection]] in any way. [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in that rather than try and kill you, she'll more likely [[DramaQueen shed tears and behave as though you're the worst person alive...]]. |
| 149 | ** Subverted in an early episode when an obnoxious New Yorker tries to goad Carla into assaulting him, in the hopes of suing the bar. Sam tries to warn him not to say anything bad about the Boston Bruins, so he of course launches into a diatribe about how crappy they are. Seconds later, we find out that it wasn't Carla whom Sam was worried about being offended, but rather another customer who happens to be a player for the Bruins. Things go FromBadToWorse when it turns out that the reason he's currently in the bar is because he's serving a suspension for violent behavior... |
| 150 | * BestedAtBowling: {{Subverted}} in [[Recap/CheersS4E9FromBeerToEternity "From Beer to Eternity"]]. The gang gets into a bowling contest at Gary's Old Town Tavern. It turns out that Diane took bowling for a P.E. credit in college, and was the best bowler on either team. Sam is so thrilled to be able to beat Gary that it never even occurs to him to be bothered that Diane, of all people, is a better bowler than him. |
| 151 | * BetterAsFriends: |
| 152 | ** Sam and Carla are very close, and acknowledge that they each have considered the other as a possible love interest. They kiss at least once. She starts a bar fight in episode 2 to defend his honor. He pretends to be her boyfriend to make her ex jealous. They never become a couple. |
| 153 | ** Sam and Rebecca eventually realize they are this, in Season 10's "Go Make." The episodes following still jokingly have some romantic banter between the two and they both still talk about each others' love lives, but otherwise they just act like close friends. |
| 154 | * BettyAndVeronica: |
| 155 | ** Diane and Janet, respectively, for Sam in the three-part "Strange Bedfellows." |
| 156 | ** Frasier and Sam are a [[GenderInvertedTrope gender-inverted]] version of this for Diane, in Season 3. |
| 157 | * BeQuietNudge: Used a few times. |
| 158 | -->'''Norm:''' ''OW!'' That ''really'' hurt, y'know?\ |
| 159 | '''Carla:''' Good. Then I haven't lived in vain. |
| 160 | * TheBigDamnKiss: |
| 161 | ** Sam and Diane have one in Season 1 finale "Showdown (Part 2)." |
| 162 | ** They have another one in Season 5's "Knights Of The Scimitar." |
| 163 | --->'''Sam:''' Diane!\ |
| 164 | '''Diane:''' Yes, Sam...?\ |
| 165 | '''Sam:''' ''[Walking up to her]'' It ''would've'' bothered me if he'd done ''this'':\ |
| 166 | ''[TheBigDamnKiss...lasting for a LONG time]''\ |
| 167 | '''Diane:''' ''[Breathless and weak in the knees]'' Yes, I can see where that might have given you cause for concern! |
| 168 | *** Then Carla tells Lance that they might have more concern if Carla kissed Lance like "''this''", and proceeds to hungrily make out with him. Diane annoyedly tells Carla she's not involved. Carla breathlessly replies, "I am ''now''!" |
| 169 | ** Frasier and Lilith, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGDq7bchbEU after she lets her hair down]]. Doubles as a ShutUpKiss. |
| 170 | * BigNo: In the final scene of Season 5's "Diamond Sam", when it FINALLY registers with Carla that Sam and Diane are engaged. Carla freezes, [[LargeHam throws her head up]], her body shuddering like mad, [[SkywardScream and...]]. |
| 171 | ** This is how the very first scene of Season 8 ends after Rebecca dreams that she finally yields to Sam's unwelcome advances. |
| 172 | * BilingualBonus: The episode where Rebecca Howe has fallen on hard times and is a HoodOrnamentHottie, demonstrating polishing wax at a car show. In the background is a large advertising poster about a new model called the Candiru 1991. You might take this to be an import from Japan or somewhere else in the Far East. ''Candiru'' is actually a Portuguese word: it's that pencil-shaped fish in Brazil that allegedly swims up inside your penis, and lodges there. |
| 173 | * BleakAbyssRetirementHome: Inverted in one of the last episodes, "Rebecca Gaines, Rebecca Loses". Cliff finally puts Ma Clavin in a retirement home. Feeling terribly guilty, Cliff goes back to the home, only to find that it is awesome and Ma Clavin is having a blast. Then when he sees the bill he yanks her out of there. |
| 174 | * BluntYes: In "Diane Meets Mom" Diane is shocked after Frasier's mom (played by [[Series/TheSopranos Nancy Marchand]]) threatens to murder her if she doesn't break it off with Frasier. She goes to Sam for advice. |
| 175 | -->'''Diane:''' Sam, I have to ask you a question. Promise me you won't make a joke out of it.\ |
| 176 | '''Sam:''' Yeah, I promise. What's up?\ |
| 177 | '''Diane:''' Do you think I'm crazy?\ |
| 178 | '''Sam:''' Yes.\ |
| 179 | '''Diane:''' Ha! Ha! Now that we've gotten the joke over, will you please help me? This is a strange question, but it's important. Do you think I'm crazy?\ |
| 180 | '''Sam:''' ''Yes''. |
| 181 | ** It's even funnier when you consider Diane met Frasier ''as a patient in a sanitarium''. |
| 182 | * TheBoardGame: ''Cheers'' actually had ''two''. One--The ''Cheers'' Game--was made in 1987, and has Diane as a token. The other--a trivia board game, just called ''Cheers''--was made in 1992, and has Rebecca instead. |
| 183 | ** InUniverse, the bar appears to own just one as an amenity to customers - a battered old game of Monopoly with most of the player tokens missing or replaced, and un unfeasibly massive pair of dice. |
| 184 | * BookEnds: The first episode opens with Sam Malone coming out of the back room, turning on the lights and opening the bar. The final episode ends with Sam locking the bar, turning off the lights, and strolling back into the back room. |
| 185 | ** The Diane years have their own BookEnds. In the show's first episode snooty professor Sumner Sloane brings Diane to the bar and she winds up staying there to work after he dumps her. At the end of Season Five, Sumner's visit to Cheers sets in motion a chain of events that lures Diane away. |
| 186 | * BottleEpisode: Verging on Bottle Series. Especially early on, the show almost never leaves the bar. |
| 187 | ** The entire first season never leaves the bar. The first time an episode takes place somewhere else is the first episode of Season 2 in Diane's apartment. |
| 188 | * BoyfriendBlockingDad: Diane's dad, apparently. As Diane notes in Season One's "Coach's Daughter," Mr. Chambers was ''very'' prone to TwerpSweating. As she puts it: |
| 189 | -->'''Diane:''' [[ThePerfectionist He would decide he didn’t like them for no better reason than]] one of them had bad posture [[FelonyMisdemeanor or another one had facial hair]]. I’ll never forget the night when I was foolish enough to bring home [[DirtyCommunists a utopian socialist]].\ |
| 190 | '''Others:''' [[SarcasmMode Woah!]]\ |
| 191 | '''Diane:''' [[SarcasmBlind Unbelievable, I know!]] It's unbelievable. I was a rebel then.... |
| 192 | * BowlingForRatings: "[[Recap/CheersS4E9FromBeerToEternity From Beer to Eternity]]" involves the gang from Cheers having a bowling match against the gang from Gary's Olde Town Tavern. |
| 193 | * BrainBleach: Diane's reaction to Coach's daughter's obnoxious fiance's ideal sport ("full-contact female karate"): |
| 194 | -->'''Diane:''' Excuse me. I have to go jump-start my ''brain''... |
| 195 | ** NauseaFuel: Coach's reaction to his daughter's fiance is a little different:[[invoked]] |
| 196 | --->'''Sam:''' Where ya goin', Coach?\ |
| 197 | '''Coach:''' To toss my cookies. |
| 198 | * BreadEggsBreadedEggs: Sam, listing the subjects of photos in Diane's wallet: "You, you with your cat, [[AllGirlsLikePonies you on your horse]], you by your car, you and your cat on your horse by your car." |
| 199 | * BreakTheCutie: |
| 200 | ** This happens a few times to Diane Chambers. |
| 201 | *** In the very first episode, she gets dumped by Sumner. She enters so perky and prim, but is left a wreck. |
| 202 | ---->'''Diane:''' ''(on Sam predicting Sumner was going to dump her for his estranged wife)'' '''''How did you KNOW?!'''''\ |
| 203 | '''Sam:''' ''(shrugging)'' Bartender's intuition. |
| 204 | *** Perhaps the biggest example is "Diane Chambers Day", where she's so broken, she doesn't come into work the next day just to cry. |
| 205 | ---->'''Sam:''' ''(on phone with Diane)'' Oh, hi, Diane. Why aren't you here? Are you sick or something? Oh, well, you sound all stuffed up. Well, I hope you feel better. Bye-bye.\ |
| 206 | '''Norm:''' What's the matter with her?\ |
| 207 | '''Sam:''' She said she's got this allergy where you weep uncontrollably. |
| 208 | *** She's devastated when her cat Elizabeth dies in "Let Me Count the Ways", wondering if her cat wondered where Diane was when she passed. |
| 209 | ---->'''Diane:''' Well, she was the only one in my life who was always there... When everybody else was ''mad'' at me, she always liked me...when I'd... ''hide'' when my parents argued, she'd come with me, and... whenever I was sick, she never left the bed until I was well again... And then, um...when I was...twelve years old, my parents ''separated''. It was... maybe the worst night of my ''life''... Believe it or not, [[DrivenToSuicide I actually thought about throwing myself in the lake.]] But then I... looked down at this ''cat'' in my lap, and thought, "Well... who would take care of ''Elizabeth''?" ''(cries)'' She saved my ''life'' that night! And I know it's ''crazy'', and it's ''irrational'', but... oh, Sam, I can't help thinking that last night, when her time came, ''she must have wondered where I was''... ''(bawls)'' |
| 210 | *** In "Everyone Imitates Art", after learning she got the same rejection letter for her submission as ''Woody'' from a snooty art magazine, she has ''this'' painful speech: |
| 211 | ---->'''Diane:''' ''(utterly defeated)'' You win, Sam. I've struggled so hard for so long to keep my dreams alive, and I haven't fooled anyone but myself. I know all along you all considered me a pretentious, self-deluded windbag and apparently, you've all been right. I'm never going to be Diane Chambers, the great poet, the world-famous novelist, the revered artist. I've gone as high as I'm going to go. I'm a waitress in a beer hall... and not a very good one. ''(increasingly depressed)'' A waitress... ''a waitress...'' ''({{beat}})'' [-A waitress...-] |
| 212 | ** Carla is not immune either. In "Slumber Party Massacred", the reason she's devastated about becoming a grandmother is that she never had any time to enjoy being a teenager because she was pregnant. |
| 213 | --->'''Carla:''' Why do you all keep coming over here?\ |
| 214 | '''Sam:''' We're trying to cheer you up.\ |
| 215 | '''Carla:''' '''''Well, stop it!''''' You ''can't'' cheer me up. Why do people think they always have to rush over a-and talk somebody out of it when they're feeling lousy? ''(sighs)'' Look, this grandmother thing is just something I have to work through, and I will in time. There's nothing any of you guys could do. ''({{beat}})'' Unless you can make me 15 again. ''({{beat}})'' Can any of you make me 15 again? ''({{beat}})'' Well, can you? ''(long silence)'' Look, if you really cared about me, you would just get out of my house and do what I asked you to a long time ago. Just just leave me alone. |
| 216 | ** Naive, sweet Coach reacts to the Sam-Diane ShipSinking with the [[LoveTriangle introduction]] of Frasier at the end of "Rebound" with palpable distress. |
| 217 | * BribeBackfire: Rebecca winds up getting arrested in "Ma Always Liked You Best." |
| 218 | * BrotherhoodOfFunnyHats: Cliff gets Norm to join the "Knights of the Scimitar," where they wear turbans. |
| 219 | * BrutalHonesty: Carla--when she likes you. Seriously. |
| 220 | -->''[On Sam and Diane's feelings toward each other, in front of Diane's mother]''\ |
| 221 | '''Carla:''' Admit it, he's got you ''steaming'' [[TooMuchInformation under the silks!]]\ |
| 222 | '''Diane:''' ''(Bolts up; clearly counts to ten)'' This ''happens'' to be my ''mother''!\ |
| 223 | '''Carla:''' Well, that's why I'm being ''delicate''! |
| 224 | * BucketBoobyTrap: |
| 225 | ** For Diane in "Suspicion." |
| 226 | ** Carla inflicts it on Rebecca later on in the series. |
| 227 | * TheBusCameBack: The last season sees several. Besides Diane's BackForTheFinale appearance, recurring characters Harry the Hat, Nick and Loretta Tortelli, Robin Colcord, and Andy-Andy make guest appearances in Season 11 after long absences. Lilith also pops back up after being written off the show at the beginning of Season 11. |
| 228 | * ButNotTooWhite: Early in the series Carla mocks Diane Chambers for being white-bred, and mockingly calls her "whitey." Diane defends her pale skin as "alabaster." Then along comes Lilith (who is played by Bebe Neuwirth, whose real skin tone was very pale.) |
| 229 | * ButtMonkey: |
| 230 | ** Diane becomes more and more of one during her time on the show, and long after she leaves the other characters are still getting in digs at her. |
| 231 | ** Cliff, Lilith, and Rebecca are all also frequently the butt of jokes. |
| 232 | ** The lowest on the Butt Monkey totem pole is probably Paul. In the reunion episode on ''Frasier'', even Cliff doesn't want him at his retirement party. |
| 233 | [[/folder]] |
| 234 | |
| 235 | [[folder: C]] |
| 236 | * CallBack: |
| 237 | ** In one episode Sam pays a random bar patron to be Diane's blind date, and he turns out to be a convicted murderer. A few episodes later, the man returns and holds up the bar because no one will hire an ex-con. Diane helps him follow his dream of being an actor and he falls for her, but then he sees her kiss Sam and tries to kill her. |
| 238 | ** Two episodes eight seasons apart focus on the Miss Boston Barmaid contest (Diane wins in Season 1 and Carla finishes second in Season 9). |
| 239 | ** Practically a Bookend, they were separated by so many years, in the show's second episode, a patron rushes into the bar and pleads with Coach to let him talk to "Gus," to which Coach tells him to go back "two owners ago." Fast-forward all the way to "The Last Picture Show," one of Season 11's last episodes, and we meet Gus, who was apparently the man who sold the bar to Sam. A reference to Coach is even made. |
| 240 | * TheCameo: Luis Tiant and Wade Boggs of the Red Sox, Dick Cavett, Adm. William J. Crowe (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Arsenio Hall, Robert Urich, Johnny Carson, Mike Ditka, Kim Alexis, Ethel Kennedy, [[Film/TheLittleRascals George [=McFarland=]]], [[TheRighteousBrothers Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield]]. See also PoliticianGuestStar below. |
| 241 | * CaninesGamblingInACardGame: Sam Malone loves the paintings (in particular one of ''Dogs Playing TabletopGame/{{Blackjack}}'') while his more sophisticated lover, Diane Chambers, hates them. Sam says that he sees something new every time he looks at it. |
| 242 | * CannotSpitItOut: Poor Sam turns out to be [[TongueTied (literally!)]] unable to fully say "I love you" to Diane: "I lo... I ''lo''..." |
| 243 | ** Diane understands. In fact, she's actually delighted with the fact: |
| 244 | ---> '''Diane:''' Oh, don’t you see? That phrase that you threw around so casually [[LampshadedTrope is now impossible for you to say!]] And why can’t you say it? [[LadykillerInLove Because with me it’s no longer casual]]. [[OneTrueLove I’m important to you!]] I matter. |
| 245 | ** Then Diane announces to the rest of the bar: |
| 246 | --->'''Diane:''' Sam can't say he loves me!\ |
| 247 | '''Carla:''' ''(rolling her eyes)'' Who can? |
| 248 | * CantActPervertedTowardALoveInterest: Although Sam flirts with Diane at first, most of it is more of a joke than the earnest attempts to get her into bed that he uses with other women. Instead, she gradually becomes his [[TheConfidant confidant]]. |
| 249 | * CantLiveWithThemCantLiveWithoutThem: In the last handful of episodes in Season Two, Sam seems to be going out of his way to undermine his relationship with Diane--eventually acting like a bit of a JerkAss in the two-part season finale. Come the Season 3 premiere, we learn that their breakup had driven Sam back to the bottle and Diane into a temporary emotional breakdown. |
| 250 | ** Norm [[SubvertedTrope subverts]] this: "Women. Can't live with 'em, pass the beer nuts." |
| 251 | * CapeSwish: In Season One's "The Spy Who Came In For A Cold One," Diane dramatically flings her coat on like a cape--a quick moment of "[[RuleOfCool cool]]", even though she ''is'' technically [[{{Melodrama}} just doing it to punctuate her line]]. |
| 252 | * CareerVersusMan: |
| 253 | ** Diane's conflict in the Season 5 finale, between marrying Sam and writing her book; Sloan reveals that there's people willing to publish it if she can just finish the manuscript--but that would mean postponing the marriage to Sam, possibly for good, so she can have the time. Ultimately, [[spoiler:Diane is willing to throw this opportunity away to be with Sam, but Sam can't go through with it and urges her to pursue her dream. She doesn't come back]]. |
| 254 | ** The series finale has both Sam and Diane having this conflict, as they plan to run away together and would effectively leave their careers behind. This occasion ends with [[spoiler:"career" winning out, for both of them]]. |
| 255 | * TheCasanova: Sam is renowned as a ladies' man among the main cast and is looked up to by all but Diane for it. The guys at the bar (mostly Cliff and Norm) enjoy his skirt-chasing antics as a form of entertainment. |
| 256 | * CatapultNightmare: |
| 257 | ** Rebecca has one in "The Impossible Dream (Part 1)"--although actually it wasn't a nightmare, it was an erotic dream about Sam. Sam has one in "The Impossible Dream (Part 2)." |
| 258 | ** Frasier in "Woody Gets an Election" when he dreams of President Woody Boyd. |
| 259 | ** "Diane's Nightmare" is about Andy-Andy. |
| 260 | * {{Catchphrase}}: |
| 261 | ** Cliff: "Hey/Y'know, {{Little Known Fact|s}} that, uh...''[fill in the blank]''" |
| 262 | ** Diane: "Oh, ''Sam''..." |
| 263 | ** Everyone when Norman enters the bar: "Norm!!!" |
| 264 | *** Followed about half a second later with Diane saying "Norman", a bit of business originally [[AdLib ad-libbed]] by Shelley Long. |
| 265 | * {{Catfight}}: |
| 266 | ** Between Lilith and Frasier's first wife (played by Creator/EmmaThompson) in "[[Recap/CheersS10E16OneHugsTheOtherDoesnt One Hugs, the Other Doesn't]]". |
| 267 | ---> '''Frasier''': You know, I'm going to suffer for this tomorrow, but today, right now, at this exact moment, I'm the happiest man on Earth. |
| 268 | ** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and then averted between Kelly and Woody's friend Emily in "Two Girls For Every Boyd": |
| 269 | --->'''Cliff:''' Uh oh, looks like Woody's babes are comin' to blows.\ |
| 270 | '''Bar:''' ''[eagerly]'' '''CAT FIGHT. CAT FIGHT.'''\ |
| 271 | '''Kelly:''' You get outta my way right now or, so help me God, I'll... I'll hurt your feelings.\ |
| 272 | '''Emily:''' You do that and I'll hurt yours right back.\ |
| 273 | '''Frasier:''' ''Kitten'' fight.\ |
| 274 | '''Bar:''' ''[disappointed]'' Kitten fight. Kitten fight. |
| 275 | ** Diane and Carla are known to come close to breaking out into one. One time, they even cat-hiss at each other. |
| 276 | * CelebrityParadox: |
| 277 | ** On the 1988 episode "To All the Girls I've Loved Before," the guys are talking about female celebrities they find attractive. Norm mentions Jill Eikenberry of ''Series/LALaw'', which aired at 10 PM on Thursdays at the time, and which raises questions about how that show exists in the ''Cheers'' universe, and, if the ''Cheers'' gang were to have turned on NBC on a Thursday night at 9 PM, what would they see. |
| 278 | ** In Season 2's "Old Flames", Cliff describes ''Film/{{Gandhi}}'' as "a fine piece of cinematic art". Cliff does not stop to wonder why that American lieutenant briefly seen driving a jeep in one scene looks so much like him. |
| 279 | * CharacterFilibuster: Diane, who has written a long-winded novel, recorded a long-winded answering machine message, and makes long-winded speeches. |
| 280 | ** She even once writes a letter of resignation to Sam that goes on for about 20 pages. |
| 281 | *** It even has at least one graph. |
| 282 | ** Her novel becomes a screenplay only after several thousand pages are cut. She is baffled as to why the original novel was never picked up. |
| 283 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Rebecca, when she first appears in season 6, is portrayed as a no-nonsense, IceQueen-ish businesswoman who was completely on top of things. This doesn't last. Her character later dissolves into a morass of professional incompetence and personal neuroses. [[WordOfGod Writer Ken Levine]] gave [[http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-favorite-kirstie-alley-scene.html a very simple reason]] for this decision: Rebecca was [[RuleOfFunny funnier that way]]. |
| 284 | * TheChessmaster: Robin Colcord, who manipulates Rebecca into getting him access to corporate info, and manipulates Sam into not buying a piece of land that Robin himself then buys. |
| 285 | * TheChewToy: Rebecca. The writers seemed tireless in finding ways for her life to fall apart. |
| 286 | * ChristmasInJuly: Diane's next-to-last episode, "A House Is Not a Home." |
| 287 | * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: In seasons 5 and 6, Carla's eldest son Anthony and his girlfriend Annie are recurring characters, until in one episode Anthony mentions he's gotten Annie pregnant. Carla attacks him, and the young lovers leave, never to be seen again. |
| 288 | * CircumcisionAngst: Frasier panics when it's time for Frederick to have his bris. |
| 289 | * CliffHanger: Used frequently in the "Diane" years and sparingly thereafter. |
| 290 | ** Each of the first four seasons ends with a cliffhanger that has to do with Sam and Diane's [[WillTheyOrWontThey relationship]]. The most extreme case is the 4th season finale, which consists of the last three episodes of that season. The first and second episodes have cliffhangers of their own, and the third one ends the season with a massive one: Sam makes a phone call [[spoiler:to propose]], but the episode ends before the recipient is revealed. |
| 291 | ** The first Rebecca season that ends with a Cliffhanger is Season 8. After Robin Colcord flees from police after his plot to take over Rebecca's corporation is exposed, Rebecca finally sleeps with Sam--only to have Robin come back and [[InterruptedIntimacy burst in on them]] in the last scene of the finale. The resolution is something of an {{Anticlimax}}, as Rebecca goes back to Robin and she and Sam are never a romantic item again. Then Season 9 ends with Rebecca and Sam deciding to conceive a child[[note]]This doesn't make them a romantic item, as neither one of them has romantic feelings for one another. Though they enjoy sex with each other, their only reason for doing it is to have a baby.[[/note]]--only to have that plot abruptly ended in Season 10 (see Real Life Writes The Plot below). |
| 292 | * ClipShow: The "200th Anniversary Special," which has John [=McLaughlin=] (of the syndicated political show ''The [=McLaughlin=] Group'') hosting a panel discussion with the show's cast, writers, and producers, interspersed with clips from earlier episodes. Notably, Creator/ShelleyLong, who had departed the series by that point, returned to participate in the panel discussion. This episode is usually omitted from syndication runs. |
| 293 | * ClosedDoorRapport: In "Film/DinnerAtEight-ish", Lilith, Frasier, and Diane each retreat into the bathroom after different arguments over their relationships. |
| 294 | * ComfortingComforter: Sam for Diane in ""How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Call You Back". |
| 295 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: Most of the cast is susceptible to this, but Diane is responsible for probably the biggest offence on the show: her reaction to Dr. Simon Finch-Royce's (Creator/JohnCleese) famous BerserkButton breakdown, after Sam and Diane keep showing up at his hotel room so Diane can keep refuting his insistence that she and Sam are a disaster waiting to happen. |
| 296 | -->'''Diane:''' Doctor, there's still one thing you haven't considered...\ |
| 297 | '''Dr. Simon Finch-Royce:''' Ok. Sam... Diane... You two are... ''perfect'' together. I'm sorry I made a mistake before but you are the most perfectly matched couple ever. But, why am I telling this to you? Let's share it with the rest of the world. ''[Opens window]'' ''Hear this'', world! The rest of you can stop getting married--it's been done to perfection! ENVY them, sofa--ENVY them, ''chair'', for you shall never be as cozy as they for their union shall be an epoch-shattering success--and '''I STAKE MY LIFE ON IT'''. Wait a moment, let me get this on record--''[speaking into tape recorder]'' "I, Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, being of sound mind and body, declare that Sam and Diane shall be happy together throughout all eternity, and if I am wrong I hereby promise that I will take my own life in the most disgusting manner possible!" ''[shoves tape recorder at Diane]'' Here, take the tape, NO-no, take the whole machine. It's my ''wedding'' gift to ''you'': THE MOST PERFECT COUPLE '''''SINCE THE DAWN! OF TIIIIIIIIIIME!!!!!'''''\ |
| 298 | '''Diane:''' ''[long pause, then grins at Sam]'' See...? |
| 299 | * CompensatingForSomething: During her [[GentlemanSnarker polite verbal smackdown]] [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech of Gary and company]], Diane throws in a speculation that this is the reason for Gary's chronic obsession with belittling Sam. ("[[Recap/CheersS4E9FromBeerToEternity From Beer to Eternity]]") |
| 300 | * TheConfidant: |
| 301 | ** Whoever's behind the bar often listens to people's problems when they come in for a drink. |
| 302 | ** Diane becomes this for Sam over the course of the first season. |
| 303 | * ConfusingMultipleNegatives: Used by Sam in an attempt to get Diane to sleep with him. |
| 304 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 305 | ** Four years after Carla is knocked up in "Whodunit?" by Dr. Bennett Ludlow, their son Ludlow Tortelli pops up in "I Kid You Not" as a little egghead that Frasier and Lilith take an interest in. |
| 306 | ** In Season 5's "Knights Of The Scimitar," Diane is conflicted on whether or not to take up a guy's offer of a weekend-long date. Sam acts cooly indifferent--but Diane strongly suspects that he's covering for his own romantic conflict with this. When the guy (Lance) shows up to take Diane away, and Diane looks to Sam for an answer, he softly says, "Send me a postcard"--a reference to late Season 3, when he says the same thing to Diane over the phone when she's gone to Europe with Frasier. The reference isn't lost on Diane--who takes this to mean her suspicions are right. |
| 307 | * CoolCar: Sam's Corvette. In last-season episode "Love Me, Love My Car" Sam dates the widow of the man who bought the car in an effort to get it back. |
| 308 | * CorruptPolitician: In "Where Nobody Knows Your Name" (Season 9, episode 4, original airdate October 11, 1990), Sam goes to visit [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Robin Colcord]] in his country club prison. As they walk off the tennis court, an older man walks in and Sam points to him and says, "I voted for that guy." |
| 309 | * TheCouch: The one in Sam's office sees a lot of action. |
| 310 | * CourtroomEpisode: Sam has to propose to Diane to stay out of jail in "Chambers vs. Malone." ItMakesSenseInContext. |
| 311 | * {{Crossover}}: With ''Series/{{Wings}}'' and, improbably, ''Series/StElsewhere'', placing Cheers as a spur on many {{Intercontinuity Crossover}}s. |
| 312 | * CrazyPrepared: In "Norm and Cliff's Excellent Adventure", the cold open has Sam, Rebecca and Carla unable to unlock the front door (having either left their keys at home or inside the bar). Norm comes down the staircase, and he has his own key to the door. |
| 313 | * CreatorCameo: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Tartikoff Brandon Tartikoff]], president of NBC throughout the 1980s who masterminded the network's rise to the top of the ratings with ''Cheers'' and a host of other shows, can be seen in late-series episode "It's Lonely on the Top" as a background bar patron. |
| 314 | * CreditCardDestruction: As a prank, Norm & Cliff get Frasier's credit card number and call it in as stolen just before he uses it at the bar to buy drinks for some important clients. Sam tells Frasier it's been declined and that he is required to cut it up in front of Frasier. |
| 315 | * CrossReferencedTitles: |
| 316 | ** The series of episodes revolving around the gang's feud with rival bar Gary's Old Towne Tavern- the ''Bar Wars''. The first one was just "Bar Wars" (season 6). Then came "Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back" (Season 7), "Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh" (season 8), "Bar Wars V: The Final Judgment" (season 10), "Bar Wars VI: This Time It's For Real" (season 10) and "Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey" (season 11). (For some odd reason there was no episode titled "Bar Wars IV".) |
| 317 | ** The last two episodes of Season 8, in which Robin's criminal plot is exposed and Sam and Rebecca finally do it, are called "Cry Hard" and "Cry Harder". |
| 318 | * CueTheRain: In "Home Malone", Frasier and Lilith's toddler son Frederick has locked Sam out on a windowsill (ItMakesSenseInContext). What would be worse for Sam than being stuck out on a ledge of an apartment that's dangerously high up? The rain that starts right after he realizes what a fix he's in. |
| 319 | [[/folder]] |
| 320 | |
| 321 | [[folder: D]] |
| 322 | * DartboardOfHate: Frasier takes shots at a dartboard with Lilith's face on it in "Is There a Doctor In the Howe?". |
| 323 | * DaydreamSurprise: In Season 3 finale "Rescue Me" Sam imagines dramatically [[SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace stopping Diane's wedding to Frasier]]. The viewer figures out that it's Sam's fantasy right around the time Diane says Sam can keep dating other women. |
| 324 | * DeadpanSnarker: Carla mostly, but Diane and Norm both enjoy getting their shots in. |
| 325 | * DefeatingTheCheatingOpponent: Played with. Robin challenges Sam to a game of chess, which Sam doesn't play. Sam uses an earpiece and a computer chess program to cheat, [[MostDefinitelyNotAVillain which doesn't fool Robin in the slightest]]. Robin decides to keep playing, because an honest game with someone who doesn't know the game would be boring. The computer crashes, forcing Sam to make a random move that [[AchievementsInIgnorance confuses Robin enough]] that Sam wins. |
| 326 | * DenserAndWackier: The show started out as a fairly slow-paced, relaxing, yet witty sitcom. With a lot of the plots in the early seasons being fairly grounded, and most episodes only taking place within the bar. As the series went on however, and especially after Diane left the show, the plots got increasingly more absurd, the jokes per minute increased in numbers, and started to include plenty of sight gags. The show's change in tone is best exemplified in the Season 10 finale ''An Old Fashioned Wedding'', it's essentially a screwball comedy with jokes moving at a breakneck speed and an utterly ridiculous plot. |
| 327 | * DerailingLoveInterests: Apparently, Shelley Long was getting increasingly concerned that the Sam-Diane-Frasier arc in Season 3 was starting to become this--hence her appealing to the writers to put a ''stop'' to the Diane-Frasier RomanticFalseLead. |
| 328 | * DiagonalBilling: Used for Ted Danson and Shelley Long in the credits. Discontinued after Shelley Long's departure; although Kirstie Alley was cast as the new female lead, she was given a separate title card ''after'' Danson's. |
| 329 | * DidYouJustHaveSex: The episode before Woody's wedding to Kelly sees him coming into the bar with a huge grin on his face and a distracted air. Sam realizes that Woody is acting just like he does when ''he'' has sex. It becomes a problem later on, as the couple is so eager to get back to lovemaking that the gang has to keep them separated before the wedding. |
| 330 | * DineAndDash: The episode "Young Dr. Weinstein" ends with Sam Malone trying to run out on a check at a fancy, ultra-exclusive restaurant. He has secured a reservation there and eaten a meal while pretending to be someone else, but when it comes time to settle the bill, he attempts to pay with either a credit card or check with his own name on it, which the restaurant won't accept. |
| 331 | -->'''Sam''': Oh, well, why don't you, uh, put it on this credit card anyway, and I'll take this Malone guy out to dinner some other time, hmm? |
| 332 | -->'''Waiter''': I'm afraid not. |
| 333 | -->'''Sam''': Well, all right, I don't suppose you take a personal check, do you? |
| 334 | -->'''Waiter''': And whose name would be on that? |
| 335 | -->'''Sam''': Okay, well, uh, why don't we try this, then? Oh, my God, look at the size of that cat! |
| 336 | -->'''Waiter''': Hey, you, come back here! |
| 337 | * DisappearedDad: Cliff's long-lost father pops up in "The Barstoolie." |
| 338 | * DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: |
| 339 | ** Kelly Gaines's father Walter is a wealthy, snobbish high-society sort who is frequently seen smoking a pipe. |
| 340 | ** In the episode [[Recap/CheersS4E5DianesNightmare "Diane's Nightmare,"]] Sam starts acting very sophisticated and debonair, which includes his lighting up a pipe. Then Diane wakes up to discover it was AllJustADream. When she looks through Sam's desk, she finds an actual pipe, causing her to wonder OrWasItADream... then she examines the pipe more carefully, blows into it and discovers it's a BubblePipe. |
| 341 | * DistractedByTheSexy: Sam often falls victim to this one. |
| 342 | ** Diane [[ExploitedTrope exploits]] this in "Power Play", in retaliation for Sam's kicking in her door. After asking him to wait for her to SlipIntoSomethingMoreComfortable, she soon steps out of her bedroom in a ''very'' short-cut nightie, basically playing the part of an InnocentFanserviceGirl... while sweetly telling Sam that she's just called the police. It sinks in a second later. |
| 343 | ** Subverted in "I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday"; needing a loan from Sam, Diane more or less tries [[ExploitedTrope to ensure]] success [[SupermodelStrut by giving a sensual "air" to her posture]] as she "builds up" to the subject in his office. Beforehand, she even [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] the trope to Carla. But Sam surprisingly doesn't seem to take much notice. |
| 344 | ** In Season 7's "The Gift of the Woodi", Rebecca concludes that she's ''"too darn beautiful"'' to get the corporation's higher-ups to pay attention to any of her ideas, and asks for Lilith's help in dressing down. |
| 345 | * TheDitz: |
| 346 | ** Coach, and later Woody. |
| 347 | ** Woody's girlfriend Kelly is a combination of this and RichInDollarsPoorInSense. |
| 348 | ** Also Loretta, the [[UglyGuyHotWife trophy wife]] of Carla's ex-husband Nick Tortelli. |
| 349 | * TheDogBitesBack: Frasier in "The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe-Hunter." After being abandoned in the woods as the victim of a Snipe Hunt, he pretends not to realize what they did, in order to get them back to the woods so that ''he'' can abandon ''them''. It is his EstablishingCharacterMoment, and he doesn't do it because he is mean or angry--he accepts being a victim of a snipe hunt because screwing with each other is what guys ''do'' (meaning that he is at some level accepted by them as one of the group), but screwing with the others right back would ''also'' be what guys do. At that moment, Frasier earns some HiddenDepths. |
| 350 | * DoubleDate: Sam and his blind date with Diane and Andy-Andy. |
| 351 | * DoubleEntendre: Sam and Diane [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YbEFm_3EXU discussing their plans for the night, under the guise of a drink order]]--all subtlety destroyed by their tones and expressions. |
| 352 | * DramaticDrop: Twice in "My Fair Clavin." |
| 353 | * DreamWithinADream: "Diane's Nightmare" has Diane dreaming of Andy-Andy and then waking up--into another nightmare. |
| 354 | * DropInCharacter: Many. Perhaps most notably, there's John Allen Hill, the owner of Melville's in the later seasons. |
| 355 | * DroppedABridgeOnHim: Jay Thomas once insulted Rhea Perlman's physical attractiveness on national radio. The producers, let's say, weren't thrilled, and soon not only was Eddie [=LeBec=] killed in a humiliating way, it turned out he was a polygamist, souring the audience's opinion on the character. |
| 356 | * DroppedAfterThePilot: The show was originally supposed to include a crotchety old spinster named "Mrs. Littlefield" among the bar regulars. However, [[http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2007/08/cheers-names-not-everybody-knows.html according to series writer Ken Levine]], the character "didn't really score" and she was reduced to a background part in the pilot episode and omitted entirely after that. |
| 357 | * DrunkOnMilk: Cliff gets trashed on fake beer in "License to Hill." |
| 358 | * DumbBlonde: |
| 359 | ** Loretta Tortelli. Basically why she's able to put up with Nick's antics. They just don't register with her. For example, she says Nick's cheating on her because she found a blonde hair on his sweather. Diane reminds her that ''Loretta'' is blonde too. |
| 360 | -->"Hurry up Nick, we're going to miss the Menudo concert!" |
| 361 | ** Kelly Gaines is a milder version. |
| 362 | * DumbwaiterRide: The dumbwaiter at the Gaines mansion gets quite a bit of usage when Woody and Kelly get married. First, Kelly hides in it since Woody's there and the ceremony hasn't started yet. Then the justice of the peace dies and they send him to the basement in it. When they try to bring him back up, he's gone. Now, Carla goes down the dumbwaiter to find him, only to get dropped. Both times she tries to come back up, she gets dropped again. |
| 363 | [[/folder]] |
| 364 | |
| 365 | [[folder: E]] |
| 366 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the first few episodes, Carla repeatedly refers to herself as a "Tortelli woman," as though she were born into the Tortelli family. Later episodes would establish that Tortelli is actually her married name, and that her maiden name was Lozupone. |
| 367 | ** Norm and Cliff don't appear to really be best friends in earliest episodes. They're never shown sitting together, and Norm acts annoyed when Cliff does his first [[CatchPhrase "It's a little known fact"]] spiel in the pilot. It isn't until the 5th episode, "Coach's Daughter", that shows them sitting together, and appearing friendly, save for a moment when Cliff insults Coach, and Norm shoots him a disgusted look. |
| 368 | * {{Earworm}}: "The Heart is a Lonely Snipehunter" has people in the bar singing "The Sunny Side of the Street", passing from person to person, even as one patron walks out. The next person who enters is also singing it, and passes it on to Coach. |
| 369 | * EasilyForgiven: |
| 370 | ** In [[Recap/CheersS3E20IfEverIWouldLeaveYou the episode where Nick gets dumped by Loretta]] and wants Carla back, everyone else in the bar seems willing to forgive him for all his deplorable behavior just because he continues to talk about Carla, and has been working hard doing odd jobs in the bar for a while. Even Diane, who found Nick disgusting before then, seems to think he has legitimately changed (although [[WideEyedIdealist this wouldn't be the first time she's been willing to give someone a chance that maybe she shouldn't have, such as Andy-Andy]].) Every previous appearance of Nick's showed him flaunting his infidelity, selfishness and manipulations in full view of the others--even to the point of trying to take one of Carla's kids to ''give to his new wife'' in one of the episodes, and the major point of it was that Carla was able to overcome his influence in order to get her son back. |
| 371 | *** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] by Carla herself, who refuses to accept that he has changed until everyone else gets on her case about it. When she finally caves, his other wife comes back to him, and [[spoiler:after telling her he doesn't want her back, convincing Carla, he realizes it wasn't a test and gives an excuse about having a sudden disease that needs cured, leaving Carla and proving her right]]. |
| 372 | ** Dave Richards, who manipulates Sam and Diane quite a bit in "Old Flames"; the next time he "appears" (as a voice-over over the radio in "Love Thy Neighbor", as he interviews Sam on-air), Sam's on perfectly good terms with him. |
| 373 | ** Diane in Season 5; after driving Sam to the breaking point by waffling on all three of his marriage proposals (one of which she made him put a lot of expense into to make it romantic,) he snaps and chases her out of the bar. She leaves unscathed, but then charges him with assault and battery purely as a means to subject their relationship to the scrutiny of a courtroom, complete with faking serious injuries to gain more sympathy. At the end of it Sam is forced to propose to her one more time ''or else face jail time'' (a proposal which Diane says only later that she won't hold him to.) By the end of it, Sam has been humiliated and put through an emotional wringer, and yet he turns around and sincerely tries to marry Diane anyway. [[JustifiedTrope Because he loves her.]] |
| 374 | * EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Lilith is one of these. Her incredibly pale skin and dark ensemble is used to show how socially removed she is from the rest of the characters. |
| 375 | * EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas: Eddie Lebec's French mother doesn't approve of him marrying Carla, and expresses her displeasure in her native tongue. Frasier reluctantly offers a translation. |
| 376 | -->'''Frasier:''' She said she'll never allow this marriage, especially to a pregnant hussy who's only trying to trap her son. Then she said that she'd rather be dragged around town by her tongue, or else she called you a small grapefruit. |
| 377 | * EmbarrassingAdGig: Woody once appeared in a commercial for a vegetable drink where he simply holds up a bottle of the product and says, "I like it." He's quite proud of the ad...until he tries the product and hates it. Now he can't stand the commercial because he essentially lied in it. |
| 378 | * EmbarrassingCoverUp: |
| 379 | ** In the pilot, Sam tells Coach that Diane is a hooker. |
| 380 | ** In the penultimate show, Sam reveals [[spoiler: he's bald and wears a toupee]]. |
| 381 | * EmbarrassingFirstName: |
| 382 | ** Norm's real first name is "Hillary." |
| 383 | ** Woody's real first name is "Huckleberry." |
| 384 | * EmbarrassingTattoo: In "It's Lonely on the Top", Norm and Cliff get drunk and end up asking WhatDidIDoLastNight - and re-trace their steps by looking through the receipts in Cliff's pocket. One of their stops was Fred's Tattoo Parlor - and they are horrified to discover their tattoos are on their backsides. Worse, ''Norm'' was the one who ended up with an American flag tattoo reading "[[AC:God bless the U.S. Post Office]]", while ''Cliff'' got a heart reading "[[AC:I love Vera]]". |
| 385 | * EnemyMine: Carla and Diane put aside their typical animosity to crack wise and share snickers at Janet Eldrige's expense in "Strange Bedfellows." They even high-five each other after some particularly good snark. |
| 386 | * EnsembleCast: Not really true in the Diane years--various characters get screen time and episodes devoted to them, but Danson and Long are the stars of the show and the Sam-Diane relationship is the central arc. After Shelley Long left ''Cheers'' became more of a true Ensemble Cast. |
| 387 | * EnterStageWindow: Sam and Woody climb into Kelly's bedroom so Woody can have a chance to discuss his relationship with her, before she goes off to school. |
| 388 | * EpicTrackingShot: "Sam at Eleven", the fourth episode of the first season, ends with a tracking shot that starts with Sam and Diane in the pool room and goes out past the bathrooms all the way to the front of the bar. The show [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness never featured a shot like that again.]] |
| 389 | * EscalatingWar: Sam gets in one of these with Gary's Olde Towne Tavern every year. |
| 390 | * EstablishingShot: Many of the Bull and Finch in Boston, both in the opening credits and within episodes, as well as other Establishing Shots of the Boston skyline from time to time. |
| 391 | * EternalLove: Invoked by Diane in "The Triangle" when she and Sam "plan out" [[ItMakesSenseInContext their false account of a romantic evening together, to fool Frasier]]. When supplying Sam's [[ThinksLikeARomanceNovel ideal declaration of love]], she basically [[RomanticHyperbole pulls out all the stops]]: |
| 392 | -->'''Diane:''' ''[Dictating]'' "I love you, Diane.... I've always loved you--and I always will, to the day I die. ''No''...[[TogetherInDeath not even the]] ''[[TogetherInDeath grave]]'' [[TogetherInDeath will diminish our love]]--[[ThePowerOfLove only make its flame burn brighter...!]]"\ |
| 393 | '''Sam:''' Whatever. |
| 394 | * EtTuBrute: Diane says "Et tu, Woody?" in "[[Recap/CheersS4E20SaveTheLastDanceForMe Save the Last Dance for Me]]" after Woody echoes Sam and talks about "picking up the babes." |
| 395 | * EvenTheGirlsWantHer: In the second episode of the series Norm and Coach ogle the legs of a woman outside the bar window and nervously go back to their normal business when they realize she is about to enter. Diane begins to give a speech about how grown men should be above ogling women only to be interrupted when the woman enters the bar and is revealed to be a total bombshell. Diane's response? "[[CurseCutShort Holy...]]" |
| 396 | * EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Ernie Pantuso, known to all as the Coach. |
| 397 | -->'''Coach:''' ''[After answering the phone]'' Is there an Ernie Pantuso here?\ |
| 398 | '''Sam:''' That's you, Coach.\ |
| 399 | '''Coach:''' ''[To phone]'' Speaking! |
| 400 | * EveryoneCanSeeIt: Sam and Diane in Seasons 3 and 4. No one, ''no one'', thinks Sam and Diane are broken up, even when Diane is dating Frasier. {{Invoked|Trope}} by Frasier verbatim when he gives the couple a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. Carla sighs at one point when she sees Diane back, stating that either Sam will kill Diane (Carla wins!) or Diane will kill Sam (Carla tells the police, Diane gets executed, Carla wins!) It takes a ''lot'' of convincing during those seasons for Sam and Diane to accept that the feelings they had in Season 2 really were of a permanent basis.[[note]]And then Shelley Long leaves the series.[[/note]] |
| 401 | * EveryoneHatesMimes: Season 4's "2 Good 2 Be 4 Real"--with the unsurprising exception of Diane, who even insists on pronouncing it "[[PretentiousPronunciation meem]]". And eventually, even she gets sick of him. |
| 402 | * EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Happens InUniverse when the gang starts discussing the ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner'' cartoons in "Triangle"... |
| 403 | --> '''Norm:''' ''[Sarcastically]'' I suppose that means the coyote is the ANTICHRIST! |
| 404 | * EverythingIsAnInstrument: The cold open for "Severe Crane Damage" starts with Norm tapping his pencil on the bar, which leads to two of the extras tapping a deck of playing cards and other people, including Woody and Carla, tapping on the bar and the cash register. Some guys come out of the back banging pool cues on the floor, other extras clap and stomp, Rebecca comes out of her office with a box and finally Woody starts singing, [[Music/{{Queen}} "We will, we will rock you!"]] while high-fiving Sam and everybody singing along. |
| 405 | * ExactWords: One of Harry the Hat's bets. He wagers a dime that he can take off his hat, put a drink under it, and drink it all without touching the hat. The trick is set up; Harry ducks under the bar, makes "glug glug" sounds, and claims to have finished it off. Cliff protests and picks up the hat to show that the glass is still full-- at which point Harry grabs the drink and finishes it off, which fulfills the terms of the bet. (Then Cliff protests that anyone could do that trick, and they switch roles-- and while Cliff is ducked under the bar, Harry picks up the hat, drinks the liquor, and puts the hat back. Cliff laughs that Harry is out a dime -- then Coach demands $5 for the drink.) |
| 406 | ** In [[Recap/CheersS4E13TakeMyShirtPlease one episode]]'s ColdOpen, Diane enters the bar to a lackluster greeting, and becomes upset, pointing out that whenever Norm comes in, he gets his [[OnceAnEpisode traditional welcome of "NORM!"]]. She asks if it would be possible to receive "the same treatment" for once; Sam apologizes and rallies the bar to try again. A pleased Diane exits, opens the door, and says hello...and sure enough, everyone yells "NORM!" Diane [[ActuallyPrettyFunny laughs at the joke]] and says she appreciates it. |
| 407 | * ExplainExplainOhCrap: Happens in "Cry Hard" when the gang finds some printouts from Robin's computer and Rebecca realizes he has been using her for corporate espionage against Rebecca's employer, the Lilith Corporation. |
| 408 | --> "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute you guys. Let's not jump to any wild conclusions here. Let's just look at the facts. Now, all we really know is that Robin is using my secret password to break into my corporation's confidential files, and from the date on these, well it looks like he's been doing it since, well since the day after we first slept together. So all I think we can conclude by this is I AM TOO STUPID TO LIVE!" |
| 409 | * {{Expy}}: Sam Malone is an Expy of Jim Lonborg. The photo of Sam pitching behind the bar is Lonborg, and Sam even wore Lonborg's number[[note]]The resemblence ends there, however - Lonborg was not an alcoholic, and went to school to become a ''dentist'' after he left Baseball[[/note]]. |
| 410 | * ExtraLongEpisode: It ended its hugely successful 11-year run with "[[Recap/CheersS11E25OneForTheRoad One for the Road]]", a 73-minute episode. (98 minutes in 1993 with commercials.) |
| 411 | * ExtremeLibido: In the final season, Sam realizes he's a sex addict and starts going to meetings. |
| 412 | [[/folder]] |
| 413 | |
| 414 | [[folder: F]] |
| 415 | * TheFaceless: Norm's wife Vera. Also, his horny niece Donnao. |
| 416 | * FaceDoodling: Sam draws a mustache on Rebecca's face after she passes out drunk in "[[Recap/CheersS7E4 One Happy Chappy in a Snappy Serape]]." |
| 417 | * FairyTaleWeddingDress: Rebecca wears a big poofy one in "Wedding Bell Blues." |
| 418 | * FallenOnHardTimesJob: Sam, the ex-Red Sox star. Eddie--once a Bruin, later a Penguin (in the Ice Capades). |
| 419 | ** After getting fired by the Lillian Corporation, Rebecca takes a demeaning job doing demonstrations at an auto show. Eventually Sam brings her back on as manager of Cheers. |
| 420 | * FamousFamousFictional: In part one of "The Impossible Dream" Rebecca constantly name-drops tycoons such as UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump and Robin Colcord as ideal suitors. At the end of the episode Robin makes his first of many appearances. |
| 421 | * FeelingTheBabyKick: One episode opens with pregnant Lilith arriving at the bar with Frasier. She says she felt the baby kick and the gang goes over to feel for it. Woody says that he heard it move, but Frasier tells them that it was his own indigestion. Woody then feels his tummy and the others join in. |
| 422 | * FeigningIntelligence: |
| 423 | ** Cliff often drops random "facts" of questionable value. However, he does sometimes add something intelligent to the conversation. |
| 424 | ** Rebecca has no idea how to run a bar and refuses to admit it. |
| 425 | * FidelityTest: An interesting spin on this happens in Season Five's "One Last Fling" where Diane suggests she and Sam both have one day to indulge themselves in "oat-sowing." They both end up spying on the other all night long to make sure they ''aren't'' sowing metaphorical oats. |
| 426 | * LeFilmArtistique: In episode "Cheers: [[TheMovie The Motion Picture]]," the gang makes a home movie, "Manchild in Beantown," to convince Woody's protective parents to let him stay in Boston. Diane recuts the movie into a bizarre art film before sending it. This leads to the following GilliganCut exchange: |
| 427 | -->'''Diane''': After Woody's father sees this...there is no way he will be able to order Woody to leave here against his will.\ |
| 428 | [{{Wipe}}]\ |
| 429 | '''Woody''': Well, I guess this is goodbye, then. |
| 430 | ** When Diane asks why his father didn't like her film, Woody replies that his father thought it was too derivative of Creator/JeanLucGodard. |
| 431 | * TheFilmOfTheBook: When an old boyfriend of Diane's shows up, Cliff suggests that, seeing as the guy is a literature professor, Sam should read ''Literature/WarAndPeace'' so he can compete with the guy. Sam does, and when Diane finds out she says the only thing better than him reading ''War And Peace'' for her is reading it ''to'' her. He starts to do so, but she's feeling frisky and takes the book from him and says, "Let's just watch the movie." Sam jumps to his feet and yells, "There's a ''movie?!''" and runs off to attack Cliff. |
| 432 | * FinaleCredits: The final episode ends with white credits against a solid black background, instead of the usual yellow credits over a still of the bar. In addition, a LonelyPianoPiece version of the closing theme plays instead of the usual clarinet theme. |
| 433 | * {{Flanderization}}: Sam went from being a somewhat meatheadish dude who had canny instincts despite his BookDumb qualities to a genuinely dumb guy who has trouble comprehending anything more complicated than a Film/TheThreeStooges short, Diane got aggressively more uptight and prudish as the show went on, and Rebecca went from her initial appearance as a competent businesswoman to a lovesick gold-digger and ultimately into a NervousWreck who collapsed in self-loathing at the slightest pretext. Carla's promiscuity and abrasiveness, Norm's sedentary nature, Woody's naivete, and Cliff's general dysfunction were all increased and exaggerated over the course of the show. |
| 434 | * FoodFight: "[[Recap/CheersS5E9ThanksgivingOrphans Thanksgiving Orphans]]", in which Thanksgiving dinner dissolves into chaos at Carla's house. |
| 435 | * ForegoneConclusion: Lilith's "surprise" return at the end of "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" is obvious right from the start, due to Bebe Neuwirth's name suddenly reappearing in the opening titles (Neuwirth was only credited for episodes she appeared in during the final season). |
| 436 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: In the episode "Let Me Count The Ways," a nerdy MIT professor, Marshall, made his first appearance and Carla was noticibly flirty with him. In the next episode, it's revealed that Carla is pregnant and that she was planning on trapping Marshall to support the baby (who was actually her ex husband's, conceived when they had a one night stand). By the end she couldn't go through with it because he was such a nice honorable guy who fully intended to support not just the baby but the rest of her kids. After Carla admitted the truth, he never appeared again. |
| 437 | * ForgedMessage: |
| 438 | ** Carla is upset because her husband Eddie is out of town and didn't remember Valentine's Day, so the guys all pitch in to buy her a flower delivery. She catches on when she sees that the card is signed "Edward," which [[SomethingTheyWouldNeverSay isn't her husband's real name]]. |
| 439 | --->'''Carla:''' His name is Guy, as in ''geek''. |
| 440 | ** In the BalletEpisode Sam forges a letter from the Boston Ballet saying that Diane would've been a perfect fit for their company 10 years ago (which in context should be perfectly acceptable to Diane, as she knows she's "over the hill" to become a ballet dancer). But then she decides to try out anyway and is ''terrible''. |
| 441 | * FormalFullArrayOfCutlery: One episode had Woody invited to Kelly's father's house. He brings Sam with him and the following exchange occurs: |
| 442 | -->'''Woody:''' Hey, Sam. I was in the dining room earlier and I was wondering something. Why do the table settings have two forks? |
| 443 | -->'''Sam:''' Well, I guess that's in case you drop your fork, then you have a spare. |
| 444 | -->'''Woody:''' Yeah, but why is one fork smaller than the other? |
| 445 | -->'''Sam:''' Well, I guess in case you drop that one, it doesn't make as much noise. |
| 446 | * FormerlyFat: "Woody Goes Belly Up" reveals that both Woody and his hometown girlfriend are this, only losing a large amount of weight after separating. When the girlfriend comes to visit, she and Woody both start eating like crazy again, resulting in a TemporaryBulkChange for the bartender. Frasier, Sam, and Diane realize that the couple is sublimating their desire for sex with food, and eventually help them overcome the problem. |
| 447 | * FourLinesAllWaiting: Seen occasionally during the later seasons, when the show became more of an EnsembleCast. A good example is Season 10's "Don't Shoot, I'm the Psychiatrist," in which plots starring Carla, the Cranes' patients, and [[NobodyTouchesTheHair Sam's hair]] all get about equal screen time. Most episodes still kept a dominant plot, however. |
| 448 | * FrenchJerk: Henri, perpetually trying to steal Woody's girlfriend. |
| 449 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: Cliff. Comes to a head years later on ''Frasier'' where he's leaving for good and absolutely no one is sad he's leaving. Even his best friend Norm. Many people were actually celebrating. |
| 450 | * FriendsWithBenefits: Deconstructed with Sam and Rebecca, who try to conceive a child together--not as a couple, but as two friends who mutually want a child. Ultimately they decide that a couple that doesn't love each other might not be the best family to raise a child with. |
| 451 | * FromBadToWorse: The finale of season 10 has the lead-in to Woody and Kelly's wedding, wherein everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Woody and Kelly prove unable to keep their hands off one another, Kelly's father has let loose his guard dogs, Rebecca upsets the kitchen staff into storming out, and the intended priest dies suddenly, forcing the gang to hide his body and sober up the replacement. Amazingly, Woody and Kelly do apparently get married, though according to Norm and Cliff's after-action recounting, the wedding itself was a disaster as well. |
| 452 | * FrothyMugsOfWater: In-universe example. One episode has Rebecca manage the bar while Sam and the guys play poker in the back room. In short order, Rebecca discovers the bar's liquor license has expired (the renewal was returned due to insufficient postage) and she's forced to sell non-alcoholic drinks. |
| 453 | ** When basketball great Kevin [=McHale=] comes by to bar-tend so he can be a ringer in a game against Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, Sam explains that the NBA has a policy against players promoting alcohol, so [=McHale=] will just be serving water. Norm responds, "To whom?" |
| 454 | * FunnyBackgroundEvent: The stairwell leading to Cheers is a huge source of this sort of humor. |
| 455 | * FunnyPhotoPhrase: The show had a variation in that the people having their picture taken weren't asked to say it by the photographer, but said it of their own volition. Woody and Sam attend a family function for the Gaines family where Kelly's mother flirts with Woody all night. They're asked to join in a group photo. Just as the picture is about to be taken, Kelly's mother [[PainToTheAss pinches Woody's butt cheek]] which makes him yelp, "Whoop!" He then explains that where he's from, everybody says, "Whoop" just before their picture is taken. The photographer then has everyone take the photo again. This time, everybody says, "Whoop" as the picture is taken. |
| 456 | [[/folder]] |
| 457 | |
| 458 | [[folder: G]] |
| 459 | * GainaxEnding: The series has many. |
| 460 | ** Perhaps the most famous and heartbreaking is the end of "Dark Imaginings." Sam is feeling old because of a hernia, but Diane and a fellow patient manage to convince him he's only as old as he feels. However, when he finds out the young woman visiting the fellow patient is the patient's daughter, and she calls him "[[MaamShock sir]]", Sam is rocked. The final shot is of Sam sitting at a window watching the rain, realizing that although he's not an old man, time is slipping away for him, and he has nothing to show for it. |
| 461 | ** The conclusion of the second season has Sam and Diane fighting over her having obnoxious artist Philip Semenko (Creator/ChristopherLloyd) paint a portrait of her. Sam even threatens to destroy the painting sight unseen. They end up physically fighting, but instead of a SlapSlapKiss, Diane decides that they're too combative to be a couple, and announces she's leaving Cheers--and does so. Sam angrily rips off the cover of the canvas to see the picture, which is a Pablo Picasso-like abstract representation of Diane. Philip predicted there would be no way that Sam could appreciate the non-traditional portrait, but instead, Sam gazes at it, [[HiddenDepths and makes a breathy, awed, "Wow."]] SmashToBlack. CreditsRoll. |
| 462 | ** The series finale leaves us wondering just what Sam's true love is, although it's implied to be the bar. |
| 463 | %%* GambitPileup: Occurs in "Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back." |
| 464 | * GameShowAppearance: One of the most famous episodes involves Cliff appearing on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''. The show was even responsible for some {{Defictionalization}}: anytime a contestant blows an automatic win during Final Jeopardy!, it's called "pulling a Clavin." It is also responsible for an AscendedMeme, as several contestants have copied his Final Jeopardy! response of "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?" |
| 465 | * GargleBlaster: Carla is famous for making them. |
| 466 | ** One is called "Leap Into An Open Grave" ("Open Grave" for short). Carla mixes this one up for her and Diane in "Truce And Consequences," for their [[VitriolicBestBuds night-long heart-to-heart]]. When Carla gives a shocking "reveal" [[spoiler: that Sam is the father of her youngest kid (She later turns out to have made this up, of course)]], [[INeedAFreakingDrink poor Diane grabs the pitcher and chugs it down to calm herself]], with Carla looking on wide-eyed: |
| 467 | --->'''Diane:''' ''[Distraught]'' Carla, I ''don't'' believe this.\ |
| 468 | '''Carla:''' Me neither. You're gonna ''die''! |
| 469 | ** In Season 11, she makes another one, called "I Know My Redeemer Liveth," and the guys wander in one by one with hangovers to end all hangovers. |
| 470 | --->'''Sam:''' Hey there, Frasier.\ |
| 471 | '''Frasier:''' I'm sorry, Sam. [[ThatManIsDead Your friend Frasier is dead]]. What you're looking at is his undead corpse. |
| 472 | * GayAesop: Sam's old baseball teammate comes out in "The Boys in the Bar" and Sam offers him his support, causing much consternation among the boys in the bar as they believe that it will lead to Cheers becoming a "gay bar". The episode makes a clear point that homosexuals are no different from anyone else (as the gang couldn't even tell that two of the men egging them on were gay, themselves,) and at the end Sam takes a stand that they'll remain welcome in his bar even if his regulars don't like it. |
| 473 | * GetOUT: In "Cliffie's Big Score." Diane does ''not'' take kindly to Cliff pulling a sudden MoodWhiplash by 1) faking the car running out of gas and then 2) coming on to her (even stroking her shoulder!). (Interesting spin on the trope in that she seems willing to forgive him... ''until'' he holds firm to the "out of gas" lie.) |
| 474 | * TheGhost: Vera Peterson, although she later becomes TheFaceless. Also, Sam's brother Derek in Season 1 finale "Showdown (Parts 1 and 2)." |
| 475 | * GiftOfSong: In the episode "Gift of the Woodi", Woody is too poor to give his rich girlfriend Kelly a present, so he writes her a song instead. Kelly loves it, but has trouble understanding that the song ''is'' her present. |
| 476 | * GirlfriendInCanada: In "The Belles of St. Clete's" Cliff regales the bar with tales of his girlfriend in Florida, who is supposedly writing him love letters. |
| 477 | ** In a subversion of the trope, Cliff's ''real'' girlfriend Maggie ends up living in Canada. |
| 478 | * GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals: Diane keeps a whole menagerie in her apartment. |
| 479 | * TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Rebecca and her sister Susan (played by Marcia Cross) which Sam [[ExploitedTrope takes full advantage of]] to get into bed with both. |
| 480 | * GoingToTheStore: Nick, when he has broken up with Loretta and [[Recap/CheersS3E20IfEverIWouldLeaveYou is trying to win Carla back]]. Carla tricks him into thinking Loretta wants him back to get him to reveal he hasn't changed. |
| 481 | -->'''Nick:''' I'm going out for some cigarettes!\ |
| 482 | '''Carla:''' You don't smoke!\ |
| 483 | '''Nick:''' I've been thinking about starting! I've heard good things! |
| 484 | * GoldDigger: Rebecca. When a now-broke Robin Colcord gets out of prison, they have a wedding ceremony, but Rebecca bails. |
| 485 | --> "I only loved you for your money!" |
| 486 | * GoneHorriblyWrong: Towards the end of season 11, Frasier suggests Woody makes a fake run for city council, partly as a psychological experiment and partly to win a bet with Sam. Thanks to the actual councillor making a gaffe, and Woody's humble country-boy routine, he actually ends up ''getting'' the job, much to Frasier's horror. |
| 487 | * GoodNewsBadNews: Sam in "Wedding Day"--"I lied about the good news." |
| 488 | ** But then again, Rebecca's hair maintained its bounce. That's good enough, ain't it? |
| 489 | * GoToAlias: Sam's are "Lance Manyon" and "Honeyboy Wilson", according to Diane in "Dark Imaginings." |
| 490 | * GrandFinale: "[[Recap/CheersS11E25OneForTheRoad One for the Road]]", a 98-minute episode involving Norm finally getting a job, Cliff getting a promotion, Rebecca getting married, and the [[BackForTheFinale return]] of Diane Chambers. |
| 491 | * GratuitousLatin: In "Coach Returns to Action", Coach introduces his neighbour, Nina, to Diane, and tells Nina "Diane is very smart. Diane, say something very smart." Apparently deciding that the best way to sound intelligent on command is to speak Latin, Diane says, "Tempus fugit." (Usually translated as "Time flies.") |
| 492 | * GuiltInducedNightmare: In "[[Recap/CheersS3E21TheExecutivesExecutioner The Executive's Executioner]]", Norm is tasked with being the one to fire accountants. He gets a CatapultNightmare from the stress. He describes a dream where he is pushing a line of accountants one at a time into an empty elevator shaft, but the last accountant is Norm himself. |
| 493 | [[/folder]] |
| 494 | |
| 495 | [[folder: H]] |
| 496 | * HalloweenEpisode |
| 497 | ** "Diane's Nightmare," in which Diane dreams of the return of Andy Andy. |
| 498 | ** "Bar Wars V: The Final Judgment," in which a prank on Gary's Olde Towne Tavern appears to have terrible consequences. |
| 499 | * HandsplayInTheater: In the bar, technically, but Sam and Diane ''really'' get into it in "Abnormal Psychology," [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAb1W6FJ2qo while watching Frasier and Lilith's... interview]]. |
| 500 | -->'''Sam:''' [[StrangelyArousing This intellectual stuff's getting me all hot...]] |
| 501 | * HeadTurningBeauty: Diane has a moment of this in "Cliffie's Big Score", when she enters the bar in a glamorously sexy evening dress--with all the guys responding by whistling and otherwise expressing their admiration. She doesn't mind--in fact, she basks in it. |
| 502 | -->'''Woody:''' Miss Chambers, can I tell you something?\ |
| 503 | '''Diane:''' Sure, Woody!\ |
| 504 | '''Woody:''' ''[Nervous smile]'' You look like a hundred bucks!\ |
| 505 | '''Diane:''' ''[Chuckles]'' Thank you, Woody!\ |
| 506 | '''Woody:''' Aw, what am I saying--''two'' hundred!\ |
| 507 | '''Diane:''' ''[Cooing]'' ''Woody'', you're turning my ''head''!\ |
| 508 | '''Woody:''' Ah-all right--one hundred.... |
| 509 | * HandwritingAsCharacterization: Played for HypocriticalHumor. Cliff asks Frasier if it's possible to discern personality traits from a person's signature. Frasier dismisses it as junk psychology, then gets a glimpse of Cliff's signature and freaks out. |
| 510 | * HerCodeNameWasMarySue: In the final episode, we learn Diane has written an award-winning MadeForTVMovie called ''The Heart Held Hostage'', the central character of which is a thinly-veiled version of Carla. |
| 511 | * HeroicBSOD: |
| 512 | ** For the first handful of episodes in Season 4, Frasier is pretty broken up following Diane leaving him. He gets better in "Triangle." |
| 513 | ** Diane has one in "Everyone Imitates Art," when she discovers the letter she received from a poetry magazine was just a rejection letter. |
| 514 | ** Carla zones out for a while in Season 5 after hearing that Sam and Diane have gotten engaged. At the end of the episode, Carla [[DelayedReaction suddenly drops her drink tray, gets on her knees and gives a]] SkywardScream BigNo that [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith puts Darth Vader's to shame]]. |
| 515 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: Cliff and Norm. |
| 516 | * HistoricalLongevityJoke: One episode had Cliff write a joke for ''Series/TheTonightShow'' to be delivered by Johnny Carson on Doc Severinsen's birthday. The joke is "Doc is so old that on his first birthday, he didn't blow out the candles. They didn't have fire yet." Only Lilith finds it funny. |
| 517 | * HitMeDammit: |
| 518 | ** Coach holds the minor-league record for being hit by pitches and demands that Diane throw a baseball at him. The streak stays alive--though Diane reacts with a non-verbal MyGodWhatHaveIDone. |
| 519 | ** One episode shows a prim older woman applying for the job as tutor for Carla's kids; wanting to make sure she can defend herself, Carla tells the woman to punch her. She does when Carla tells her how much she'll pay her, and Carla enthusiastically hires her after the applicant, a woman in her 60s, pops her a good one. |
| 520 | * HomeEarlySurprise: Norm was once hired by Rebecca's boss to paint his bedroom while he was away in Europe. He decides to bring Rebecca into the room and show her around. That's when the boss returns from his trip early and Rebecca has to hide in the closet. The rest of the episode involves Norm's attempts to get her out. |
| 521 | * HouseFire: The bar catches fire in "The Little Match Girl." |
| 522 | * HowsYourBritishAccent: In "The Magnificent Six," FrenchJerk Henri, played by American actor Creator/AnthonyCistaro, uses an American accent to pick up a girl who doesn't like French guys. |
| 523 | * HypnoFool: Woody and Lilith in "Veggie-Boyd." |
| 524 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: |
| 525 | ** Sam and Diane regularly make cutting barbs at each other's expense--but each is sure to stand up for the other when an outside party goes too far (Gary, for one). |
| 526 | ** Also Diane and Carla--though [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]], in that as a rule the "sticking up for the other" is limited to Diane. |
| 527 | *** Still, even Carla has her moments. "Sumner's Return" in particular strongly implies Carla's willingness throughout the episode to give Sumner Sloan the what-for for the pain he's caused Diane. Though the possibility arises that it's because Sumner dumping Diane is the reason Diane works at the bar at all--the fact that Carla throws him out, off-screen, by episode's end (after Sumner tries to tempt Diane away) ultimately supports the trope. Also, back in the pilot, Carla tosses a few "cheer-up" quips Diane's way when it becomes increasingly clear that Sumner's dumped Diane. |
| 528 | *** The fact that Carla's the victim of being dumped on by a lover (husband, in this case) herself actually makes the above instances seem less surprising for her--"deadbeat men" putting her and Diane in a sort of EnemyMine situation.... |
| 529 | * HypocriticalHumor: A popular type of joke on the show: |
| 530 | -->'''Norm:''' Anybody else curious about [Woody's hometown in Indiana] Hanover?\ |
| 531 | '''Frasier:''' Oh I'm sure it's just a nice, regular rural town in the Midwest.\ |
| 532 | '''Norm:''' Ever thought about visiting there?\ |
| 533 | '''Frasier:''' And end up being sacrificed to the [[Literature/ChildrenOfTheCorn "Corn God"]]?! No way! |
| 534 | [[/folder]] |
| 535 | |
| 536 | [[folder: I-J]] |
| 537 | * ICanChangeMyBeloved: Both Sam and Diane had this attitude toward each other, which was one of the biggest problems with their relationship. Sam kept trying to get Diane to be less stuck-up and pretentious while Diane kept expecting Sam to grow out of his simpler interests like Three Stooges and sports, and both resented the other's attitude. Unlike most examples, they ''did'' try and compromise on this and meet each other in the middle (Diane started taking a mild interest in sports, Sam once binge-read War And Peace in five days so he and Diane would have something to talk about), but tragically, neither one of them was ever satisfied with the others' efforts and always demanded more. |
| 538 | * IceCreamKoan: In Season Five's "Dog Bites Cliff", Diane goes off to a Buddhist monastery-retreat to contemplate. Sam is concerned she might not come back, to which Diane smilingly says, "I won't...but ''I'' will!" She refers to it as a koan, which Frasier then tries to explain to Sam. |
| 539 | * IdenticalStranger: |
| 540 | ** After the fire, Carla takes a temporary job at a big chain sports bar. She hates it, but it pays so well that nothing can get her to quit. Until they hire a new waitress who is exactly like Diane. |
| 541 | ---> '''Sam''': You're acting like there's a psycho serial killer over there. |
| 542 | ---> '''Carla''': If only. |
| 543 | ** When a CorruptCorporateExecutive becomes a StalkerWithACrush towards Rebecca, he transfers Sam to a bar in Mexico, which has its own Norm. |
| 544 | * IllTakeTwoBeersToo: In "Now Pitching, Sam Malone", Norm says he took a prospective boss to a fancy restaurant and ordered the rack of lamb for two. Then Norm says "I don't remember what he had." |
| 545 | * ImagineSpot: |
| 546 | ** In Shelley Long's last episode, "[[Recap/CheersS5E26IDoAdieu I Do and Adieu]]," Sam imagines what his and Diane's life as a happily married elderly couple might be like. |
| 547 | ** In Season 10's "Go Make" Sam and Rebecca both have unhappy visions of their life as parents in a loveless relationship, leading them to decide not to have a baby. |
| 548 | *** In a more heartbreaking moment, Sam sees his imaginary son vanishing when he and Rebecca break off the plans. |
| 549 | ** In Season 11, Frasier fantasizes about Woody becoming President of the United States. [[NukeEm His fantasy doesn't end well]]. |
| 550 | ** In Season 5's episode "Chambers vs. Malone," after Diane turns down Sam's proposal (after hounding him to propose all season), Sam gets a brief flash of being walked down Death Row to the electric chair after murdering her. |
| 551 | --->'''Sam:''' I just had a flash that I got the electric chair for killing you.\ |
| 552 | '''Diane:''' Well, that's silly. Massachusetts doesn't have a death penalty.\ |
| 553 | '''Sam:''' [[PsychoticSmirk What?]] |
| 554 | * IncompetenceInc: The Lilian Corporation, who own the bar between seasons 6 and 8, judging by what we hear about them. Staff turnover at the top seems to be alarmingly high, usually for corruption and embezzlement, and they don't even notice Rebecca actually exists. |
| 555 | * InformedFlaw: Diane and Rebecca both make jokes about Sam being profoundly stupid, but Sam generally displays an average intelligence. He's definitely crass in his attitudes towards women, and a man of simple tastes (babes, baseball, Film/TheThreeStooges), but appears to be in no way dumb. Contrast him with Coach and Woody, who actually do say dumb things all the time. If anything, he is generally more sensible than either Diane or Rebecca (especially after flanderization set in for them). |
| 556 | ** Sam is more BookDumb than anything. |
| 557 | * InnocentFanserviceGirl: In late Season 3's "The Bartender's Tale," the elderly (yet charmingly boisterous) English waitress Sam hires as a replacement for Diane has a daughter that happens to be a European lingerie model (who on occasion has posed nude). She even goes so far as to show the patrons samples of her work--and seems blissfully unaware of the immense lust she generates with it.... |
| 558 | * InnocentInnuendo: In "Everyone Imitates Art," Diane compares the discovery that a poem of hers has just been published to "The first time I ever"--''[blush/squirm/nervous smile]''--"rode a bicycle...." Sam calls her out on this a few minutes later, after further excitement leads Diane to quite literally throw herself at him: |
| 559 | --> '''Sam:''' You wanna go to my place, and, um... ride a bike? |
| 560 | * InsufferableGenius: |
| 561 | ** Frasier, early on. |
| 562 | ** Diane Chambers, throughout--though she's known to humbly acknowledge her hubris on occasion. |
| 563 | --->'''Diane:''' Oh, Sam...I'm--''small'', and ''vain''--and petty!\ |
| 564 | '''Sam:''' Hey, will you stop being so ''hard'' on yourself? I mean--[[HypocriticalHeartwarming that's]] ''[[HypocriticalHeartwarming my]]'' [[HypocriticalHeartwarming job, here]]. C'mon...! |
| 565 | * InsistentTerminology: |
| 566 | ** When Sam finally reveals to Carla the deep, dark secret that he's losing his hair, he quickly corrects her; he's not wearing a wig, he's using a "hair replacement system." |
| 567 | ** Diane swears up and down that she was ''not'' in a mental institution between Seasons 2 and 3--it was a "retreat"! |
| 568 | * IRememberItLikeItWasYesterday: With, of course, the inevitable, "It ''was'' yesterday." |
| 569 | * IrrationalHatred: Carla towards Diane--though their relationship often [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-zags]] between this and FriendlyEnemies, and even an implied VitriolicBestBuds. (See AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther above) |
| 570 | * ISophagus: Cliff in "It's a Wonderful Wife." |
| 571 | * ItWasHisSled: Fed up of the others repeatedly spoiling the ending to mystery stories he's been reading or wanting to watch, Frasier invokes this, by screaming out famous spoilers, including the titular reference to ''Film/CitizenKane'' and LukeIAmYourFather. Unfortunately, Woody apparently never saw ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. [[invoked]] |
| 572 | -->'''Woody:''' Darth Vader can't be Luke Skywalker's father. They don't even have the same last name! |
| 573 | * ItsAllAboutMe: |
| 574 | ** One of Sam's biggest flaws, although he can usually be counted to come through on bigger issues, he's pretty self-centered about small ones. In one episode he starts a support group for owners of stolen luxury cars, interrupts everyone else’s talking to discuss his own feelings and then when he finds out his car has been found by the police casually and abruptly cancels the meeting, walks out and switches off the lights on them. |
| 575 | ** Cliff is even worse, to the point at which he has a HeelRealization briefly about how insensitive he is to others. |
| 576 | * ItsBeenDone: Woody's subplot in the episode "Young Dr. Weinstein" has him trying to create a new beverage to get into the Bartending Hall Of Fame. His first attempt, which he calls "Woody's Blue Boyd of Happiness", turns out to already exist (a [[http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink1402.html Blue Moon]]). |
| 577 | * IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: |
| 578 | ** Frasier with Lilith, after long childishness. |
| 579 | ** Sam with Diane, in the Season 5 finale. [[spoiler:Sam stops their wedding and tells Diane to go and pursue her career as a writer, as he couldn't ever live with being in the way of her dreams]]. |
| 580 | * JennysNumber: In "Coach Returns to Action," a graffito reads "For a good time call Diane Chambers 867-5309" Carla was responsible for that as well. When Diane discovers it and tries to erase it, Carla huffs, "Last time I play Cupid for ''you''!" |
| 581 | -->'''Diane:''' Thank God the ''number'' isn't right!\ |
| 582 | '''Carla:''' I got it right off your application! |
| 583 | * JeopardyIntelligenceTest: Cliff's Jeopardy! skills are a defining character trait. It comes full circle when he's actually on Jeopardy!, but he loses in the final round. |
| 584 | * {{Jerkass}}: Carla Tortelli; Nash, Kelly's boyfriend. |
| 585 | ** With an occasional extra dollop of ComedicSociopathy on Carla's part, such as when she locks Rebecca inside the ventilation system overnight, or when she forces Cliff to eat a bug on his birthday which later lays eggs in his stomach. |
| 586 | ** Victor Shapone in "Cliff's Rocky Moment." Everyone else tolerates Cliff but Victor bullies him. |
| 587 | * JerkassAtYourDiscretion: Frasier's mother, Hester, acts nice to Diane when the main cast is present, but when she's alone with her, she tells Diane that she does not approve of her and Frasier's relationship. Due to her DramaQueen tendencies, Diane knows that no one will believe her if she tries to tell them. |
| 588 | * JerkassHasAPoint: In "Diane Meets Mom," Frasier's mother threatens to kill Diane if she doesn't stop seeing her son and, when confronted over this, she points out Diane's several major character flaws and her belief that Diane would end up ruining his career and life. Considering Frasier himself later blames Diane for the [[DrowningMySorrows alcoholic tailspin]] his life took after she jilted him at the altar, it's hard to argue that his mother wasn't completely accurate in her assessment of the relationship. |
| 589 | * JekyllAndHyde: Norm and "Kreitzer," the alter ego he invents to force his slacker employees in his paint company to work. |
| 590 | * JewishMother: Lilith's mother fits the trope. |
| 591 | * JumpingOutOfACake: |
| 592 | ** Season 5 episode "One Last Fling" has Diane doing this at a bachelor party for Sam, prior to their intended wedding. |
| 593 | ** The guys get a stripper to do this at Frasier's divorce party in "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?". |
| 594 | * JuryDuty: Diane drives her fellow jurors nuts in "Never Love a Goalie (Part 2)." |
| 595 | * JustEatGilligan : Referenced (sort of) by Rebecca's father in "Daddy's Middle-Aged Girl." |
| 596 | --> If they'd just gotten together and shot Gilligan, they'd have been off that island in a week. |
| 597 | [[/folder]] |
| 598 | |
| 599 | [[folder: K-L]] |
| 600 | * KansasCityShuffle: '''Anything''' involving Harry the Hat. Also a few "Bar Wars" episodes. Exaggerated on the final Bar Wars which involved Harry The Hat. Then there's "Pick a Con... Any Con", in which Harry is called in to deal with another con man grifting Coach, which turns into long con piled on long con. |
| 601 | * KavorkaMan: Loathesome Nick Tortelli sure has a way with women--he even makes Diane weak in the knees by whispering into her ear. |
| 602 | --> '''Carla (to Annie):''' There are three things you can say about Tortelli men. One, they draw women like flies. Two, they treat women like flies. Three, their brains are in their flies. |
| 603 | ** Carla herself is arguably a distaff version of the trope. |
| 604 | ** Lillian Huxley, the matronly English barmaid who temporarily replaces Diane, has a [[OutWithABang sex life with a body count.]] Even Sam is tempted. |
| 605 | *** The short, rotund, balding, bespectacled Paul apparently does okay, too. In Season 9's "Rat Girl," a young woman turns Sam down twice. She leaves with Paul. |
| 606 | * TheKenBurnsEffect: The Ken Burns-style pan-and-zoom over stills was used with the old-timey photos in the opening credit sequence. |
| 607 | * KnowNothingKnowItAll: Cliff, accounting for his seemingly endless supply of LittleKnownFacts. This trope was [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes once called]] The Clavin because of him. |
| 608 | * KnowsAGuyWhoKnowsAGuy: |
| 609 | -->'''Sam''': I know a guy who knows a guy...\ |
| 610 | '''Woody''': And he's a bookie?\ |
| 611 | '''Sam''': No, but he knows a guy who is. |
| 612 | * KuleshovEffect: With the life-size cardboard cutout of Coach's old friend T-Bone in "Coach Buries a Grudge." |
| 613 | * LabPet: In the episode "Take Me Out of the Ball Game," the psychiatrist Lilith Sternin Crane has a pet lab rat named Whiskers. |
| 614 | * LadykillerInLove: Sam Malone after Diane Chambers gets her hooks into him. |
| 615 | * LaserHallway: Sam and Rebecca accidentally trigger the security system in Robin Colcord's apartment in "The Art of the Steal." |
| 616 | |
| 617 | -->'''Sam''': Boy, I wish Cliff and Norm were here.\ |
| 618 | '''Rebecca''': Why?\ |
| 619 | '''Sam''': They'd think this was really cool.\ |
| 620 | |
| 621 | * LastUnsmokedCigarette: Sam's lucky bottle cap, as a symbol of his former, drinking life. Subverted, as when he loses it, he undergoes drastic temptation while the bar is closed with Diane... and manages to conquer it by getting a ''new'' bottlecap that represented his ability to stay sober despite the original's loss. |
| 622 | * LaterInstallmentWeirdness: The gang gets Kevin Mchale obsessed with the bolts in the floor of Boston Gardens. Cliff is convinced that Hitler has moved next door. Harry The Hat [[spoiler: gets Gary to demolish his own bar]]. All this and more happens during the last two seasons. |
| 623 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In Season 11's "The Last Picture Show," some of the gang go to an old drive-in theater and see a ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' movie. Cliff notices that the lead actress in this edition of the Godzilla series has been recast. Cue the following bit of dialogue: |
| 624 | --->'''Norm''': She left halfway through the Godzilla series.\ |
| 625 | '''Woody''': [[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1912597_1912596_1912583,00.html I don't understand, why would an actress leave right in the middle of a successful series?]] |
| 626 | ** The last line of the series. |
| 627 | --->'''Sam''': I'm sorry; we're closed. |
| 628 | * LettingHerHairDown: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGDq7bchbEU Lilith]]. Invoked by Diane and Sam in "[[Recap/CheersS5E4AbnormalPsychology Abnormal Psychology]]", and lampshaded/defied/played straight by Frasier. |
| 629 | ---> "Don't you see? What these two people, who are such geniuses at romance, are trying to do is to get your hair down, thinking that it will stimulate me like some kind of Pavlovian dog." |
| 630 | ** It still works, of course. |
| 631 | * LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Sam and Diane, Sam and Rebecca |
| 632 | * LikeBrotherAndSister: Woody and Diane. The two are very close, and Diane cares deeply for his well-being. And despite an admiring moment in "Cliffie's Big Score" (and a couple other times where Woody openly describes Diane as pretty/beautiful), it's all strictly platonic. |
| 633 | * LittleKnownFacts: Oh, Cliff. |
| 634 | * LocalHangout: The "Cheers" bar. Where everybody knows your name. |
| 635 | * TheLoinsSleepTonight: Sam deals with this in "Baby Talk" when thinking about making a baby with Rebecca makes him unable to make a baby. |
| 636 | * LongRunners: 11 seasons. Doubly impressive considering that ''Frasier'' ran for another 11, meaning that by the end Kelsey Grammer had played Frasier Crane for a whopping 20 continuous years. |
| 637 | * LookBehindYou: Sam uses "Oh my God, look at the size of that cat!" to get out of a restaurant bill in "Young Dr. Weinstein." |
| 638 | * LousyLoversAreLosers: |
| 639 | ** When Vera describes what sex her husband Norm is like in bed, she says he is more akin to "Don of the Dead" than a "Don Juan". |
| 640 | ** [[StrawLoser Cliff]] finds out he had sex with Maggie but was too drunk to remember. |
| 641 | --->'''Cliff:''' How was I?\ |
| 642 | '''Maggie:''' You want the truth?\ |
| 643 | '''Cliff:''' No.\ |
| 644 | '''Maggie:''' You were great! |
| 645 | * LoveAtFirstSight: "[[Recap/CheersS3E6CoachInLovePart1 Coach in Love (Part 1)]]", in which Coach instantly falls in love with a pretty older lady who enters the bar. |
| 646 | * LoveTriangle: Season 3's arc was the love triangle between Sam, Diane and Frasier. Unlike most examples, Sam and Frasier are never at all hostile in fact they genuinely like each other, and become good friends afterwards. |
| 647 | * LoveWillLeadYouBack: Norm's final exchange with Sam in the series finale centers around this subject. Exactly what "love" Norm's talking about has been the source of much debate among critics and fans alike. (See ThePowerOfLove below) |
| 648 | * LowCountGag: [[Recap/CheersS5E3MoneyDearest Cliff's mother gets engaged]] and he decides to throw a party. |
| 649 | -->'''Cliff:''' Call all my friends.\ |
| 650 | '''Norm:''' I think he moved. |
| 651 | [[/folder]] |
| 652 | |
| 653 | [[folder: M]] |
| 654 | * MacGuffin: Gary in "Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh." It could also be moments of [[Literature/DonQuixote fighting windmills]] for the Cheers gang. |
| 655 | ---> '''Carla''': "Gary must never do nothing again!" |
| 656 | * MaleGaze: In "[[Recap/CheersS6E5 The Crane Mutiny]]", when Rebecca is walking back into her office she says, "Stop looking at my rear end." |
| 657 | ** A mild running gag during the Diane years involves [[CovertPervert Sam checking out her rear]]. Half of the joke involves Diane seeming utterly oblivious to it, as she's often [[CharacterFilibuster in the middle of a monologue]] when he's doing it. |
| 658 | * ManlyTears: |
| 659 | ** In one of the most touching moments in the show, Sam finds himself getting "[[SandInMyEyes allergic to cat stories]]" in Season One's "Let Me Count The Ways" upon hearing Diane describe, through tears of her own, how much her late cat had meant to her. |
| 660 | ** In Season Five's "Everyone Imitates Art," Sam sheds a few again after he thinks he's convinced Diane he doesn't love her anymore. [[spoiler:He hasn't--and she catches him with his collection of her love letters within a minute]]. |
| 661 | * MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: A lot of the humor, dialogue, plot, and characterization runs on this. |
| 662 | * TheMasochismTango: |
| 663 | ** Sam and Diane go through this late in Season 2, beginning in the final sequence of "Fortunes and Men's Weights" and culminating in [[spoiler: their big breakup]] in the season finale. |
| 664 | ** Also [[PlayingWithATrope played with six ways to Sunday]] with Carla and John Allen Hill. By day, they insult each other (and try their hardest to one-up each other's insults) on a seemingly regular basis. By ''night''... |
| 665 | ** Here, the only thing that would keep the Carla/Hill relationship from being the trope played straight is that it's emphasized that they mutually ''love'' their insult-fests--and the more caustic, the better. |
| 666 | * MathematiciansAnswer: Both Cliff and Woody have a tendency to give these, although for different reasons. |
| 667 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: One episode involves a guy who has cold feet when he visits the bar on the night before entering a monastery, who manages to touch an old piano in the bar that has been out of order by years. The piano works! {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Coach even says: "I can’t believe it." All the cast convince the guy that it must be a signal that he is special and he must follow his vocation. He agrees and leaves the bar. When all comment on the miracle, Coach says he repaired the piano a week ago. When they ask him why he said “I can’t believe it” if he knew the piano was working, he answered that all those years he left the piano broke without any further thought, ''but just a week ago he felt the irrepressible urge to repair the piano, before it was too late''. |
| 668 | * MeetCute: How Diane meets Sam. She finds herself being recruited into a phone brush-off to a jilted ex-lover of Sam's. Trouble is, Sam is rinsing his mouth, and can only mime the instructions--which leads an exasperated Diane to finally "explain" that "He had to go to mime class!" |
| 669 | -->'''Sam:''' Well?\ |
| 670 | '''Diane:''' You're "a ''magnificent pagan beast''"!\ |
| 671 | '''Sam:''' Thanks; what's the message? |
| 672 | * MemoryRestoringMelody: When Rebecca goes to marry Robin, she storms out of her bachelorette party. Sam goes to her apartment to talk to her and she drunkenly tells him that she only wanted to marry him for his money. She tries to make it with Sam while singing "We've Got Tonight" but he escapes. The next day, Rebecca turns out to have blocked out her confession and continues her plan to marry Robin. A comment from Frasier and Lilith makes Sam realize that music can make people remember things and he sings "We've Got Tonight" to Rebecca. She remembers the previous night and backs out of the wedding. |
| 673 | * {{Metaphorgotten}}: When Sam finds out Carla had sex with his nemesis, John Allen Hill. |
| 674 | -->'''Carla:''' Please don't be angry. |
| 675 | -->'''Sam:''' No, I'm not angry.... Well, the way I see it, you let down the whole team. It's like, you know...bottom of the ninth, one out, runner on first. You're up at bat. The coach tells you to bunt. The team expects you to bunt. The runner on first expects you to bunt. But instead of bunting, ''[[SuddenlyShouting YOU SLEEP WITH]] '''JOHN ALLEN HILL'''!!!'' |
| 676 | * MinorWithFakeID: The first episode has an obviously underage kid (who looks about 12) attempting to by a beer using a military ID that says he's 38. |
| 677 | * TheMissusAndTheEx: In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't," Frasier and Lilith run into Frasier's previously unmentioned ex-wife. |
| 678 | * MistakenForFlirting: Norm hires a secretary that responds to anything any man says to her, no matter how innocuous, as though it were a declaration of love. |
| 679 | * MistakenForGay: Evan Drake thinks Rebecca is a lesbian ("A Kiss Is Still a Kiss"). |
| 680 | %% * MistakenForProfound: Woody when running for city council. |
| 681 | * MomentKiller: As a rule, when Sam's wooing of a girl is happening on-screen (and it's not a brief "one-scene" chick)... it's almost a given this will happen. |
| 682 | ** In the case of Sam and Diane, the "killer" often involves one of them saying something that the other blows out of proportion. |
| 683 | * MommasBoy: Cliff is very attached to and protective of his mother, much to the alarm of everyone at Cheers. |
| 684 | * MrsRobinson: In Season 5's "Knights Of The Scimitar," Diane finds herself the crush of a certain college student named Lance Apollinaire. At once disturbed by his pursuit of her and drawn to his immense attractiveness (J. Eddie Peck, aka Eddie Grimes of ''Series/{{Dynasty|1981}}'', Tommy [=McKay=] of ''Series/{{Dallas}}'', Howard Hawkins of ''Series/DaysOfOurLives''... -- let's just say his appearance on ''Cheers'' opened a lot of soap doors), she remarks that "the last thing I need is to become that man's [[LampshadedTrope Mrs. Robinson]]!" |
| 685 | ** [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Woody doesn't get it, asking]], [[LiteralMinded "Wouldn't that be Mrs. Apollinaire?"]] Diane begins to explain the reference, but changes her mind. |
| 686 | %% * MyBelovedSmother: Ma Clavin; Lilith's mother in "Smother Love"; Frasier's mother is definitely one in "Diane Meets Mom." |
| 687 | [[/folder]] |
| 688 | |
| 689 | [[folder: N]] |
| 690 | * NaiveNewcomer: Diane, in the pilot. |
| 691 | * NailsOnABlackboard: In "Showdown, Part 2" (the Season 1 finale), Diane does this to force Sam to admit his feelings. |
| 692 | * NamedLikeMyName: Sam discovers that, while drunk, he had bet a stranger that he could marry Jacqueline Bisset within a year. On learning that the other party plans to hold him to that bet (and has a binding contract), he reads over the terms of the bet and realises that it doesn't specify Jacqueline Bisset the actress. He immediately sets out to find another woman of the same name to marry him. ("[[Recap/CheersS3E18BarBet Bar Bet]]") |
| 693 | * NauseaDissonance: Parodied. Woody is unperturbed by Carla's graphic description of how varicose veins are removed--while eating ''spaghetti'' no less!--but is disgusted when Frasier loudly exclaims about an article about psychological distress full of technical jargon, unable to eat anymore. |
| 694 | * NauseaFuel: Everyone's reaction to Coach's daughter Lisa's fiancee. [[invoked]] |
| 695 | -->'''Sam:''' Where are you going, Coach?\ |
| 696 | '''Coach:''' ''(blandly)'' To toss my cookies. |
| 697 | * NegativeContinuity: The show mostly averts this trope, but sometimes uses it when it comes to Cliff's romantic life. Humor is often drawn from Cliff being a very inexperienced bachelor, and occasionally it's even implied he's a virgin. However, in two different episodes he starts dating a woman only for her to be completely forgotten by the next episode, so that Cliff can become the butt of jokes again. His third girlfriend, Maggie, has a steady relationship with him and appears in several episodes, yet between her appearances Cliff is still treated as a sad loner. For example, in a season 10 episode Paul is amused by the idea that Cliff would ever get married, even though he almost married Maggie earlier during the same season. |
| 698 | * NeverGetsDrunk: For a show in a bar about about people who drink a lot, drunkenness is very rarely shown, although the aftermath is shown more than a few times. |
| 699 | * NeverLendToAFriend: |
| 700 | ** Diane borrows $500 from Sam to buy a first-edition Hemingway. Sam says he's not going to expect her to pay it back, but then Carla eggs him on by pointing out Diane's expensive clothes, lunches, etc. Finally Diane gives Sam the book as collateral; [[BrokenTreasure he drops it in the bathtub while reading it]]. A buyer offers Diane $1000 for the book, and Sam is forced to outbid him. |
| 701 | ** Norm suddenly comes into money and Sam starts harping on him about his bar tab. When Norm buys a boat with the money, Sam loses it and starts yelling at Norm. Norm reveals that the boat is for Sam for being such a good and patient friend. |
| 702 | * NeverSentAnyLetters: Lilith has an affair with a colleague, Dr. Louis Pascal, and goes to work with him in an experimental eco-pod. In a later episode, Frasier receives a letter from her asking for a divorce. Shortly afterward, Lilith shows up after escaping from the eco=pod and Dr. Pascal who's gone crazy from claustrophobia. Pascal then takes the gang hostage and at one point, Frasier brings up the letter. Lilith denies having written it and Pascal reveals he wrote it in an attempt to have Lilith to himself. |
| 703 | * NewOldFlame: |
| 704 | ** This tends to happen OnceAnEpisode when Sam and Diane first get together. |
| 705 | ** Also, Frasier's first wife, Nanette. |
| 706 | * NobodyThinksItWillWork: This tends to be the rule regarding Sam and Diane--though there have been exceptions (Woody, for one). |
| 707 | ** An odd synergy with EveryoneCanSeeIt. |
| 708 | * NobodyTouchesTheHair: Sam is not only extremely protective of his hair, he's got hair care down to an exact science. |
| 709 | * NothingIsFunnier: Before they were finally shown, Carla's household was only described to us through Carla's metaphors, similes and point of view. Leaving just how crazy it was left to the imagination. |
| 710 | * NominatedAsAPrank: Frasier gets Woody on the ballot for city councilman, just to prove that at least ten percent of the voters would be gullible enough to vote for him based on nothing more than meaningless slogans. [[GoneHorriblyRight Woody wins]], [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone to Frasier's horror]]. |
| 711 | * NonIronicClown: Frasier is drafted by Rebecca to be a clown for a corporate children's party in "Send in the Crane." |
| 712 | * NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Woody's subplot from "Young Dr. Weinstein" (see ItsBeenDone) ends with him finally succeeding in creating an original drink. Unfortunately, he can't remember what he put in it. |
| 713 | * NoodleIncident: |
| 714 | ** How Rebecca got nicknamed "Backseat Becky" during her college years. |
| 715 | ** For Woody, it's just merely "The Incident." Recalling it prevented him from babysitting Frederick Crane & watching the bar for a day. Norm assumed it was an effective excuse. |
| 716 | ** Frequently when Carla's talking about her kids. |
| 717 | --> Of course they look happy. They just found out they won't be tried as adults. |
| 718 | * NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Despite the show being set in Boston, the only main character who speaks with a notable Boston accent is Cliff. (And even John Ratzenberger mostly stopped doing the accent in later seasons.). Partially justified as several characters are not Boston natives. |
| 719 | ** Averted early in the series as many of the barflies have authentic Boston accents. Nicholas Colasanto was from neighbouring Rhode Island, and Shelley Long could pull off a passable Boston Brahmin accent. |
| 720 | * NotListeningToMeAreYou: Woody tunes Frasier out in "The Book of Samuel." |
| 721 | * NotSoAboveItAll: Both Diane and Frasier, the longer they stay at Cheers. When Sumner Sloane returns, Diane muses about herself when she first arrived at the bar, "What a prissy little snot I was!" Sumner Sloan is also gobsmacked when Diane tells him to "cut the crap." Also highlighted when Diane gets involved in the food fight at Thanksgiving. |
| 722 | -->'''Diane:''' ''[Trying to stop a FoodFight]'' '''PEOPLE!--PEOPLE!--''PEOPLE''! ''[[DramaQueen STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY!!!]]''''' ''[Pause]'' I have ''never'' been witness to such a silly, soph-- ''[Splat! Tense pause]'' [[TranquilFury Sam Malone...]] [[LetsGetDangerous Kiss your butt good-BYE!]] |
| 723 | :: Meanwhile, Frasier finds he enjoys hockey and doing "guy stuff" at the bar; for him, it's cathartic. |
| 724 | * NotSoGreatEscape: One episode features Norm being hired to paint the bedroom of Rebecca's millionaire crush Evan Drake while the latter is away on a business trip. Rebecca then convinces Norm to let her tag along for her to "see where he sleeps." Unfortunately, Drake returns early leaving only enough time for Rebecca to hide in the closet, making Norm go to increasingly ludicrous attempts to make the exhausted Drake leave the room (as he would probably find Rebecca in the morning), culminating in Norm convincing Drake to help him carry out his "fantasy" of "carrying a rich man across the lawn in his pajamas". |
| 725 | * NotSoRemote: "Get Your Kicks on Route 666" has Sam, Frasier, Norm, and Cliff take a road trip. They crash into a ditch somewhere in the desert and get stuck. They spend the rest of the night trying to survive in the middle of nowhere, then go to sleep. Sam, Frasier, and Cliff wake up to find Norm missing. Seconds later, he rolls up in a golf cart. It turns out there was a resort just over the hill. |
| 726 | * NotWhatItLooksLike: Inverted in one instance with Woody and Kelly. She walks in on him rehearsing a love scene with another actor, which involves kissing, and despite being TheDitz comes to the correct conclusion. And she's still outraged, because that's what she ''didn't'' want Woody doing. |
| 727 | [[/folder]] |
| 728 | |
| 729 | [[folder: O]] |
| 730 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: Woody is a simpleton, but his father seems to be intelligent. For example, Woody bows out of investing in Norm's Tan 'N' Wash because he states, "You know, when I left home, my father gave me some very sound advice. 'Never trust a man who can't look you in the eye, never talk when you can listen, and never spend venture capital on a limited partnership without a detailed analytical fiduciary prospectus.'" |
| 731 | ** Coach (of all people) pulls this off brilliantly when he teams up with Harry the Hat to outwit a guy who conned him out of $8,000 in "Pick a Con, Any Con". |
| 732 | * ObliviousToLove: Mr. Drake in regards to Rebecca. |
| 733 | * OddFriendship: |
| 734 | ** Norm and Rebecca develop one of sorts. |
| 735 | ** Also, Diane and Cliff. Closer to the show's beginning, Cliff's sort of a know-it-all {{Jerkass}} who at times make remarks that sound slightly misogynistic--much to Diane's annoyance. As Season Two progresses his sweet/vulnerable side comes out, most notably in Season Two's "Cliff's Rocky Moment." Diane also goes the extra mile to be the ideal "date" for him in Season Four's "Cliffie's Big Score." |
| 736 | * OfficialCouple: From the beginning, Sam and Diane were conceived as having a flirtatious (and eventually romantic) parallel to Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn. |
| 737 | ** In the Rebecca era, Woody and Kelly inherit the title. |
| 738 | * OffTheWagon: Happens to Sam [[spoiler:when he and Diane break up in the Season Two finale]]. And never again. |
| 739 | * OhCrap: In the series premiere, Diane at first bursts out laughing when Sam offers to hire her. This is immediately followed by Carla reading a long, complicated list of drink orders to Sam, which Diane clearly pays ''no'' real attention to. She declares her intention to instead go out into the world and look for "a job that's perfect for me," as opposed to one as a mere waitress. Just as she's about to leave, Sam realizes he's forgotten Carla's orders and asks her to repeat. Cue an exasperated ''Diane'', without batting an eye, reciting the entire list ''word for word''. Carla and Sam stare at her in amazed silence... and Diane visibly realizes she's just doomed herself. |
| 740 | * OminousAdversarialAmusement: When it appears that Harry the Hat has conned Coach, Sam, Norm, Cliff, and another conman out of a bunch of money (including Coach's life savings) Coach has his head in his hands, shaking. Then it turns out that he's not crying, he's laughing. "Coach, what are you laughing at?" Coach responds "That!" and points to the back of the bar, where Harry reappears. He and Coach set up a con within a con within a con in order to con the other con artist out of his money. |
| 741 | * OneHourWorkWeek: Diane gets a ''lot'' of time off for her personal pursuits, which is one of the reasons Carla dislikes her (having to cover for her.) One of the RunningGags late in the show's run is that Rebecca doesn't seem to ''have'' an official job at Cheers. |
| 742 | * TheOner: The last shot of "[[Recap/CheersS1E4SamAtEleven Sam at Eleven]]", the series' fourth episode. |
| 743 | * OneSeasonAthlete: Bar owner Sam Malone is approached to come out of retirement as his old team really needs his services as a reserve player. Sam consents to this, then when he is on tour with the team realises he is an old man in his thirties among players ten years or more younger, whose priorities aren't his. He understands that he has grown up and moved on and this isn't his life any more. Sam returns to Cheers and accepts this is where he belongs now. |
| 744 | * OneSteveLimit: averted with the name Eddie. The obnoxious Yankee fan who's attacked by Carla? Eddie. The bandleader in "Friends Romans Accountants?" Eddie Barnett. The guy who bet Sam he couldn't marry Jacqueline Bissett? Eddie Gordon. Carla's ill fated dancing partner? Eddie Csyznyk, The Polish Prancer. Even after Carla meets Eddie Lebec there's a couple Eds in small roles. |
| 745 | * OneTrueLove: Sam and Diane; Woody and Kelly; (arguably) Cliff and Maggie. |
| 746 | * OneWordTitle: ''Cheers'' |
| 747 | * OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe: In "No Help Wanted," Diane helps give Sam a cold shower after an encounter with an OldFlame of his...by squirting seltzer water ''down there''. Coach walks over, takes a look at Sam's wet pants, and snarks, "Have an accident, Sam, or [[HoYay are you just glad to see me?]]" He then busts a gut in guffaws. |
| 748 | * OrphanedPunchline: In "[[Recap/CheersS5E3MoneyDearest Money Dearest]]" we hear Sam finish a joke with "Well that may be so, but this one's eating my popcorn!". This Orphaned Punchine, also featured in ''Film/TheSting'' and ''Men in Black'', happens to be the punchline to a [[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071126195830AAW1HPu real joke]]. |
| 749 | ** Diane on more than one occasion tells a mostly off-screen joke with an onscreen French punchline: "Si vous parlez lentement, je ne peux pas comprendre!" (In English: "If you speak slowly, I can't understand!") |
| 750 | * OppositesAttract: Sam and Diane. Also thoroughly {{deconstructed|Trope}} and {{lampshaded}} on a number of occasions with the toxic nature of their relationship. Creator/JohnCleese even shows up in one episode to basically make it a point to [[DefiedTrope vehemently dismiss the concept]]. |
| 751 | * OvercomplicatedMenuOrder: In one episode Diane convinces Sam to let her be the bartender for the evening rather than just being a waitress. An order comes in for a Bloody Mary, a particularly complex mixed drink. Naturally Diane doesn't know how to make it so she looks it up in a bartender's manual, taking a long time to make sure it's just right. As she finishes, she remarks that it is a complicated drink. Sam agrees, which is why he always mixes up a big batch before the evening starts and stores it in the minifridge behind the bar. |
| 752 | * OverlyNarrowSuperlative: Sam gets a gig as a sportscaster and does a rap on air. Rebecca tells him, "As news rappers go, I thought you were fine." |
| 753 | [[/folder]] |
| 754 | |
| 755 | [[folder: P-Q]] |
| 756 | * PantsPositiveSafety: An angry husband comes into the bar looking for Sam with a revolver for having an affair with his wife. After the man is talked out of the shooting and the gun is taken from him, Sam puts it in his back pocket for storage. Afterward, he goes to sit down, and [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace shoots himself in the butt]]. The situation spirals out of control when he attmpts to explain the injury by claiming he got shot in an attempted hold-up. |
| 757 | %%* PermaShave |
| 758 | * PerpetualPoverty: It's a recurring theme in the Rebecca years that despite the bar having an apparent steady flow of customers, it's just barely breaking even. It's hinted, and in some cases just ''shown'', that this is because of Sam's generally laid-back attitude, and Rebecca's {{Flanderization}} induced-incompetence. |
| 759 | * PhonyPsychic: Madame Lazora, the obvious con artist that Carla goes to on a regular basis. This occasional storyline reaches a conclusion in "Madame [=LaCarla=]", when Madame Lazora retires and turns over the business to Carla. |
| 760 | * PhonyVeteran: The first scene of the first episode involves a kid (who looks about ''12'') with a phony military ID claiming to be a 'Nam vet. |
| 761 | * PhraseCatcher: "NORM!" |
| 762 | ** This is typically done OncePerEpisode, and is followed by Sam (or Coach, or Woody) asking Norm how things are going and him responding with an amusing one-liner. |
| 763 | --->'''Woody:''' How's life treating you, Mr. Peterson?\ |
| 764 | '''Norm:''' Like it caught me in bed with its wife. |
| 765 | * PieInTheFace: Vera takes one in "Thanksgiving Orphans," thus preserving her status as TheFaceless. |
| 766 | * ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Diane is a waitress at Cheers, but she seems to spend just as much time, if not ''more'', reading a book at the bar or flirting/arguing with Sam than she does serving customers. This is just one of the many things Carla berates her about. |
| 767 | ** Rebecca's even worse, after Sam buys back the bar. See WhatExactlyIsHisJob below. |
| 768 | * PissTakeRap: Sam in "'I' on Sports." |
| 769 | * PlatonicLifePartners: Sam and Carla are very close, and acknowledge that they each have considered the other as a possible love interest. They kiss at least once. She starts a bar fight in episode 2 to defend his honor. He pretends to be her boyfriend to make her ex jealous. They never become a couple. |
| 770 | * PlaneAwfulFlight: Fraiser learns that Carla is afraid of flying. He offers to take Carla on a flight to help her overcome this fear. Realizing this would be a good opportunity to flex his psychology skills, Frasier gets a plane full of people who are afraid of flying. Pretty much every single thing that can go wrong on the flight does. In the end, Fraiser cures all of the previously phobic people, but gains a fear of flying himself. |
| 771 | * PlotAllergy: "Diane's Allergy" is brought on by Diane's anxiety over moving in with Frasier. Sam reckons, and turns out to be right, that it's psychosomatic, brought on by her anxiety over her relationship with Frasier. |
| 772 | * PokeThePoodle: Part of the reason Cheers never wins the war against Gary's Old Towne Tavern is because Sam's ideas of response to Gary's pranks are usually pretty crap (the ones that aren't just end up backfiring). |
| 773 | * PoliticianGuestStar: From Boston, Mayor Raymond Flynn and Speaker of the House Rep. Tip O'Neill--the latter much to Diane's {{Fangirl}}-ish delight. From the state of Massachusetts, Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Michael Dukakis. Also, Senator and two-time presidential candidate Gary Hart of Colorado--also much to Diane's {{Fangirl}}-ish delight. |
| 774 | * PoorMansPorn: Norm subscribes to the Victoria's Secret catalogue. Cliff looks at Renaissance art books in the library for the nudity. |
| 775 | * ThePowerOfLove: Invoked by Diane in Season Two's "Old Flames": "Sam... he can give us twenty-four hours, twenty-four days, or twenty-four years. We have transcended time." |
| 776 | ** She may not be far wrong. Throughout the Diane years, there are moments such as Sam feeling a shudder just as Diane and Frasier move up their wedding plans in the Season Three finale. And of course, there's the fact that they keep ending up back in each other's arms. |
| 777 | ** Even after Diane leaves, the fact that Sam's only other real, continuous attempt at a meaningful, long-term relationship (with Rebecca) just plain never seems to work out on ''his'' end either would also seem to support Diane's assertion. |
| 778 | ** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Norm to Sam in the ending sequence of the series finale: "You can never be unfaithful to your OneTrueLove. [[LoveWillLeadYouBack You always come back to her]]." It's implied that he means the bar--though he had earlier repeatedly described Diane as "the love of Sam's life." |
| 779 | * PrecisionFStrike: In the final episode, after everyone has left the bar ([[RealitySubtext for good]]), [[https://youtu.be/hP21b-AAXJk Sam looks around]], and exclaims, "Boy, I tell ya... I'm the ''luckiest'' son-of-a-bitch on Earth." |
| 780 | * PrenupBlowup: Frasier and Lilith fought over this. She refused, and the wedding proceeded. |
| 781 | ** And then their marriage fell apart. The moral of the story, kids? Prenups are your friends. |
| 782 | *** Though his divorce was nowhere near as bad as his brother Niles' would be later on in ''Series/{{Frasier}}''. |
| 783 | ** Averted with the marriage between bartender Woody and the exceedingly rich Kelly...with Woody asking for it. [[IdiotHero "I don't want her taking half my stuff."]] Naturally, it isn't an issue. |
| 784 | * PrepositionsAreNotToEndSentencesWith: Diane has a fantasy of her "perfect" Sam, and he does this to her. |
| 785 | ** In a way, this is a nod to a moment in an early Season One episode, "The Tortelli Tort," when Diane drives Sam nuts by repeatedly correcting him to the same effect. (Of course, as dream-Sam [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]], as the series progresses, Diane often "slips" and dangles propositions without any thought.) |
| 786 | * PreviouslyOn: A couple of parodies and variations are used for the show. |
| 787 | ** An amusing recap is narrated in a rambling fashion by Coach, who forgets significant plot details, starts giving the audience directions to his daughter's house, and has to start over. |
| 788 | ** Another recap features Cliff explaining what happened in an episode that happened to be Frasier's first appearance, while showing a slideshow of Cliff's vacation in Florida. |
| 789 | ** One episode begins with one that features various actors trying to tell family members/friends what happened before being interrupted. |
| 790 | * {{Prison}}: Rebecca visits Robin Colcord there. |
| 791 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: John Ratzenberger (season 2), Kelsey Grammer (season 5), Bebe Neuwirth (season 10). |
| 792 | * ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Diane kissed Sam a couple times and almost slept with him at the same time she was in a committed relationship with Frasier. Since the series was clearly written from Sam and Diane's point of view, these incidents were either kept from or EasilyForgiven by Frasier. |
| 793 | * PutOnABus: Diane, at the end of season 5. |
| 794 | * QuipToBlack: A few episodes ended with a final joke to a black screen. In episode "King of the Hill", after Diane cheats to beat Sam at ping pong, when the screen goes to black, a smacking sound is heard and Sam saying, "That's why they call it a ''paddle''." |
| 795 | [[/folder]] |
| 796 | |
| 797 | [[folder: R]] |
| 798 | * RagingStiffie: Rebecca [[InvokedTrope intentionally provokes]] this ("And this part is just the teensiest bit ''illegal''...") and then maroons Sam at Melville's in ''How to Recede in Business." |
| 799 | -->'''Sam:''' Uh, can I have the chocolate fondue?\ |
| 800 | '''Waiter:''' You realize that will take 20 minutes to prepare?\ |
| 801 | '''Sam:''' Yes. Yes I do. |
| 802 | * RapidHairGrowth: Subverted in an episode when the guys have a beard growing contest over the course of a month or so; Cliff's beard doesn't grow in much during the contest, then on measuring day he comes in with a full, lush beard and wins. Then he calls an advice line over for some help: he cheated by supergluing hair to his face and now he needs to go to the hospital to get it removed. |
| 803 | * RealLifeWritesThePlot: After Kirstie Alley got pregnant during Season 9, the writers crafted a storyline in which Rebecca and Sam decided to conceive a child together. After Alley had a miscarriage, Sam and Rebecca change their minds. |
| 804 | * ReallyGetsAround: Carla, who not only Really Gets Around but is seemingly constantly pregnant. Sam is portrayed this way right at the end of the series, which was something of a departure for a show that previously seemed to view him as a [[TheCasanova Casanova]]. |
| 805 | ** It's how Rebecca got her EmbarrassingNickname "Backseat Becky" Howe, due to her party girl reputation while at the University of Connecticut. |
| 806 | * RealTime: Most of Season 10 two-part finale "An Old-Fashioned Wedding", namely everything after the gang gets to the kitchen at the Gaines mansion to cater Woody's wedding, is in real time. |
| 807 | * RecurringExtra: Many of the barflies. Cliff Clavin was one in the first season. |
| 808 | * RefugeInAudacity: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] by Frasier and played straight by Norm in the episode "Let Sleeping Drakes Lie." In order to [[ItMakesSenseInContext sneak Rebecca out of Evan Drake's bedroom,]] Frasier suggests that if Norm tells a sufficiently outrageous lie, Drake will have no choice but to believe it. |
| 809 | * ReminderFailure: The episode where Cliff went into the hospital had the gang miss a chance to visit him. Sam was busy and Norm claimed to feel nauseous when he entered a hospital. Woody, on the other hand, tied a string around his finger to remember and forgot why he tied it. However, we never find out what he tied the other string for. |
| 810 | * ReReleaseSoundtrack: The Season 9 episode "[[Recap/CheersS9E6 Grease]]" involves Robin going to jail for corporate espionage. In the original broadcast version, Sam taunts Rebecca at the bar by playing the song "I Fought the Law". In syndication and home video, however, a generic rock song is substituted, ruining the joke. |
| 811 | * RevisedEnding: An alternate ending was shot before the studio audience of Creator/ShelleyLong's final episode to hide the fact that Long was leaving the series. That ending, in which Sam and Diane actually go through with the wedding ceremony and get married, was discarded in favor of the real ending, which was filmed without a studio audience, in which Sam and Diane stop the ceremony before they are married. |
| 812 | * {{Revision}}: The writers wanted to do a centennial episode in 1989 despite the fact that the bar was actually established in 1895 (per the famous sign seen throughout the show's history) so they had Sam claim that "1895" was a number he made up to please Carla and her superstitious belief in numerology. |
| 813 | * RichBitch: Kelly, but somewhat courteously averted by Woody. After Woody serenades Kelly as his birthday gift to her, she then embarrasses and humiliates him in front of her affluent family & friends by asking just where her gift was. He then returns to Cheers, has 11 sips of his beer, and dares to insult her but, darn him, he can't come up with a word that rhymes with "rich." |
| 814 | * RidiculousExchangeRates: Played with in Season 3 when Frasier and Diane go to Italy. He tips the bellhop 200,000 lira, then complains about the exchange rate. Diane gently points out he gave the man $100 US. The gag wouldn't work post-Euro. |
| 815 | * RoadTripPlot: In "Get Your Kicks on Route 666", Sam, Norm, Cliff, and Frasier go on a road trip. It goes wrong when they crash their car on a remote desert road. |
| 816 | * RomanticFalseLead: |
| 817 | ** Frasier Crane fits this trope exactly when he is introduced in Season 3 as Diane's new boyfriend, who is obviously just a speed bump in the Sam-Diane relationship. What is unusual is how the character is used afterwards. Frasier proved so popular that he stuck around for two more seasons after the Diane-Frasier romance ended, then six more seasons after Diane left Cheers, then for eleven ''more'' years on [[Series/{{Frasier}} his own show]]. Not many Romantic False Leads have been on prime time television for 20 years. |
| 818 | *** Ironically, however, Shelley Long actually despised the Frasier character for simply ''being'' a RomanticFalseLead, and frequently lobbied hard to get Kelsey Grammer removed from the show. The producers, of course, naturally rejected her demands each time. |
| 819 | ** Councilwoman Janet Eldridge (played by [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Kate Mulgrew]]), who has a relationship with Sam in the three-part Season 4 finale "Strange Bedfellows." |
| 820 | ** Sam's [[TheGhost unseen brother Derek]], who romances Diane in the two-part Season 1 finale "Showdown." |
| 821 | * RunawayBride: Diane leaves Frasier at the altar. It's not played entirely straight, though; Frasier is left bitter and angry and takes a very long time to get over it. In fact, he never gets over it during ''Cheers'' itself; it takes a couple of seasons of his own show on the other side of the country, and giving the visiting Diane an epic TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to expunge the last of the venom. |
| 822 | * RunningGag: All the time, both series wide and episodic. Just a few examples: |
| 823 | ** Harry the Hat's scams. |
| 824 | ** Norm's entrances. |
| 825 | ** Sam's cologne. |
| 826 | ** They seem to run out of vermouth a lot. |
| 827 | ** Norm's attempts to scalp free beers, and his bar tab, which is implied to be astronomically huge. |
| 828 | ** Carla making digs at Diane's hair, implying it's dyed, or her small chest size. |
| 829 | ** Whenever Henri enters the bar, the guys (usually Norm, Cliff, and Paul) mention how much they despise him and wish he never showed his face around Cheers. Then, when he greets them, they instantly become friendly and warm. |
| 830 | [[/folder]] |
| 831 | |
| 832 | [[folder: S]] |
| 833 | * SanityBall: Sam and Diane play it like a game of volleyball. At times Diane is the OnlySaneWoman against Sam’s immaturity and over-the-top womanizing, while other times Sam is the StraightMan to Diane’s incessant pretentiousness as well as her own brand of immaturity. The latter is especially the case in Season 5, where Diane goes completely off the rails. |
| 834 | * SanitySlippage: Diane, after breaking up with Sam. She ends up in an insane asylum, which she insists is a "[[InsistentTerminology health spa]]." Everyone who saw her there, however, is shocked she was released so quickly. |
| 835 | * SantaClaus: In "[[Recap/CheersS6E12 Christmas Cheers]]" perpetually unemployed Norm gets some seasonal work as a Santa. |
| 836 | -->'''Carla:''' ''[Finding out about Norm's work]'' So ''that's'' why my kid said Santa smelled like the place Mommy works! |
| 837 | * ScaryBlackMan: Louis the mailman in "I Call Your Name" plays this trope very straight. |
| 838 | * SecondFaceSmoke: Rebecca does this to Sam when he tries to get her to give up smoking. |
| 839 | * SeductionAsOneUpmanship: Woody gets into an argument with a wealthy man while bartending at a party and agrees to settle it with a fistfight. The fight ends with Woody getting knocked out with one punch. When the man's girlfriend Kelly comes by, Woody decides to get revenge by taking her out on a date. The end result: Kelly breaks up with the guy and starts dating Woody, Kelly and Woody eventually get married, and they are expecting their first child when the series ends. |
| 840 | * SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Frasier and Sam, respectively. Helps explain Lilith's "talk show" incident (aside from AllGirlsWantBadBoys, of course...). |
| 841 | * SeriesContinuityError: |
| 842 | ** Interseries example with ''Series/{{Frasier}}''. In Season 10's "I'm OK, You're Defective" the audience is presented with a FlashForward in which Lilith, Frasier's widow, is there for the reading of his will. In ''Frasier'' they are AmicablyDivorced. However, it's possible that Frasier and Lilith may have gotten remarried sometime in the future, with both displaying a [[UnresolvedSexualTension lingering attraction]] towards the other throughout the latter series. |
| 843 | ** Other series continuity errors with ''Frasier'', mainly Frasier referring to his father as 1) an eminent psychiatrist and 2) dead, are [[{{HandWave}} explained away]] on ''Frasier'' as Frasier basically lying because he was not on good terms with his father at that time. |
| 844 | ** Also, the way various characters in ''Frasier'' describe Hester Crane, the mother of Frasier and Niles, makes her sound quite different and much more sympathetic than the character seen in an episode of ''Cheers''. Seeing as Hester died somewhere between her one ''Cheers'' appearance and the beginning of ''Frasier'', it's possible that everyone wants to remember only the good things about her, but this discrepancy is never addressed. [[spoiler:The idea is supported when in ''Frasier'' Martin reveals that Hester once had an affair that he tries to keep secret so his sons can keep their saintly picture of her.]] |
| 845 | *** A notable exception: during one of Shelley Long's guest appearances on ''Frasier'' ("Don Juan in Hell") her character Diane mentions that Frasier's mother once threatened her with a gun. |
| 846 | ** The final teaser for Season 3 featured a scene with Coach (after Nicholas Colasanto had passed away) and Carla. Astute viewers would have instantly noticed that the scene was shot a long time before the airing because Carla (and Rhea Perlman herself) is not pregnant. The writers and producers knew this, however--it was used as a tribute to Colasanto since Coach was talking about a man who could see much farther than anyone realized. |
| 847 | ** In the second episode of the series, "Sam's Women," someone comes in looking for "Gus," a previous owner, and Coach tells him that Gus is dead. In Season 11's "The Last Picture Show," Gus O'Malley, who sold Cheers to Sam 17 years prior, comes back to the bar. |
| 848 | ** In Season Two's "Little Sister Don't Cha," Diane claims she was born late. In Season Four's "I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday," she says she was prematurely born at eight months. |
| 849 | *** In that episode, Cliff is regularly having sex with Carla's sister. Somewhere in the middle of the series, he becomes a virgin. |
| 850 | ** A certain Valentine's Day episode late in the Rebecca years focuses on Sam's once-a-year relationship with a woman. Aside from the fact that the episode ends with the two of them being quite keen on the idea of extending their relationship ''beyond'' once a year (we never hear about her again)... Norm states early on that Sam and the woman have had this Valentine's tradition for nearly 20 years. The problem, of course, is how on Earth that's supposed to fit with the Diane years--especially during Seasons 2 and 5, when the two are ''together'' during that time. Diane of all people would not have settled for anything less than Sam spending Valentine's with ''her'', and no other woman, during their relationship. (It's even worse when you recall that in "A Ditch In Time" Diane's lines in the final sequence establish--in no uncertain terms--that Sam ''was'' around for Valentine's during Season 2.) Plus, 20 years would have included Sam Malone's 1970s baseball career, and Red Sox pitchers would have been in Spring Training by February 14. |
| 851 | * SeriousBusiness: In season seven's "How to Win Friends and Electrocute People", Norm and another patron get into an argument about whether ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' and ''Series/TheMunsters'' is better, which nearly ends in fisticuffs before Rebecca intervenes. |
| 852 | * SharedUniverse: Aside from the obvious examples of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' and ''The Tortellis'', both ''Series/{{Wings}}'' and ''St. Elsewhere'' featured a crossover with the show. (How the ''St. Elsewhere'' crossover is supposed to work is anyone's guess, [[AllJustADream considering...]]) |
| 853 | * ShoutOut: |
| 854 | ** In Season 2 episode "Little Sister Don't Cha" Carla goes to [[Series/StElsewhere St. Eligius]] to have her baby. |
| 855 | ** After Nicholas Colasanto died, a picture of Geronimo was taken from his dressing room and hung in the main set, where it stayed for the rest of the show's run. Sam Malone straightens the Geronimo picture before walking offstage in the final scene of the series. |
| 856 | ** A beautiful, [[TheVamp vampish]] psychologist named [[Literature/NightmareAlley Lilith]], you say? |
| 857 | * ShowSomeLeg: Diane does this in "Sam Turns The Other Cheek" in an attempt to distract the guy holding Sam at gunpoint. |
| 858 | * TheShrink: Frasier and Lilith are psychiatrists. |
| 859 | * SickeninglySweethearts: Carla can never stand it when Sam and Diane are being happily flirtatious with each other. |
| 860 | * SideBet: In Season 5 finale "[[Recap/CheersS5E26IDoAdieu I Do and Adieu]]," money keeps going back and forth as Sam and Diane hesitate on the edge of marriage. |
| 861 | ** Bets and bribes are common transactions in Cheers. But it goes without saying Sam & Diane's wedding was perhaps the most popular wager in the bar's viewed history. |
| 862 | * SimilarSquad: |
| 863 | ** The first episode with John Allen Hill had him using Cheers as a glorified lounge for his customers, and at one point, a "yuppie" version of Norm enters ("Ciao, gang!" "BRADLEY!"). |
| 864 | ** Likewise, when Sam moves to a South American bar, that bar has its own version of Norm, Pepé ("PEPÉ!), who has his own version of the typical "Norm enters bar, makes quip" gag. |
| 865 | ** At the beginning of season 11, Carla takes up a job in a theme restaurant, which despite the (for her) terrible working conditions pays much better than Sam ever could. She's tempted to stay for good, until she's introduced to a new recruit - a blonde Boston University student called Ellen, who is ludicrously pretentious and insists she's a "poetess". And happens to be an eerie dead ringer for Shelley Long. Carla screams, runs for it, and makes Sam vow to never set foot in that bar again. |
| 866 | * SitcomArchNemesis: Gary's Olde Towne Tavern is this for Cheers. |
| 867 | ** Even funnier is when the next winner's ball is "11." Woody looks at it and calls out "Eleven!", then looks at it upside down, and mutters, "Oh, no. Not again." |
| 868 | * SkywardScream: Carla, when she finds out she slept with [[spoiler: Paul]]. |
| 869 | * SlapSlapKiss: Sam and Diane, nearly constantly. |
| 870 | -->'''Sam''': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6c_g-25jXc You are the nuttiest... the stupidest... the PHONIEST FRUITCAKE I ever met!]]\ |
| 871 | '''Diane''': And ''you'', Sam Malone, are the most ''arrogant'', ''self-centered'', [[CurseCutShort SON OF]]--\ |
| 872 | '''Sam''': [[BigShutUp SHUT UP!... Shut your fat mouth!]]\ |
| 873 | '''Diane''': [[BestHerToBedHer Make me]].\ |
| 874 | '''Sam''': ''Make'' you...? My God, I'm, I'm gonna, [[WouldHitAGirl I'M GONNA BOUNCE YOU OFF EVERY WALL IN THIS OFFICE!]]\ |
| 875 | '''Diane''': ''[smirk]'' [[GroinAttack Try it, and you'll be walking FUNNY tomorrow]]. Or should I say ''funnier''!\ |
| 876 | '''Sam''': You know... you know I always wanted to ''pop'' you one. Maybe this is my lucky day, huh?\ |
| 877 | '''Diane''': ''[low voice]'' You ''disgust'' me.... I ''hate'' you.\ |
| 878 | '''Sam''': [[BelligerentSexualTension Are you as turned on as I am?]]\ |
| 879 | '''Diane''': ''More!''\ |
| 880 | '''Sam''': Bet me. ''[cue TheBigDamnKiss]'' |
| 881 | ** Averted in "I'll Be Seeing You (Part 2)," the final episode of Season 2. The "Slap Slap" happens, but Diane decides there will be no Kiss. |
| 882 | * SleepingWithTheBoss: Take a good guess.... |
| 883 | * SlobsVersusSnobs: Sam and the general bar crowd vs. Diane and (eventually) Lilith. Frasier manages to straddle the line, for the most part. |
| 884 | * SlutShaming : Subverted in "Death Takes a Holiday On Ice." After Carla and Gloria share the cars (a Datsun and a Toyota, respectively) in which they conceived their twins, Cliff says it's making him sick. |
| 885 | --> '''Cliff:''' Doesn't anybody buy American anymore? |
| 886 | * SmallReferencePools: In "[[Recap/CheersS7E15 Don't Paint Your Chickens]]", Frasier tries to tell everyone about a paper he wrote on the films of Creator/IngmarBergman, but they immediately get derailed into a discussion of Creator/IngridBergman (and boxing). |
| 887 | * SmartPeoplePlayChess: Played with in "Spellbound" when resident egghead Frasier humbles everyone at the bar at chess--except [[ObfuscatingStupidity apparent numbskull]] Woody, who beats Frasier every time. Frasier [[DeskSweepOfRage sweeps the pieces off the table]] in frustration. (Ironically he misses Woody's king the first try.) |
| 888 | * SmashToBlack: Possibly the TropeCodifier for the sitcom. Instead of fading out at the end as sitcoms usually did, the last joke is usually followed by a sudden SmashCut to a black screen with the names of the three Executive Producers. |
| 889 | * SmiteMeOMightySmiter: After a rash promise in "[[Recap/CheersS7E2 Swear to God]]", Sam feels obligated to the Lord to go three months without sex. After three weeks without it, a too-sexy-to-resist old flame comes into the bar and Sam cracks, looking to Heaven and saying, "If you're going to smite me down, please make it quick and painless." |
| 890 | * SmugSnake: John Allen Hill, the owner of Melville's Restaurant directly above Cheers. Invoked by Carla in one episode. |
| 891 | ** For Sam, Hill's "[=SaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaam=]" is annoying. |
| 892 | * SnipeHunt: The gang does this to Frasier in "The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe Hunter." He [[TheDogBitesBack gets back at them]]. |
| 893 | * SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Carla fell preganant with her son Ludlow in "[[Recap/CheersS3E13Whodunit Whodunit?]]" halfway through the third series. In "[[Recap/CheersS7E14 I Kid You Not]]", halfway through the seventh series, he was already six. |
| 894 | * SocialSemiCircle: Most of the time people only sit on 3 sides of the bar and if they do sit on the side facing the audience they're only background characters. |
| 895 | * SorkinRelationshipMoment: Diane's OldFlame Frasier calling Sam and Diane out on their reluctance to admit their feelings for one another in Season Four's "Triangle." |
| 896 | * {{Spinoff}}: ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', of course, but also the often-forgotten ''The Tortellis'', which, in addition to low ratings, also drew severe criticism for supposed negative depictions of Italian-Americans. |
| 897 | * SpitefulSpit: Diane on Sam in "Old Flames" after she finds out he went out with another girl. |
| 898 | * SpitefulSpoiler: In "A Tale of Two Cuties", Frasier is fed up with the guys spoiling the endings to books he's been reading, so he spoils the endings of ''Film/CitizenKane'', ''Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress1974'' and ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. |
| 899 | * SplitScreenPhoneCall: More than once during the Season 3 arc when Diane goes off to Europe with Frasier but keeps calling Sam. |
| 900 | ** Again in the series finale, "One for the Road," when Diane calls Sam up after six years away. |
| 901 | * SpontaneousMustache: In one episode the guys at the bar have a beard-growing contest with none of them shaving for a month, and whoever has the longest beard at the end of the month wins. Cliff (the only one at the time who regularly had facial hair - a moustache) is seen growing barely any facial hair while the other guys' beards come in thick and lush. On the last day of the contest Cliff enters the bar with an epic beard, saying it grew in overnight. After he wins the contest, he calls a customer advice phone number - he cheated by supergluing the hair to his face and now he needs a doctor. |
| 902 | * StalkerWithACrush: Andy-Andy, for Diane. |
| 903 | * StalkingIsFunnyIfItIsFemaleAfterMale: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], but in Season Five's "The Cape Cad" Diane makes it a point to show up at the same hotel Sam's taking his date--and seemingly just stand back and observe a little. Sam is not amused. |
| 904 | * StealthInsult: In "Friends, Romans, and Accountants," after a ''very'' close call with Norman's (now ex-)boss, Diane confides to Sam that her falling into the man's trap made her feel like "a cheap harlot." Cue Sam's reply: |
| 905 | -->'''Sam:''' Aw, come on. We all know you'd starve to death before you made a living with your body.\ |
| 906 | '''Diane:''' ''[Smiles]'' Thanks, Sam.\ |
| 907 | '''Sam:''' ''[Walking off]'' You're welcome, Diane....\ |
| 908 | ''[Diane's head snaps up; a "Wait a second" look fills her face...]'' |
| 909 | * StockSitcomGrandFinale: Follows the template pretty closely. Rebecca leaves first, and apparently permanently (to marry Don, although ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' lets us know she returned to Cheers as a barfly), the rest of the cast strolls out the front door, Norm hangs back for a bit to have a talk with Sam, and then Sam exits into the pool room after turning off the lights and telling a late-arriving customer ([[LeaningOnTheFourthWall and]] [[POVCam the viewer]]) "Sorry, we're closed." |
| 910 | * StolenCreditBackfire: Norm starts a job at a local business and immediately finds himself the company's ButtMonkey, even being forced to share his (rather tiny) office with someone else. With some prodding from Diane, he writes up a proposal for a business plan to gain some respect only to have it stolen by his officemate. He and Diane realize what happened when they hear him reading the proposal to their bosses. They're about to intervene when the CEO shoots down the proposal because it has several oversights that render it unfeasible. Norm takes this as a sign to play it safe from then on. |
| 911 | * StringOnFingerReminder: One episode where Cliff went into the hospital had the gang miss a chance to visit him. Sam was busy and Norm claimed to feel nauseous when he entered a hospital. Woody, on the other hand, tied a string around his finger to remember and forgot why he tied it. However, we never find out what he tied the other string for. |
| 912 | * StudioAudience: "''Cheers'' is filmed before a live studio audience".[[note]]Every main character recorded the line, but eventually it was always John Ratzenberger's reading that would be used, thanks to his Bah-ston accented delivery.[[/note]] |
| 913 | * SubterraneanSanityFailure: The final season features a story arc where Lilith has an affair with a colleague named Dr. Pascal and goes to live with him in an underground eco-pod. Unfortunately, Dr. Pascal turns out to be claustrophobic and goes mad while underground: he fakes a letter to Frasier asking for a divorce and gains an imaginary friend, and after Lilith escapes, he tracks her down and takes the gang hostage. |
| 914 | * SuchAPhony: Whenever Henri enters some of the barflies start talking about how much they don't like him, then when he says hi, they say hi back nicely. |
| 915 | * SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Woody, for Coach; Rebecca, for Diane. (Although both were different enough from their predecessors to really be seen as aversions of the trope.) |
| 916 | [[/folder]] |
| 917 | |
| 918 | [[folder: T-U]] |
| 919 | * TakingTheFightOutside: Woody gets into an argument with a snooty attendee at a high society function and they agree to settle it with a fight at Cheers. When they decide that they can't hold the fight in the main room, they move it... [[SubvertedTrope to the pool room]]. (Note: this is where Woody's relationship with Kelly begins.) |
| 920 | * TheTeaser: The show always opens with one. |
| 921 | * ThankingTheViewer: After the closing credits of the last episode, the message "Thanks for having us over on all those Thursday nights--''Cheers''" appeared on the screen. |
| 922 | * ThanksgivingEpisode |
| 923 | ** One of the more famous episodes of the series is Season 5's "[[Recap/CheersS5E9ThanksgivingOrphans Thanksgiving Orphans]]", in which the gang has dinner at Carla's house. Eventually there's a food fight. |
| 924 | ** Season 11's "Ill-Gotten Gaines" has most of the gang having dinner at Cheers, while Woody is at the Gaines mansion where Mr. Gaines is under the mistaken impression that Woody is blackmailing him. |
| 925 | * ThatsWhatSheSaid: Invoked by Sam in Season Two's "[[Recap/CheersS2E12WhereTheresAWill Where There's A Will]]", when Diane tells the rich man who wrote a napkin-will pledging money to the ''Cheers'' gang (that is declared by Tom the law student to be legally invalid) that the gang want him to repeat his wonderful gesture. "She", of course, is Diane. |
| 926 | * ThematicThemeTune: "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" invokes the feeling of a LocalHangout where a person can visit, cast away the cares of the world, and bask in the company of their friends. |
| 927 | * ThemeTune: [[https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/supreme-themes-60-greatest-title-songs-time-140800142.html TV Guide]] and [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-best-television-theme-songs-20110921/1-cheers-where-everybody-knows-your-name-0007296 Rolling Stone]] both named it the greatest TV theme song of all time. An expanded version of "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was released as a single. |
| 928 | * ThermostatTamperTantrum: Rebecca interrupts a word association experiment Frasier is conducting on Woody to complain about the thermostat being adjusted again. Her complaint seems to be justified as she points out the thermostat is in a really awkward place: at a low point on the wall by the smoking section, meaning she has to bend forward to fix it. This is just after we find out that Woody associates "thermostat" with "bottom" (as in Rebecca's). |
| 929 | * TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: After hurting his back at the Cranes' house Norm gets very comfortable there in "The Norm Who Came in from the Cold." He eventually brings the whole bar there. |
| 930 | * ThisIsMyChair: Norm and his stool. At one point (just after John Allen Hill buys Melville's and starts using Cheers as the restaurant's "lounge") a yuppie steals it and Norm seems dumbstruck that he even has to explain who he is and why that's ''obviously'' his stool. He points out that he's been sitting there "since the Ford administration." [[WeNeedADistraction He and Cliff get the stool back]].In the final scene of the series, Norm announces "I love this stool!" |
| 931 | * ThisIsYourSong: Woody does this for Kelly because he's broke and can't afford a present. |
| 932 | * TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Carla and Diane, respectively. |
| 933 | * TooYoungToDieLamentation: Rebecca and her sister play a prank on Sam in which Rebecca [[ItMakesSenseInContext pretends to shoot her sister]]. To sell the act, Rebecca's sister screams "I'm too young to die" just before Rebecca pulls the trigger. |
| 934 | * TropaholicsAnonymous: In the next-to-last episode of the series, "The Guy Can't Help It," Sam admits that he is a sex addict and joins a support group. This is a callback to the few episodes which ''didn't'' play Sam's [[TheCasanova Casanova]] ways for laughs; one has Diane make Sam a case study wherein she speculates that he would grow old alone and unloved because he's incapable of forming a real relationship with a woman; there's another episode in the Rebecca years where Sam becomes upset because he realizes almost everything in his life revolves around sex (much like an addict's revolves around their drug); other episodes will have Sam insist that he ''cannot'' resist getting in bed with a particular woman--like when he once had to comfort a distraught Rebecca from a payphone because he didn't trust himself not to make a play for her--which is cast in a new light as of the support group episode.[[note]]On the other hand, Sam is faithful to Diane when they are officially dating in Season 2 and Season 5. And in that one episode with Rebecca he realizes there's one thing in his life that does ''not'' revolve around sex--Film/TheThreeStooges.[[/note]] |
| 935 | * TrainingMontage: Sam gets one in "Pitch It Again, Sam." |
| 936 | * TruckDriversGearChange: This musical effect is featured in the theme song "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," when the chorus starts. |
| 937 | * TrueLoveIsBoring: Though it's arguably painfully apparent that Sam and Diane are each other's OneTrueLove, the show creators sure seemed stuck on preventing them from ever seeming able to work out all their issues. Shelley Long herself noted that this was a major reason for her ultimately deciding to leave the show. |
| 938 | * TwitchyEye: Diane's facial tic. (Accompanied by the corner of her mouth twitching--making it look like she's fighting a smirk.) It becomes a MythologyGag in ''Series/{{Frasier}}''. |
| 939 | * TwinThreesomeFantasy: Sam sets John Allen Hill up with hot twins when trying to buy back the bathrooms and pool room in "Crash of the Titans". |
| 940 | * TwoTimerDate: Cliff invites both Diane and Carla to the postman's ball in "Cliffie's Big Score." |
| 941 | * UnderNewManagement: Between Seasons 5 and 6 Sam sells the bar to a corporation and leaves to live on a boat. Unfortunately, he crashes and sinks the boat in the Caribbean. Without any money or assets left, he comes back in the first episode of Season 6 and takes a job as a bartender at the bar he used to own. |
| 942 | ** For the next couple seasons, Sam works to save up money to buy the bar back. After some difficulties, Sam alerts the corporation that Robin Colcord is embezzling money from the corporation's coffers, and they sell him back the bar for less than a dollar out of gratitude--creating new old management. Rebecca, for her part, gets sacked from her position for keeping silent on the matter, and Sam ends up rehiring her as a waitress. |
| 943 | ** For a few episodes after Sam buys the bar back, a sign hangs in front of the stairwell--"Under Old Management." Incidentally, when Rebecca is fired by letter she claims it was because of Robin, but Woody says they didn't much care for her work. The corporation could be making a subtle allusion to her involvement with Robin, but seeing as the executive Sam spoke to says he's surprised Rebecca worked for them she actually could've been just excess baggage to their business. |
| 944 | * TheUnfairSex: For all his skill with the ladies, even Sam isn't immune to this. One of the craziest examples is when Sam tries his best to ''atone'' for a mild-at-best manipulation of a girl to get his car back in Season 11--and ends up having to be humiliated by her in front of a class-full of kids for it. |
| 945 | ** Diane comes across as a little hypocritical in the final sequence of Season Two's "Fortune And Men's Weights." There, after having gone to an art show with a male companion, she (guiltily) confesses to Sam, insisting it was just "as friends"--despite her admitting to letting the man ''kiss'' her. She then gets miffed at how hard Sam takes it. Of course, earlier in the season ("Old Flames"), Diane freaked out over Sam going out with another woman and apparently kissing her. |
| 946 | ** Through much of their relationship, in addition to constantly belittling his intelligence Diane had a tendency to slap Sam when she believed he'd said something out of line. During the fight that leads to their first break up, she hits him ''again'' for rudely declaring he was going to dump her, and Sam finally hits her back with the same amount of force she uses on him. Her response? A venomous "How ''dare'' you slap me." She continues to treat him like a monster for laying a hand on her (i.e. "''Don't you ever hit me again''" and "You HIT me!"), despite the fact that she's ''never'' thought twice about striking him. |
| 947 | ** Frasier suffers from this too--particularly with Lilith's attempts to ''justify'' [[spoiler: her cheating on him and subsequent intention to leave him ''and their son Fredrick'']]. [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in that ''none'' of the gang is moved by her plea for sympathy... [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy except for Frasier himself (eventually)]]. |
| 948 | *** His relationship with Diane, too, wherein she gets frequently annoyed by his bitterness towards her after she left him at the altar and left him so emotionally devastated that it temporarily ruined his life (and in fact, initially pins the blame on him for loving her in the first place.) [[SubvertedTrope This lessens considerably when she finally does apologize, and then becomes a running gag with other characters pointing out what a cruel thing it was that she did.]] |
| 949 | * UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Whenever teetotaler Sam refers to having a "seltzer," he means plain soda water and not the "hard" seltzers that have become popular since the 90s. |
| 950 | * UnreliableVoiceover: In "[[Recap/CheersS3E2ReboundPart2 Rebound, Part 2]]", Diane tells the story of how she and Frasier met while she was voluntarily committed. She claims that they met while she was playing croquet one morning against a very skilled opponent; Frasier stopped by to correct a flaw in her technique, and stayed on to watch. In a flashback, we see Diane catch her opponent cheating, sparking an argument that quickly degenerates into a physical fight. Frasier intervenes to stop Diane from hitting the other player with her mallet, and gets an elbow to the stomach for his trouble; eventually, he restrains Diane while her opponent is subdued by two orderlies. |
| 951 | * TheUnReveal: |
| 952 | ** 11 years and 275 episodes, and four Bernadette Birkett guest appearances, and [[TheFaceless we never get to see Vera Petersen's face]]. |
| 953 | ** In "[[Recap/CheersS3E7CoachInLovePart2 Coach in Love (Part 2)]]", after Irene calls off her wedding to Coach and shortly thereafter gets engaged to another (richer) man, Coach remains in denial until their wedding day. When the phone rings, he interrupts the speaker to give [[IJustWantMyBelovedToBeHappy his blessings]] before hanging up, not ''actually'' hearing her voice. When the phone rings again, Sam goes to pick it up, but Diane stops him before we (or any of ''them'') can find out who really ''[[AmbiguousSituation was]]'' on the other end. |
| 954 | --->'''Diane''': ''[Gently]'' It's ''her'', Sam. |
| 955 | * UpperClassTwit: Kelly is very rich and very dumb. Luckily she is sweet as well. |
| 956 | * UptownGirl: |
| 957 | ** The relationship between Woody the bartender and the millionaire's daughter Kelly Gaines. |
| 958 | ** Sam and Diane, to an extent. Much is made of the wealth of Diane's late father... but Diane notes that she made it a point to reject any inheritance on her part, so as to seek her own path to success. |
| 959 | * VanityIsFeminine: For a professed feminist, Diane sure cares a great deal about her physical appearance. She complains in "[[Recap/CheersS2E12WhereTheresAWill Where There's A Will]]" that no one seemed to notice her new curly hairdo. In "[[Recap/CheersS5E9ThanksgivingOrphans Thanksgiving Orphans]]" she notes that, after finding out she was only invited to a class party to serve the other guests, "I...dropped the tray, burst into tears--took a moment to freshen up my mascara, and ''fled''!" |
| 960 | ** In "Fear Is My Copilot", when she's in a panic, she mutters that after the plane crashes, they'll be identified by dental records--and she hasn't seen her dentist in over a month. Later, she freaks out when Sam ([[ComicallyMissingThePoint missing the point of something she just said]]) claims he's found a grey hair on her head. |
| 961 | ** Carla ''loves'' teasing Diane about this, with her running barb about Diane supposedly not being a natural blonde. Diane is not amused. |
| 962 | [[/folder]] |
| 963 | |
| 964 | [[folder: V-W]] |
| 965 | * TheVoice: Vera Peterson, voiced by George Wendt's [[RealLifeRelative real-life wife, Bernadette Birkett]]. Also, Sam's brother Derek in the Season One finale. |
| 966 | * WeaponForIntimidation: In "[[Recap/CheersS4E1BirthDeathLoveAndRice Birth, Death, Love and Rice]]", Frasier threatens Sam with a revolver. Sam tells him that he can't shoot him, making Frasier angrily mock that he's making that assumption on his belief Frasier doesn't have it in him and Sam doesn't view him as a threat. Sam replies that he can see the chambers of the revolver are empty. |
| 967 | -->'''Frasier:''' ''(sighing)'' Bested me yet again. |
| 968 | * WeWantOurJerkBack: Cliff tries to cure his insensitivity with a bizarre shock therapy. The gang feels he's overcompensating. |
| 969 | * WeddingEpisode: Subverted a lot; occasionally played straight. |
| 970 | ** Subverted with Sam and Diane in the season 5 finale, "[[Recap/CheersS5E26IDoAdieu I Do and Adieu]]", when Diane leaves Sam (and the show) for a writing career. |
| 971 | ** Likewise before that, when Diane leaves Frasier at the altar. |
| 972 | ** Also subverted with Rebecca and Robin Colcord, in season 9's "Wedding Bell Blues", when Rebecca refuses to say "I do". |
| 973 | ** Subverted yet again in "A Fine French Whine" when Woody interrupts Kelly and Henri's CitizenshipMarriage. |
| 974 | ** Still another subversion in "[[Recap/CheersS1E20SomeoneSingleSomeoneBlue Someone Single, Someone Blue]]" when a clause in Diane's father's will requires Diane to get married so Diane's mother can keep the family fortune. After Sam and Diane's sniping blows up into an argument during the ceremony, they give up. |
| 975 | ** Believe it or not, played straight with Carla and Eddie in "Little Carla, Happy at Last (parts 1 and 2)." |
| 976 | ** Also played straight with Woody and Kelly in the season 10 finale, "An Old Fashioned Wedding." |
| 977 | * WelcomeEpisode: The first episode, where Diane meets the gang. |
| 978 | * WellExcuseMePrincess: |
| 979 | ** A BIG part of the Sam/Diane dynamic--even as early as the second episode: |
| 980 | --->'''Diane:''' ''[On Sam's typical choices in women]'' Sam--wait a minute: Now, I don't mean to ''criticize''. In a way, I was ''complimenting'' you--I think you can do better!\ |
| 981 | '''Sam:''' I don't ''want'' to "do better." You see, Diane, there are certain things in this life that I really ''like''--and nobody's gonna change my mind about them. You see, I ''like'' fun women--hot dogs!--game shows!--and I don't care what anybody says about them!\ |
| 982 | '''Diane:''' ''[Squirms]'' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Did you read where they found]] ''[[{{Squick}} rat parts]]'' in hot dogs?\ |
| 983 | '''Sam:''' [[SarcasmMode I LIKE "rat parts"]]--[[InsaneTrollLogic it's my favorite part of the hot dog!]]\ |
| 984 | '''Diane:''' ''[Fighting a chuckle]'' O-''kay''...? |
| 985 | ::: Later: |
| 986 | --->'''Diane:''' You're a [[ManChild rapidly aging adolescent!]]\ |
| 987 | '''Sam:''' Well, I would ''rather'' be ''that'' than a ''snob''!\ |
| 988 | '''Diane:''' And I would rather be a snob.\ |
| 989 | '''Sam:''' Well, ''good!'' Because you ''are''! |
| 990 | ** Interestingly enough, in Season Four's "Fools And Their Money," Frasier seems to want to encourage this dynamic between Diane and ''himself''--presumably thinking it's a turn-on for her. It leads to her storming off, and Frasier inevitably invokes the trope: |
| 991 | --->'''Frasier:''' Oh! Well, I'm so ''sorry'' to disappoint you, Miss "God's gift to men!" |
| 992 | * WhamLine: In "[[Recap/CheersS1E17DianesPerfectDate Diane's Perfect Date]]", Sam was supposed to get a blind date for Diane, but didn't. Left desperate after Diane delivers a blind date for him, Sam plucks some random nebbishy guy named Andy from the pool room and presents him as Diane's blind date. They have to decide where to eat. |
| 993 | --> '''Diane''': So, uh, what do you think, Andy, how does Italian food sound, huh? Oh boy, I've been hungry for Italian food all day.\ |
| 994 | '''Andy Schroeder''': Anywhere but Villa Milano. That's bad memories for me. I killed a waitress there.\ |
| 995 | '''Diane:''' ''(as the foursome leave)'' '''''DID YOU HEAR WHAT HE SAID?!''''' |
| 996 | * WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: Sam and Diane are both asked what each sees in the other a ''lot''. |
| 997 | * WhatExactlyIsHisJob: In the later seasons the writers justified Rebecca's continuing presence by having her buy a stake in Sam's bar. However, she didn't really have anything to do there, which led to a RunningGag towards the end as the characters wondered why Rebecca was hanging around. |
| 998 | ** In the episode where Rebecca leaves to try her luck as a auto show model, it's revealed that while the bar was owned by the company, they switched over their inventory and financials to a computer system (as opposed to Sam's old "paper-and-pray" method); apparently, Rebecca's the only one who knows how to use that system, which was part of the motivation for trying to get her back. |
| 999 | * WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame: "[[Recap/CheersS1E16TheBoysInTheBar The Boys in the Bar]]" features many of the regulars fearing that the bar will become a stereotypical gay bar once it starts accepting gay clientele; the episode ends with Diane revealing that the men they've been worrying about are actually straight, and two of the regulars are gay. |
| 1000 | * WhiteSheep: Frankie (Carla's nephew featured in "Get Your Kicks on Route 666") is unlike every other member of the family; he's consistently sweet, friendly, and thoughtful towards others, while not having a single mean-spirited bone in his body. Carla both feels protective towards him and questions how he ever ended up in her family. |
| 1001 | * WhosWatchingTheStore: Often applicable in a show where there are never more than four people serving customers. Usually the show is pretty good at never having the entire staff away from the bar during working hours. |
| 1002 | ** One episode has Diane leaving Norm to close the bar (he taught her how to do it, after all), with a ForegoneConclusion. |
| 1003 | --->'''Norm:''' Alone in a bar. Diane was right, dreams ''do'' come true! |
| 1004 | * WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Carla is afraid of flying, which prevents her from visiting Eddie when he's out touring with the ice show. Frasier attempts to help her with her fear. |
| 1005 | * WideEyedIdealist: Woody and Diane are both this, albeit in somewhat different ways. |
| 1006 | * WillTheyOrWontThey: Sam and Diane are arguably the TropeCodifier for American television. Later on the show does the same thing with Sam and Rebecca, but it isn't as big a deal; Rebecca has a one-night stand with Sam and then goes back to Robin Colcord. |
| 1007 | * {{Wipe}}: Used in "Cheers: The Motion Picture" and "Carla Loves Clavin." |
| 1008 | * WorkCom: To the exclusion of all other locales until Season Two. |
| 1009 | * WorldWearyWaitress: Carla could almost be considered the TropeCodifier. Rude, surly, snarky, but still beloved by all the staff and regular patrons at the titular bar. The fact that she's a single mother who starts the show with four kids and ends with eight, and that her husband frequently cheated on her before running out on her probably didn't help her personality much. |
| 1010 | --> '''Carla:''' When I'm in charge of the bar I know what God feels like. |
| 1011 | --> '''Norm:''' How's that? |
| 1012 | --> '''Carla:''' It's like I'm in complete control of people's destinies. Yeah, I can make their drinks too strong so they get sick. Or I can water them down so they're payin' for nothin'. Or if I don't like their attitude I can spit in it. |
| 1013 | * WorthIt: |
| 1014 | ** Cliff tricks Carla into being nice to him by making her think he's a judge in a waitressing contest and humiliates her by having her give him foot massages. She naturally finds out and Norm states that Cliff is dead meat. Cliff invokes the trope. |
| 1015 | ** In "[[Recap/CheersS2E4HomicidalHam Homicidal Ham]]," Diane turns off the bar TV so she and Andy-Andy can rehearse ''Othello''--even though the patrons were watching a game. Norm whines to Sam, "I hope she's showing you one hell of a good time." Sam answers with a ''big'' grin. |
| 1016 | * WrongSongGag: |
| 1017 | ** After Robin went to prison, Sam started mocking Rebecca by playing "I Fought the Law and the Law Won" on the jukebox. Rebecca decided to respond by playing "Stand by Your Man", only to find that Sam had switched it with "I Fought the Law and the Law Won". |
| 1018 | ** One HalloweenEpisode saw Phil go over to the jukebox and put in some money. Appropriately for the holiday, "Monster Mash" starts playing. Except Phil selected "Funky Town". It turns out that Gary sabotaged the jukebox as a prank. |
| 1019 | [[/folder]] |
| 1020 | |
| 1021 | [[folder: X-Z]] |
| 1022 | * YankTheDogsChain: "The Bar Manager, the Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" has one of the funnier examples. When Lilith returns and says she wants to reconcile with Frasier, Sam celebrates by declaring a round of free drinks. However, just as Norm gets his glass, Frasier insists he and Lilith are not getting back together. Woody takes the beer back, so Norm implores the feuding couple to work things out. |
| 1023 | * YesMan: Rebecca will do anything her bosses at the Lilith Corporation tell her to, no matter how menial--organize a kiddie party, babysit a superior's dogs, etc. |
| 1024 | * YouAreNotAlone: In "[[Recap/CheersS1E15FatherKnowsLast Father Knows Last]]". When Carla gets a little desperate when she discovers she's pregnant--again--Diane organizes a bar-wide fundraiser for her... and leads everyone in a rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone." |
| 1025 | * YouCantGoHomeAgain: Sam actually says "Who says you can't go home again?" when he decides to try a comeback in baseball in "Take Me Out of the Ball Game". This trope is played straight however at the end of the episode when Sam, who realizes he no longer likes life on the road as a baseball player, decides to come back to Cheers.[[note]]The writers were inspired by other pitchers who in their mid-40's tried a comeback in spring training, and at best could earn a spot in AAA before giving up.[[/note]] |
| 1026 | * YouJustToldMe: Done by Woody, of all people, in "[[Recap/CheersS10E10 A Fine French Whine]]". He correctly deduces that [[FrenchJerk Henri]] wrote a fake deportation letter to himself in his latest scheme to steal Kelly away. It was just a hunch, but Henri's response confirms it. |
| 1027 | --->'''Henri:''' How did you figure that out?\ |
| 1028 | '''Woody:''' You mean I'm right? Wow, score one for the Indiana school system! |
| 1029 | * YourCostumeNeedsWork: Wade Boggs in "Bar Wars." |
| 1030 | * YourMom: Of all people, it's none other than ''Diane Chambers'' who drops this! When the gang faces off against Gary's Olde Towne Tavern in [[Recap/CheersS4E9FromBeerToEternity a bowling match]], Gary makes the mistake of daring to insult Diane's sorority. Diane's response is to stun the haters silent by joining the game, and throwing a strike on her first throw... following which, she gives Gary a devilish look, letting loose a throaty-voiced [[SophisticatedAsHell "Your MAMMA!"]] |
| 1031 | * ZipMeUp: Rebecca tempts a temporarily celibate Sam in "Swear to God." |
| 1032 | [[/folder]] |
| 1033 | ---- |
| 1034 | -->''"Sorry, we're closed."'' |
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