Airdate: 11/1/84
Sam breaks up
with a woman because he’d just found she’s married, and after hours the enraged
cuckold, Marvin, accosts Sam with a gun. Craftily, Sam maneuvers the gun away
from his would-be murderer, but accidently shoots himself in the – ahem –
derriere (now you got the show’s title?). When the Cheers gangs inquires about
his injury, his little white lie – that he stopped a robbery with a karate kick
– escalates into the lead story on the 6:00 news. Suspicious Diane gets the
truth on the situation, but when Marvin returns, angered this time by Sam’s
media exploitation of his adultery, both she and Sam are targets of Marvin’s
ire, which she allays by revealing that she loves Sam and can identify with
loving “trash.” All’s well that ends well, except Diane still wants Sam to call
the news station and admit the truth. He never gets past the secretary, who is
enamored with his heroism and wants a date.
Sam’s
philandering ways bite him in the… (insert pun), but his nervous energy in
dealing with the situation is good comic fodder. His adulation-basking and
subsequent lie management again reveal a truly insecure ego behind the suave
bar manager, and the show is wise not to moralize and have him do the right
thing at the end.
In this episode,
we earn of Sam’s three non-no’s for dating women: underage, married and
comatose. (Norm: “Hmm, he added one.”)
Two subplots
here are a bit throwaway: Carla’s nervous about her tooth extraction, and Norm
sells his house, at an unbelievably low price, to a suspicious Cliff.
Cold open: The
aforementioned breakup, with Diane cynically commenting that it will be
available in paperback wherever lurid trash is sold.
Norm’s opener:
Norm’s already at the bar.
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