Title: Yacht of Fools
Directed by: Thomas Lofaro
Written by: Phoef Sutton
Air Date: February 4, 1988
Previous: Tale of Two Cuties
Next: To All the Girls I've Loved Before
Guest Starring: Tom Skerritt, Dorothy Parke
"Yacht of Fools" is the 16th episode of the sixth season of Cheers.
One episode after Rebecca punched his daughter in the face, Evan Drake invites Sam and Rebecca onto his yacht. (Well, he was a Sam Malone fan back in the day!). Evan, of course, has been under the impression that Sam and Rebecca are an item ever since Rebecca took Sam to the company party six episodes ago. Rebecca leaps at the chance to spend some personal time with Evan and reveal her feelings, but Sam would rather take his babe of the week, Julie. So they hit on an ill-considered scheme in which Sam will pass Julie off as his sister, all three of them will go on the boat, and Rebecca will make her move while Sam steals off to Julie's cabin.
Needless to say things don't go well.
The abbreviated B-plot has various bar patrons tricking Woody into giving them free beers by claiming that it's their birthday.
Tropes:
- Allegory: Discussed Trope. Cliff brings over some 1950s sci-fi movies to watch on the bar TV. But Frasier's analysis of the themes in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the Red Scare) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (the life of Christ) ruins the films for his beer-swilling buddies. (He also observes that Forbidden Planet is really The Tempest.)
- And Starring: Tom Skerritt gets "Special Appearance By" billing again.
- Continuity Nod: After finding Lorenzo the steward in Julie's room Sam mutters "I've gotta stay off boats, man." This is a nod both to his disastrous marriage proposal to Diane in the season 5 premiere as well as the backstory between seasons 5 and 6, in which Sam bought and then sank his own boat.
- Gold Digger: It turns out that Julie is really into rich guys and starts to get very interested in both Evan Drake and his yacht.
- Hypocritical Humor: After Frasier and Sam talk about how superficial Julie is (she likes money), Sam says "Tell me about it. Good thing for her she's got a great set of hooters."
- Inelegant Blubbering: Rebecca goes on one of her inelegant high-pitched crying jags after realizing that Evan went into Julie's room.Rebecca: I'm never going to have a husband or babies...all I have is my stupid career [voice going higher] and I don't even like it!
- Moment Killer: Sam and Rebecca are moving into a passionate embrace when Evan knocks on the door, enters their cabin, and apologizes for nearly seducing Sam's "sister".
