Title: Woody Goes Belly Up
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Heide Perlman
Air Date: October 3, 1985
Previous: Birth, Death, Love and Rice
Next: Someday My Prince Will Come
Guest Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Amanda Wyss, Elizabeth Keifer
"Woody Goes Belly Up" is the second episode of the fourth season of Cheers.
An extremely good-looking woman named Lisa (Elizabeth Keifer) asks Woody out, but innocent Woody bashfully declines. Diane (who is back at the bar after the sign from God she got in the previous episode) thinks that Woody is shy around women but it turns out Woody is just missing his old girlfriend, Beth. The gang at Cheers decides to surprise their new bartender, so they get together and arrange to fly Beth out to Boston.
Woody and Beth (Amanda Wyss) are happily reunited, and they celebrate...by eating. And eating. And eating some more. It turns out that the slender Woody and Beth have lost 100 and 50 pounds, respectively, since their breakup a year ago, but now they're putting it back on. Diane thinks that Woody and Beth were each others' eating enablers, but Frasier snorts at Diane's amateur psychology, and correctly deduces that Woody and Beth are sublimating frustrated sexual desires into food.
Speaking of Frasier, the B-plot has him back at Cheers, drinking heavily after his breakup with Diane. When Sam brings up his unpaid $500 bar tab, Frasier says that he's no longer practicing. Deciding to rebuild his shattered life from the ground up, Frasier gets Sam to give him a job as the janitor at Cheers.
Tropes:
- Bathroom Stall Graffiti: It seems Carla uses the men's room at Cheers as a way to meet men.Frasier: It took all afternoon, but I finally washed off all of Carla's phone number in the men's bathroom.
Carla: [Appalled] Would you mind your own business?! - Big Eater: Turns out that suppressing sexual desire can make you a big eater. The episode ends with Woody and Beth leaving the French restaurant, having finally overcome their shyness and presumably going elsewhere to have sex. Sam and Diane take a Beat, mournfully chew on their celery—and the last scene has them still in the restaurant at closing time, table piled high with food, making pigs of themselves.Sam: (mouth full) We really must come back.
- Continuity Nod: Another mention of Norm's favorite restaurant, the Hungry Heifer. It seems the Hungry Heifer "Carnivore Platter" is steak topped with pork chops.
- Drowning My Sorrows: It seems that since returning to America in the previous episode, after he was dumped by Diane, Frasier has stopped practicing and is spending his time drinking beer at Cheers. When Sam reminds him of his $500 bar tab Frasier decides to get his life in order.
- Formerly Fat: Woody and Beth were both quite fat back in Indiana, and seeing each other again has caused them to start eating again.
- Hypocritical Humor: Diane worries about Woody and Beth, saying "There's nothing sadder than a man who wants his maiden and is denied her. It tears my heart out." Then Frasier passes behind sweeping and Diane says "Frasier! You're getting dirt on my new Joan & David's!"note
- Never My Fault: Diane initially refuses to accept responsibility for Frasier's struggles.
- Rock Bottom: Invoked Trope. Frasier says he has to put his life back together, "but to do that, you gotta hit Rock Bottom first." He then asks Sam to give him a job as the janitor at Cheers.
- Smoking Hot Sex: According to Norm, Vera occasionally smokes after sex, and "usually during".
- Trauma Button: Turns out that Woody and Beth are each other's trigger to eat.
