Title: Manager Coach
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Earl Pomerantz
Air Date: November 24, 1983
Previous: Old Flames
Next: They Call Me Mayday
Guest Starring: Herb Mitchell, Corey Feldman
"Manager Coach" is the eighth episode of the second season of Cheers.
A Little League volunteer comes into the bar looking for a manager for a team. Sam declines, being far too busy either with running the bar or having sex with Diane, but Coach jumps at the chance. Diane fears that sweet, affable Coach will get run over by the Little League kids. Instead, precisely the opposite happens. Sweet, affable Coach turns into a deranged martinet who drills the kids on his baseball team relentlessly. Sam and Diane, startled by the dramatic change in Coach's personality, decide they have to intervene.
In the B-plot, Cliff offers unemployed Norm a $500 loan and is startled when Norm eagerly accepts. In the C-plot, Carla brings her baby into Cheers to breastfeed.
Tropes:
- Crowd Song: In The Teaser the whole bar sings "Tura Lura Lura" into the phone when Carla has to lull her baby, back in her apartment, to sleep. They then cheer loudly when Carla says she's asleep.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Coach goes way over the top as a Little League coach, yelling at the kids, making them do two-a-day drills, cutting underperformers. It's only after the entire team marches into the bar and says they're quitting that Coach realizes the error of his ways. He maintains the personality, however, when he says they're to have fun, they can suck if they want to on the field, and they're all having ice cream after the game whether they want it or not.
- Hypocritical Humor: The boys at the bar are all grossed out when Carla starts to breastfeed in public. Then, after Carla goes into Sam's office, the boys all ogle the centerfold in that month's Playboy magazine.
- Serious Business: Coach goes absolutely bananas as a Little League coach, much to Sam and Diane's shock.
- Three Lines, Some Waiting: A relatively uncommon example during the Diane years of an episode of Cheers that had three different plots. This would become more common in the Rebecca years when Cheers became more of an ensemble show.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: One of the kids rebelling against Coach blames Coach for stressing him out, saying "I'm starting to smoke again!"
