Recap / Cheers S 10 E 15

Episode: Season 10, Episode 15
Title: My Son, the Father
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Dan Staley and Rob Long
Air Date: January 16, 1992
Previous: No Rest for the Woody
Next: One Hugs, the Other Doesn't
Guest Starring: Keene Curtis, Josh Lozoff, Paul Willson

"My Son, the Father" is the 15th episode of the tenth season of Cheers.

Carla's got news: Her son Gino (the doofus of the family) has decided to become a priest, and to Carla this means an automatic Get Out of Hell Free card. She now has free rein to be as obnoxious and unpleasant as she likes, since God won't punish the mother of a priest.

Meanwhile, Sam damages a tooth eating some food Woody scalped from Melville's, and is determined get even with John Allen Hill for it, and Cliff has taken up comedy. Or he's taken up trying to tell jokes.

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Tropes:

• Cannot Tell a Joke: Cliff's jokes are bad. Really, really bad. They mostly consist of inane statements which he appends "what's up with that?" to.
• Character Check: A rare moment of Rebecca showing some of her former brains, when she suggests rather than horrifying the customers of Cheers, he take his act to a comedy club, where it will bomb.
  Rebecca: And you people think I'm so dumb.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Carla really goes overboard in this episode, slicing Paul's suspenders, destroying Rebecca's invoked"very expensive calculator". She does this because she thinks she's got a Get Out Of Hell Free Card.
• Cut Your Heart Out With A Spoon: Sam remarks that he'd like to tear off Hill's head and dribble it down Beacon Street.
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Gino begins the day declaring he's going to become a priest. By the end of the day, he's decided that's stupid, and he's going to become a male model.
• Jerkass: John Allen Hill. While he does have a point about how Sam chipping his tooth on Melville's food isn't actually his fault, he counter-sues Sam using incriminating photos making it look like Sam chipped his teeth.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After a whole day of being a colossal jerk, Carla feels God is punishing her for her behaviour, and that having to put up with Cliff's awful jokes are His punishment.
• Not So Stoic: Lilith chuckles at Cliff's jokes.
• Oh, Crap!: Carla when, after she spends an entire day of smiting God, Gino changes his mind about being a priest and decides to become a male model instead.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Carla sees having a priest for a son as the ultimate version of this.
• Speech Impediment: Chipping his tooth gives Sam one, which John Allen Hill makes a note of.
  John Allen Hill: Oh, my. I'm being sued... by Elmer Fudd.
• Terrible Artist: Sam tries drawing a crab for his protest sign. He manages to make a spider... thing, though he gamely changes his story to match.