Cheers: A Sitcom for Multiple Generations

Born in 1978, I’m both a member of Gen X and a “Xennial.” I’m not sure that either label fits as snug as those who break us up into generations and attempt to market products to us based on those categorizations would like. Regardless, there are certain popular culture touchpoints that have imprinted themselves upon me.

As I begin writing on Vocal, my plan is to reexamine those things which made an impression on me during my youth. And to start, I will be rewatching the first sitcom that captured my attention in my relative youth: Cheers.

Cheers debuted in 1982 when I was a mere four years old, long before I was old enough to appreciate the humor. But with an 11-year run on NBC, I was old enough to be excited about each new episode’s debut in its final few seasons and watched previous seasons in syndication in that magical 5-6 p.m. hour, before we all sat down together for family dinner.

I was drawn to the characters, who were decidedly one-dimensional. I started watching the show in pre-adolescence, and Sam’s obsession with sex was both fascinating and intoxicating. I loved Woody’s goofy nurture and the buddy comedy between Norm and Cliff just seemed right. Hell, I even fell in love with Paul, the character whose lone reason to exist is to bemoan his exclusion from the group.

Cheers is available to stream on Hulu, Paramount Plus and Peacock Plus.

Episode 1: Give Me a Ring Sometime

Open: A young man -- clearly underage -- walks into the bar and orders a beer. When Sam asks for his ID, he hands him a military ID that shows him to be 38 years old. Sam asks if he served in Vietnam, and he says it was “gross.” Sam declines to serve him, and the patron replies, “This is the thanks we get.”

The Plot Synopsis - A Very Detailed Description

A young woman (Diane Chambers) and a middle-aged man (Sumner Sloan) enter the bar carrying luggage, discussing plans to fly off to Barbados to get married. Sumner insists that he must get his grandmother’s antique gold wedding ring from his ex-wife before they leave and goes to call her from the pay phone. The phone behind the bar rings and Diane answers it. The caller is looking for Sam (Sam Malone), who emerges from the back office after Diane answers the phone, but when he finds out it’s Vicky, he asks her to lie and say that he is not there, pantomiming a haircut. Diane says “he had to go to mime class.”

She takes a message and hangs up, telling Sam, “You are a magnificent Pagan beast.”

“Thanks,” he replies. “What’s the message?”

Sam offers to buy Diane a drink, and she asks for a bottle of the bar’s finest champagne. When Sam balks, she says they will pay for it because she and Sumner are getting married, at which point Sumner returns and says that his ex-wife Barbara said he can come over to retrieve the ring.

As the trio gets acquainted, Sumner introduces himself to Sam as “Dr. Sumner Sloan, professor of World Literature at BU.” Sam seems unimpressed.

“He has an article in the current Harper’s,” offers Diane.

Sumner explains how he was sitting in his office looking at Diane and realizing he couldn’t let her get away when he asked her to marry him.

Sumner asks “Sam Old Man” to keep an eye on Diane while he goes to get his wedding ring from Barabara. Diane expresses some doubt about the wisdom of letting Sumner go to see his ex-wife, to which Sumner says, “Diane, I’m leaving you alone in a bar. Which one of us is the stupider, Sam?” Sam replies, “Too close to call.”

Sumner exits after kissing Diane to go get the ring.

Coach barges into the bar, upset that the Patriots have drafted a linebacker, but changes his tune when Sam says that a linebacker can turn a whole team around.

Coach notices Diane reading at the bar and says “I hope nobody told you the bus goes by here.” Sam explains that she’s going to be sitting at the bar for a while, and Diane asks that no one discuss her private life. So Sam tells Coach she is a hooker, and Coach walks away with a big smile.

Carla walks in, acknowledges that she’s late for her shift and doesn’t let anyone get a word in, saying that one of her kids was throwing up all over the place before going to the back to change.

“Do you think I was too hard on her?” asks Sam.

Carla comes back to the bar from the back and Coach asks her about the Patriots’ draft pick.

“The Patriots finally got the linebacker they needed, huh?”

“Are you nuts?” asks Carla. “They’re up to their ears in linebackers!”

Coach once again changes his tune, swaying to the popular opinion of whoever he talked to last.

Carla notices Diane and all her luggage at the bar, and then Norm enters the bar and engages Coach in a conversation about the Patriots new linebacker.

"They need linebackers like I need antlers,” says Coach.

“I say that new linebacker is going to put them in the Super Bowl,” says Norm.

Coach once again sways whichever the wind blows, and says he’s getting an awful headache.

Norm then announces that the Red Sox lost “again” and they could have used Sam coming in from the bullpen. Norm then bangs on the bar with his mug, startling Diane from her book, to ask her if she’d like to see “Sammy flinging the ol’ horsehide again.”

Of course Diane has no idea that the bartender who has been serving her is a former Major League Baseball player, Samuel “Mayday” Malone. Coach informs her that he coached Sam at Pawtucket in Double AA ball and with the Red Sox in Boston. Coach says he was one of the best relievers ever to play the game, as sure as the Earth is round.

“You don’t believe that, Coach,” says Sam.

“You know I never used to believe it Sam, until I saw those pictures from the space shuttle,” says Coach.

Carla tells Diane that Sam once struck out “Cash, Kaline and Freehan with the tying run on second.”

Diane seems unimpressed, and Carla asks Sam “How long is the wimp convention in town?”

Diane asks why, if he was so good, why he isn’t still playing. Sam responds that he had an elbow problem, and that he “bent it too much,” bringing the champagne bottle towards his face to bring home his alcoholism. Diane asks if he’s still a drunk, and Sam says he hasn’t had a drink in over three years.

Diane asks why he owns a bar, and Sam responds that he bought it when he was a drunk and “held onto it for sentimental reasons.”

Diane goes to use the restroom, and everyone in the bar, which has slowly become much more crowded with patrons, is very interested in her story and wants to know what Sam knows.

“Sam’s kind of shy about this kind of thing, so I’ll fill you in,” says Coach. “She’s a hooker.”

Sam then spills the beans, telling everyone that she’s waiting for her fiance to come back and that they are going to the Carribean to get married. Diane then returns from the restroom and everyone in the bar applauds, and Diane is not pleased that Sam has shared her story. As she sits down at the bar, she looks nervously at the door, wondering where Sumner is and whether he will return.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Carla starts to give Diane a hard time, noting that Sumner is not back from visiting his ex, suggesting that she “make a run for it.” Diane calls her a “bitter little person” and Carla says she has a right to be because she paid her husband’s his way through school hustling drinks. Diane asks what school he went to and she replies, “The Colletti Academy for TV repair,” but as soon as he graduated, he left her, saying he wouldn’t fit in with the other repairman's wives. “Big shot!” she says. But she says he’s not all bad, because he still fixes her set and only bills her for parts.

The phone behind the bar rings, and then bar banter ensues. Carly says that there’s a group arguing about the “sweatiest movie ever made.” An argument ensues. Norm insists it’s Rocky II, Cliff puts forward Body Heat. Ron, another bar patron, says Ben Hur is the winner, then Norm changes his tune and insists it’s Alien. “Buckets,” he says.

“This the night before my wedding and I’m in the middle of a sweat contest,” says Diane.

At this point, we get our first our first Clavinism.

“Speaking of sweat, here’s a little-known-fact,” says Cliff, “Women have fewer sweat glands than men, but they’re larger and more active. Consequently they sweat more.”

Cliff asks Diane what her perspiration patterns are, and Sumner returns just in time. When Diane explains that she’s been listening to a debate about the sweatiest movie ever made, Sumner replies, without hesitation: “Cool Hand Luke” to the approval of all of the bar flies.

Diane asks if Sumner was able to get the ring from Barbara, and he says he couldn’t take it. She tries to get Sumner to go with her to catch the plane, but Sumner says that when he was with Barbara, something “stirred inside” him. Diane says they can talk about it on the way to Barbados, and Sumner says he can’t go to Barbados when he’s this confused.

“Sumner it’s okay, the pilot knows the way,” Diane responds.

Sumner says he loves her wit and that she’s “a beautiful child,” and agrees to go to Barbados.

The phone rings, and after Carla answers, she asks, “Hey, if you’re not, I apologize, but is your name Sumner Sloan?” Then she shrieks in laughter when he answers in the affirmative.

It’s Barbara. And she’s ready to give the ring to Sumner.

“And Barbara, your depth frightens me,” says Sumner as he hangs up the phone.

Sumner says he will go to get the ring from Barbara, even though Diane insists that they will miss their flight.

“Sumner,” says Diane, as he walks out the door. “How about a kiss?”

“Maybe,” he says. “I’ll play it by ear.”

Clearly dejected, Diane turns back to the bar, and all the patrons, who have been paying rapt attention to the drama unfolding before them, act as if they have not observed the events in front of their eyes as Diane returns to the bar.

After an exterior shot, we see that time has passed, and there are only a few patrons left in the bar. Carla tries to cheer up Diane, who is clearly wondering where Sumner might be.

“Hey cheer up Cookie,” Carla says. “He may have been in an accident.”

Coach emerges from the bathroom and says he’s going to call it a night and wants to finish his book.

“Still working on that novel, huh Coach,” says Sam.

“Yeah, going on six years now,” says Coach. “I just have a feeling I might finish it tonight.”

Diane is incredulous.

“You’re writing a novel?” she asks.

"No, reading one,” says Coach.

Sam asks Coach to take Norm, who is asleep at the bar, home.

“Norm, you’re in here every night,” says Coach. “Doesn’t your wife ever wonder where you’re at?” he asks.

“She wonders,” says Norm. “She doesn’t care,” as then walk out the door.

Ron also exits, thanking Sam for letting him “bend his ear.” Sam says good night.

Diane notes that he must get real tired of “hearing people cry in their beer.” She then proceeds to tell him her sob story about meeting Sumner, that he went out of his way to pick her as his teaching assistant.

“For the last two years he’s been the most important thing in my life and now I may be losing him,” she says, beginning to break down.

Sam insists that she is a very attractive young lady, and that she will find someone a lot better than that “goofy professor.”

Diane takes offense.

“You don’t like Sumner?” she asks.

“I don’t like Sumner,” Sam responds.

Diane says that Sam doesn’t like Sumner because he’s everything that Sam is not. He’s “well-bred, he’s highly-educated, he’s distinguished, he’s urbane,” she says.

“You left out goofy,” says Sam.

Diane gets upset and says “That goof will be on the cover of Saturday Review someday.”

“That goof is probably going to be on the beach in Barbados tomorrow morning rubbing suntan oil on his ex-wife,” says Sam.

He immediately regrets the comment, and Diane decides that it’s time to go home, before realizing that she forgot to change her flight reservations. Sam offers her the phone behind the bar. When she calls the airline to change the flight plans, she finds out that Sumner and his ex-wife have already taken the flight.

Sam apologizes with genuine regret for knowing what was going to happen.

“How did you know?” asks Diane.

“Bartender’s intuition,” replies Sam.

Diane asks Sam to reveal what her future holds, and Sam says he “probably is going to regret this, but you could work here.”

Diane laughs at such a preposterous notion, but as luck would have it, Carla comes to the bar with the following order:

“I need two vodka gimlets, one straight up, one blended rocks, Chivas rocks soda, a Comfort Manhattan hold the cherry, a white wine spritzer with a twist, one old Bushmill Irish decaf, hold the sugar.”

Diane is incredulous that anyone would think that working as a bartender at Cheers would be a viable profession for her. But Sam disagrees.

“You can’t go back to the professor for work,” says Sam. “I need a waitress, you need a job. You like the people here. You think that they like you. And the phrase ‘magnificent pagan beast has never left your mind.’”

Diane admits that she needs a job, but that it won’t be waiting tables.

“What are you qualified to do?” asks Sam.

“Nothing,” Diane replies. But she insists that somewhere, the perfect job exists for her somewhere.

Sam then asks Carla what he’s making.

“Two vodka gimlets, one straight up, one blended rocks,” Diane says. “One Chivas rocks, soda. A Comfort Manhattan, hold the cherry, a white wine spritzer with a twist, one old Bushmill Irish decaf, hold the sugar.”

Cut to Diane’s first shift as a waitress at Cheers.

A group enters the bar and Diane prepares to serve her first customers. She tells them that they are her first customers and that if anyone had told her a week ago that she would be doing this, she “would have thought them insane.” She sits down with the customers and tells them that she is a “student of life, and where better than here to study life in all its many facets.”

She asks the customers what she can get them.

“Where is police?” the male customer asks. “We have lost our luggage.”

NORMISMS

Sam: “How you doin’ Norm? What do you know?”

Norm: “Not enough.”

Pours For Norm: 2

CLAVINISMS

“Women have fewer sweat glands than men, but they’re larger and more active. Consequently, they sweat more.”

LINE OF THE EPISODE

(Phone rings, Coach answers)

Coach: Cheers. Yeah just a sec. Is there an Ernie Pantusso here?

Sam: That’s you, Coach.

Coach: Speaking.

Up Next: Season 1, Episode 2 - "Sam's Women"