Title: Airport V
Directed by: George Wendt
Written by: Ken Levine and David Isaacs
Air Date: February 25, 1988
Previous: Let Sleeping Drakes Lie
Next: The Sam in the Gray Flannel Suit
Guest Starring: Jay Thomas, Peter Elbling
"Airport V" is the nineteenth episode of the sixth season of Cheers.
Carla has news - Eddie has gotten a job as a penguin. Unfortunately, as Carla learns, this doesn't mean the Penguins (the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins), but as a penguin on an ice show. Apparently they like to hire out-of-work hockey players. The job may look pretty demeaning, but it allows Eddie to provide for the Tortelli brood, and that's the important part.
Jump forward some time later, and Carla's got no end of excuses for why she can't visit Eddie as the ice show tours, though it's not because she's embarrassed. Rather, Carla's got a really bad fear of flying (or, more accurately, fear of dying in a crashing plane). Good thing there's a trained psychiatrist at the bar to help with that, right?
Meanwhile, Murray Treadwell, a caustic restaurant critic, is coming to Cheers, having previously visited some years back and given them a bad review. Maybe Rebecca's new management will change his mind.
Directed by George Wendt, the only Cheers episode that Wendt ever directed (John Ratzenberger directed four).
Tropes:
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: The ice show doesn't seem that bad, but the cutesy animal outfits sure look doofy.
- Caustic Critic: Murray Treadwell, a haughty, snooty critic who once wrote a nasty review of Cheers that insulted everyone, including Sam, Cliff, and Norm.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Frasier cures Carla of her fear of flying... at the cost of giving himself a bad case in the process.
- Did They or Didn't They?: Everyone at the bar assumes Rebecca slept with Treadwell, though she insists she didn't.
- Face Your Fears: Carla, with some help from Frasier, becomes part of a workshop allowing her to overcome her fear of flying.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: It's a long fall from NHL goalie to wearing a goofy costume in an ice show.
- Funny Background Event: As Eddie talks with Carla on the phone, two ice show workers bump into one another. Tempers start flaring, and they begin a brawl.
- Goofy Suit: Eddie shows up at the bar in the penguin suit he wears in the ice show. Everyone laughs, except Carla who's deeply embarrassed.
- Gossip Evolution: Cliff, in order to prove a point about gossip, nudges a stranger at the bar and tells him that he won $5 in the lottery, then tells him to pass it on. The gossip circles around the bar, and at the end gets back to Norm as "some geek brain's all jazzed" over winning $5.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Sam regards Murray Treadwell as a "hater". He hates people like that.
- Rebecca refuses to sleep with Treadwell to get a better review. Then she admits she hates herself for it.
- Not So Above It All: Woody admits he doesn't stare at Rebecca's chest... mainly because he's more of a leg man himself.
- Shown Their Work: Cliff mentions that the Pittsburgh Penguins are "an up and coming team". They actually were in 1988, being led by Mario Lemieux. They just barely missed the playoffs that season, but improved the next season and won back to back Stanley Cups a few seasons later.
- Troll: Sam taunts Rebecca about sleeping with Treadwell, knowing she didn't, simply because he enjoys seeing her bosom heave as she gets angry.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sam also apparently has a fear of flying, though it didn't matter during his Sox days because he was usually drunk on the flights.
