Title: Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Ken Levine and David Isaacs
Air Date: March 18, 1993
Previous: The Last Picture Show
Next: Woody Gets an Election
Guest Starring: Harry Anderson, Robert Desidero
"Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey" is the 19th episode of the eleventh season of Cheers.
St. Patrick's Day is coming up in Boston, and Sam's got a bet going on with Gary over who will earn the most money this year. Sure, Gary has beaten and humiliated Sam pretty much every time they've faced off so far, but this time, this time, Sam is convinced he can win when Gary raises the stakes. After all, Gary's won every other time, so naturally if he's this confident, he must be running scared... yeah.
St. Patrick's Day comes, and almost immediately Sam is outgunned. Turns out during the night, Gary walled up the bar. Between that, and an act of Sam's sabotage backfiring, Gary wins hands-down, and Sam must honor his bet, as must the guys of the bar. Which, as it turns out, requires singing in front of the patrons of Gary's Old Towne Tavern.
And they're naked.
Furious at being humiliated yet again, Sam decides to go nuclear. He's going to call in Harry the Hat. However, the con-man is initially reluctant, pointing out how Cheers has never won against Gary. They're losers. They're an example to show others who nature's winners are.
At the end of his rope, Sam decides to throw in the towel, go over to Gary's and settle the whole matter forever. When he does, he finds the bar being demolished. Sam hurries back to Cheers, when Gary soon arrives, wanting to know what happened to his bar, making Sam apologize... at which point it turns out Gary got Sam again.
Gary is the one who bulldozed his bar, at the advice of an interested land-developer. A land-developer who looks an awful lot like Harry the Hat. As Harry explains, the gang at Cheers are his victims, so he just suggested Gary bulldoze his bar to the man. Unfortunately, the development is going to come up a little short on funds. About a million bucks short, in fact.
So the final score is: Gary's Old Towne Tavern destroyed. Harry the Hat wins! ... and he steals all the money from the Cheers register while he's at it.
Tropes:
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Seeing Cheers walled in, Norm declares he wants Gary dead, and his friends and family.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the cold open, Sam sees Harry the Hat with a display box full of Rolex watches. Assuming the watches are fake, Sam smashes one and then chucks it into Harry's beer. Then the salesman comes back from the men's room—Harry was buying a watch. Now Sam has to pay $2500 for the watch he just destroyed.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Paul demands to be included in the bet as well. So he is.
- Brick Joke: Sam's extremely lame prank against Gary is to put another zero on their sign, so their fifty-cent beers are actually $5 beers. Later, Cliff says that Gary's is doing crazy business, selling a lot of $5 beers.
- The Bus Came Back: The last of several The Bus Came Back returns in the last season. Harry the Hat (Harry Anderson), Cheers' resident con artist, makes his first appearance since Season Six and "A Kiss Is Still a Kiss", and only his second appearance since Season Two. Harry, of course, was just back from a long con in which he impersonated a New York City judge.
- Continuity Nod: Harry recounts some of the major incidents Gary has pulled on the bar over the years, like when he sent fake exterminators to Cheers, or when he put a herd of sheep in Rebecca's office (both happened in Season Six's "Bar Wars".
- Chekhov's Gunman: Harry the Hat returns in the cold open. Partway through the episode, Sam calls him in.
- Creator Cameo: Ken Levine, a member of the writing staff and writer of many Cheers episodes including this one, can be seen in the first scene after the credits, wearing big glasses and sitting on the back side of the bar.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: Most, but not all of the Bar Wars episodes were titled some variation on "Bar Wars".
- Crazy-Prepared: Naturally, Norm has beers squirrelled around Cheers just in case, though he always figured it was going to be because of nuclear war.
- Delayed Reaction: Rebecca manages to walk all the way through Cheers and into the office before noticing that the entire bar has been walled off with concrete blocks. She then pokes her head out and asks if it's her fault. When told no, she cheerfully leaves again.
- Epic Fail: Sam did at least leave Woody on guard against Gary's inevitable prank... Woody fell asleep, all the way through being walled in.
- Exact Words: When Sam asks Harry how he can repay him, Harry amiably assures Sam that "he already has". Sam takes it as a noble gesture but what Harry means is he completely cleaned out the cash register at Cheers.
- Humiliation Conga: Sam, Norm, Woody, Cliff and Paul must sing in front of Gary's, butt-naked, repeatedly. Then it turns out he filmed them, and is selling the tapes.
- Karma Houdini: Harry scams Gary into destroying his bar, steals from Cheers and smugly walks off without any harm. But he got Gary, so we don't mind so much.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After six years of Gary winning every fight against Cheers, he's finally outdone by a master bastard, tricked into destroying his precious bar.
- Narm: In-Universe, invoked with the awful depressing songs that the Irish band performs for their gig at Cheers. ("And everywhere I looked was death, death, death!")
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: How Sam gets talked into the competition against Gary's.
- Once a Season: The last of the yearly battles between Cheers and Gary's.
- Poke the Poodle: First, Sam's big prank is to put an extra zero on Gary's ad for fifty cent beer. (Gary then sells a lot of five-dollar beers.) Carla swears vengeance on Gary. In the Cheers tradition of being unable to get a good response in, all she could manage was sticking a rat in the pipes.
- Saying Too Much: Cliff says, after having to sing naked in front of a large group of people, that he found the whole thing exhilarating.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Cheers does battle with Gary's one last time, and, with the intervention of Harry the Hat, scores a decisive victory.
- Skewed Priorities: Rebecca initially doesn't even notice the bar's been walled off, instead crowing about her new look. Once she does notice, she only asks if she's responsible in any way, and on learning she isn't, leaves.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The Irish folk-song band Sam hires sing incredibly depressing songs about death, murder and the Limey Scum.
- St. Patrick's Day Episode: When Gary from Gary's Olde Towne Tavern raises the stakes of their St. Patrick's Day bet and Cheers loses, the Cheers gang is forced to perform for Gary's patrons naked.
- What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Despite being (supposedly) Cheers' manager, Sam lets Rebecca take one of the busiest days of the years off, because as Carla points out, she hardly does anything anyway. Suddenly, Sam is amenable to her absence.
