Episode: Season 4, Episode 16
Title: The Triangle
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Heide Perlman
Air Date: January 30, 1986
Previous: The Triangle
Next: Second Time Around
Guest Starring: Timothy Scott
Title: The Triangle
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Heide Perlman
Air Date: January 30, 1986
Previous: The Triangle
Next: Second Time Around
Guest Starring: Timothy Scott
"Cliffie's Big Score" is the 16th episode of the fourth season of Cheers.
Cliff is named Postman of the Year—only 267 in the greater Boston area! There's a big dinner at which Cliff will make a speech. Not wishing to go alone, he reads a prepared statement in which he asks Diane to accompany him "only as a friend". Diane receives this request with good grace, but declines; her cheese club meets that night. (They don't just eat cheese; they also talk about eating cheese!)
Shot down by Diane, Cliff asks Carla. Carla hates Cliff, but after a series of bribes including a big-screen TV and a VCR (1986, everybody), she agrees to go with him. However, after Sam leans on Diane to help Cliff out, she changes her mind and accepts Cliff's invitation. Now Cliff has two dates to the ball.
Tropes:
- Death Glare: Diane shoots death rays out of her eyes at Cliff, after Cliff, tricked by Carla into thinking Diane is interested in him, starts stroking her arm and singing "Misty".
- Get Out!: Diane does not take kindly to Cliff pulling a sudden Mood Whiplash by 1) faking the car running out of gas and then 2) coming on to her—even stroking her shoulder!. (It's all Carla's fault.) She tells him to "Get out!" and then drives off, leaving Cliff stranded at the end of the episode. Cliff, realizing his mistake, can only walk home singing to himself "Misty".
- Head-Turning Beauty: Diane has a moment of this when she enters the bar in a glamorously sexy evening dress—with all the guys responding by whistling and otherwise expressing their admiration. She doesn't mind—in fact, she basks in it.Woody: Miss Chambers, can I tell you something?
Diane: Sure, Woody!
Woody: [Nervous smile] You look like a hundred bucks!
Diane: [Chuckles] Thank you, Woody!
Woody: Aw, what am I saying—two hundred!
Diane: [Cooing] Woody, you're turning my head!
Woody: Ah-all right—one hundred.... - Insane Troll Logic: The cold open has Sam desperately trying to wriggle off the hook when his latest squeeze, a woman named Karen, calls him at the bar and demands to know why he sent her a bouquet of flowers addressed to a woman named Barbara.Sam: Well, of course I know your name's Karen. You know, hey, I see your mistake here. You see, you didn't realise that, to me, Barbara means Karen. Well, because. Because...because "Barbara" reminds me of Barbra Streisand, and you know that song about people? [pause] Well, I am getting to it. You know the line, "First be a person who needs people"? Well, who was the first person? [pause] Yeah, all right, but the first female person was Eve. And who's the most famous Eve of all, but Christmas Eve, right? Yeah, well, what do you do on Christmas Eve, but you go carolling. Right? [pause] No, I know, your name's not Carolyn. But after you go carolling, what you do is, you Kar-en the gifts. Karen. Yeah. Well, apology accepted, sweetheart. I'll talk to you later.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: This is the episode where Kelsey Grammer was added to the opening titles, after having been listed as a guest star for all his previous appearances as Frasier. This is also the episode where the photo previously corresponding to Coach, which had appeared in the opening credits of Season 4 without Nicholas Colasanto's name, was removed. Oddly, however, after this episode Grammer was demoted back to "Special Guest" status and didn't get promoted to the opening titles for good until Season 5 premiere "The Proposal".
- Spit Take: Norm spits out his beer when Cliff says he'll ask Carla to be his date.
- Two-Timer Date: Cliff winds up having two dates to the postmen's ball. He winds up getting a date for Carla, a fellow postman who appears to be an LSD burnout. It works surprisingly well until Cliff blows the secret at the end.
- The Unintelligible: Lucas, Carla's date (Timothy Scott), is apparently incapable of coherent speech but instead mumbles unintelligibly. Cliff says Lucas is "sort of used to talking to himself." Diane evaluates Lucas' beard and his hippie glasses and his bandana and says "he does look like he's been around a mushroom or two."
