Title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bar
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Rebecca Parr Cioffi
Air Date: January 21, 1993
Previous: Norm's Big Audit
Next: Loathe and Marriage
Guest Starring: Roger Rees
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bar" is the 14th episode of the 11th season of Cheers.
Robin Colcord returns! Almost exactly two years after Robin skipped town in "Wedding Bell Blues", he's back. When last seen, Robin was pretending that he was flat broke. After Rebecca the Gold Digger dumped him, he took $6 million that he had hidden in a money belt in her desk, and skipped town.
Now it appears that Robin really is broke. He says he's penniless, that in fact he's a wandering bum, but he's happy, having left the "disease" of greed behind and achieved moral clarity. When Robin asks if he can sleep in Sam's storage room overnight, Rebecca invites him over to her place to sleep on the couch. He's touched, but Rebecca tells Sam that she's convinced that he's faking again and has money stashed somewhere. Indeed, Robin tells the gang that back in the day he hid money belts all over the place, usually in pairs. That bit about hiding the belts in pairs starts the gang on a frantic hunt for a second money belt at Cheers.
Last appearance by Roger Rees.
Tropes:
- The Bus Came Back: Robin Colcord, not seen for two years, makes one last appearance. Roger Rees was one of several Cheers guest stars who made appearances after long absences, in the last season of the show.
- Continuity Nod: When Robin asks what the gang has been up to, Cliff says that Adolf Hitler moved into his building, which was the Cliff plot five episodes ago.
- Gold Digger: Robin calls Rebecca this after she tells him to knock it off and demands to know how many millions he has hidden away.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: There is no second money belt; the gang ripped up Cheers for nothing. When they asked Robin why he tricked them, he tells them that he wanted to teach them a lesson about the destructiveness of greed. Then, in his last line before he leaves, he tells them the second reason.Robin: Plus, I never really liked you. Ta!
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Robin, reminiscing warmly about Rebecca, remembers "that crystal bell of a voice." Cue Rebecca coming out of the office, bellowing "Crap, Sam, your desk smells like somebody puked in it!"
- Re-Release Soundtrack: When this show ran on NBC, the song that played as the gang is ripping up the bar was Motown classic "Money (That's What I Want)". In home video and syndication, it's some generic song apparently titled "I Want Money".
- Secret Test of Character: Rebecca believes that Robin's whole deal—looking ragged and disheveled, heavily bearded, claiming that he is a penniless drifter—is a secret test to prove that she is no longer a Gold Digger. It isn't.
- This Is Gonna Suck: As soon as Rebecca's wheels start turning about Robin, Sam realizes immediately that this will be the likely outcome.
- Time-Passes Montage: A montage shows the gang hammering the walls and gouging holes in the bar, looking for the second money belt.
- Walking the Earth: What Robin's been up to since renouncing material goods and living a life of poverty. He's been literally walking around the earth, having worked in a kibbutz in Israel, gotten a medal from the Pope, and spending a short stint in jail for shoplifting in Louisiana.
