Cheers 2.14: “No Help Wanted”

Airdate: 1/12/84

Poor Norm, reduced to washing dishes at Mellvile’s now that his unemployment has run out. But Diane strikes upon an idea for Sam: hire Norm as the Cheers accountant. Apprehensive, oh-so apprehensive, Sam is cajoled into doing so, and within Norm’s first day of hire gets a $15,000 tax return. Everyone at the bar is elated, except conservative Sam, who had secretly kept his old accountant to file his returns. When Norm finds out, he is fuming, then bawling – so Sam relents and reinstates his old job.

So-so writing is more emotional than witty, and features the broadest, silliest sight gag in Cheers’ history: a herring-scented Norm is trailed by hordes of cats as he walks down the outside steps to the bar. Nevertheless, George Wendt gets some poignant screen time in his labor travails, and the subject of the flip side of nepotism is another one of those identifiable comic mines that Cheers taps into so effectively.

Cold open: Music from a transistor radio incites fond memories for Coach, but it’s a game of one-thing-leads-to-another for the bar patrons to determine the connection.

Norm’s opener (there are two):

First: (Coach: “Can I draw you a beer?”) “No, I know what they look like; just pour me one.”

Second: (“How you doing?”) “High on life. Of course, beer is my life.”