Title: Swear to God
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Tom Reeder
Air Date: November 3, 1988
Previous: How to Recede in Business
Next: Executive Sweet
Guest Starring: Shanna Reed, Eric Christmas, Kim Johnston Ulrich
"Swear to God" is the 2nd episode of the seventh season of Cheers.
Sam the horndog is chatting up Suzanne (Shanna Reed, a few years away from being on Major Dad), a lovely customer at the bar. He is interrupted by a phone call from an old girlfriend named Denise. Sam being Sam, he leaves both Suzanne and work for a quickie.
He comes back in a much more somber mood. It turns out that Denise has popped out a baby and Sam is one of two possible candidates to be the father. In a blind panic, Sam makes a vow to God to abstain from sex forever (later revised to three months) if he can get off the hook.
He does get off the hook, as a blood test reveals that he is not in fact the father. A delighted Sam is about to whisk Suzanne away for some mattress dancing when Carla reminds him of his vow. Sam spends the rest of the episode torn between his Extreme Libido and his vow of chastity.
In the B-plot, Woody is the understudy for Moses in a play about prophets.
First of four appearances by Eric Christmas as Father Barry.
Tropes:
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Rebecca, leaving the bar, says "I'm going home to bed." She is rattled when Sam simply wishes her goodnight, saying that if "the horniest man in Boston" doesn't respond to that with a crude come-on, she must be getting old.
- Bad "Bad Acting": More terrible acting from Woody when he recites some of his dialogue as Moses.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Poor Sam's trying to keep to his vow, which isn't helped that Cheers is a bar, and is therefore filled with attractive women everywhere he looks.Sam: They're coming in waves!
- Daddy DNA Test: The more primitive blood type version of this trope. A test reveals that Sam can't be the father of Denise's baby.
- I Have This Friend: Sam tells Father Barry that he has this friend who made a vow to God. Father Barry isn't fooled of course, observing that in all the years that people have come to him asking about their friends, he's never met one friend.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Sam sneers at Carla's fear of God's wrath, saying "What's He gonna do, reach from the clouds and snatch me up?" Cue Woody coming into the bar in Moses costume and bellowing "HALT, INFIDEL!" Sam winds up on his butt at the bottom of the step, staring up in mortal terror.
- Saying Too Much: A hint that things in the Crane household aren't going to well when Frasier gives Sam advice on how to channel his sexual frustration is piano playing, before telling Sam "a piano won't stomp off and refuse to let you play it for three days", before cheerfully announcing he's going home to Lilith.
- Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: Sam finally cracks and goes off with Rachel. Before he does, he looks up to God and says "So if in your infinite wisdom you feel you have to smite me down, please make it quick and painless."
- Something Else Also Rises: Sam is trying to resist the temptations of Rachel the smoking hot stewardess. She shows him a photo of herself in a bikini. Sam was fiddling with the blind to the front door, which snaps up when he releases it.
- Title Drop: A stressed-out Sam says that if he can beat the rap, "I swear to God I am done fooling around forever." He reels this back to three months even before the test results.
- Zip Me Up: Sam faces his last and possibly most difficult celibacy test when Rebecca asks him to zip up the snug dress that she's putting on. Frasier has to physically drag him over to the piano.
