Title: Don Juan Is Hell
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Phoef Sutton
Air Date: December 12, 1985
Previous: The Bar Stoolie
Next: Fools and Their Money
Guest Starring: Kenneth Tigar
"Don Juan Is Hell" is the 11th episode of the fourth season of Cheers.
Diane, the eternal student, is taking a course on human sexuality. When Sam, who regards himself as an expert in all things sex, hears about this he eagerly volunteers himself. Diane is reluctant because she lacks "the proper clinical distance", but eventually she agrees. Sam is surprised by the clinical tone of Diane's questions, but he keeps his promise to help, and eventually Diane produces "Trevor: A Case Study".
Her professor, Dr. Greenspon (Kenneth Tigar, veteran character actor of 1970s-80s American TV), is wildly enthusiastic about Diane's paper, and comes to the bar to congratulate her. When Dr. Greenspon wonders if some people might think "Trevor" is a fabrication, Diane introduces him to the real Trevor, Sam Malone.
In the B-plot, Woody studies from a sports trivia book in an attempt to beat Carla, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of sports trivia. In the C-plot, Cliff has grown another weird vegetable, this time a squash whose bumps resemble a map of the Hawaiian Islands.
Frasier would have a two parter called "Don Juan In Hell", but with a completely different theme (why is Frasier afraid of commitment?)
Tropes:
- Artistic License – History: There was never a baseball player named "Elmer Goodwoody", and the winner of the 1959 California Derby wasn't "Take A Rest", it was a horse named Finnegan.
- The Casanova: Every once in a while the show would stop joking about Sam's skirt-chasing ways and suggest that his lifestyle was sad and he was going to die alone. That's what happens in this episode when Sam reads Diane's paper and wonders if his life really is that empty.
- Continuity Nod: Cliff mentions his potato that looked like Richard M. Nixon, which was a plot in "The Groom Wore Clearasil". He agrees that he was acting particularly weird in that episode, but the squash he has now with the map of the Hawaiian Islands is totally legit.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Diane is asked to write about one of "Trevor"'s lovers. She then adds to her paper by describing "Colette", who is "rapturously beautiful, intelligent, indeed brilliant with an ethereal quality."
- It Kind of Looks Like a Face: Cliff comes into the bar with a squash that, according to Cliff, has a map of the Hawaiian Islands on it. Eventually a newspaper reporter doing a feature on eccentric weirdos comes to the bar to interview him.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Woody studies the trivia book so hard that eventually he's Carla's equal at sports trivia—but he can't do anything else. When someone congratulates him with "That's good, Woody!", he tonelessly mutters "Elmer Goodwoody, shortstop, Boston Beaneaters." The gang has to drag him back into the pool room to recover.
- Shout-Out: The title is a shout-out to "Don Juan in Hell", a Play Within A Play from George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.
- Verbal Irony: Diane's smugness is subverted some when Dr. Greenspon wonders about the women that Sam beds, speculating about their "low self-esteem" and wondering how they could be so "gullible" as to fall for Sam's shtick. She gets more annoyed later when Dr. Greenspon says that Trevor's lover "Colette" must be "addled".
