Title: Severe Crane Damage
Directed by: Andy Ackerman
Written by: Dan O Shannon and Tom Anderson
Air Date: February 15, 1990
Previous: Woody or Won't He
Next: Indoor Fun with Sammy and Bobby
Guest Starring: Bebe Neuwirth, Phyllis Katz, Lorelle Brina
"Severe Crane Damage" is the 18th episode of the eighth season of Cheers.
It seems Lilith has written a book, specifically a book about how All Girls Want Bad Boys—it's even called "Good Girls and Bad Boys". She's getting interviewed about it on a daytime Boston women's chat show, and Sam and Frasier come along.
The interview is a disaster. The lady hosting the show notices the only two men in the audience, Sam and Frasier, and invites them onto the stage as the "bad boy" and "good boy" respectively. The host and the ladies in the audience are all turned on by Sam, but when Lilith gets carried away by lust and tries to rip Sam's shirt off, Frasier is humiliated and emasculated. He decides to prove that he can be a bad boy too.
In the B-plot, Cliff is taking some pills for stress relief—pills which have an embarrassing side effect.
Glenn Beck, future star of right-wing radio and TV talk shows, is an extra in the cold open.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed Trope; Lilith's written a book about it. Frasier's hang-up about women finding Sam more attractive than him dates back to the Frasier-Diane romance in Season 3, which Frasier mentions in this episode.
- Badass Biker: Frasier decides to show how badass he is by dressing up all in leather and riding around with a badass biker chick named Viper. Of course, he was screaming the Lord's Prayer as he rode around with her.
- Continuity Nod: Another reference is made by Frasier to Diane, and not in a good light, just like two episodes ago.
- Everything Is an Instrument: The cold open starts with Norm tapping his pencil on the bar, which leads to two of the extras tapping a deck of playing cards and other people, including Woody and Carla, tapping on the bar and the cash register. Some guys come out of the back banging pool cues on the floor, other extras clap and stomp, Rebecca comes out of her office with a box and finally Woody starts singing, "We will, we will rock you!" while high-fiving Sam and everybody singing along.
- Facepalm: Lilith does this when the interview goes completely off the rails as the TV host asks "How many of us would like to sleep with Sam?"
- The Peeping Tom: Cliff really did start to get creepy in the latter years of Cheers.Cliff: Boy, you can't even peek in a window anymore without people going crazy on you.
- Poke the Poodle: Frasier demonstrates that he can be a bad boy by running around the bar with scissors and petting dogs he doesn't even know.
- Runs with Scissors: How Frasier demonstrates his bad boy edge.
- Sophisticated as Hell: How a seething Frasier re-evaluates Lilith's book after the debacle at the TV show.Frasier: I reread it with a scientific eye and the impartiality of a fellow empiricist, and I decided it's pure crap.
