Airdate: 11/7/85
Diane apprehensively asks Sam to borrow 500 dollars to buy a
signed, first-edition copy of The Sun
Also Rises, which he grants, proudly proclaiming his “don’t ask, don’t tell”
policy of lending money. Things get a bit sticky when Sam witnesses that her
spending habits have been a bit… profligate lately, culminating in his frenzied
smashing of a box of recently purchased Girl Scout cookies. But all this pales
in comparison to the pickle Sam gets himself into when he curiously takes the
book home (which she let him keep as collateral), and accidentally drops it in
the tub: dried, it has expanded to twice its normal size. Intended to keep it a
secret for as long as he can, his jig is up when a literary antiquarian offers
to buy the book, but Sam outbids him at $1,200 dollars. Diane is turned on by
Sam’s newfound literary proclivities, but the feeling’s decidedly not mutual
when she still expects him to pay to her what he bid.
One-thing-leads-to-another comedy of errors formula always
works well where money is involved – add to that he inherent greed of a Cheers
character (Diane, in this case) and it includes a touch of morality play as
well. As a bibliophile myself, I have to cringe when I see what Sam did to Papa’s
prized work (even though I know it’s fictional), and matters are only worsened
at the sound of Norm’s solution: ripping out every other page to make the
volume slimmer!
Look sharp for William Lanteau as the book collector; he’s
best known as Chester on Newhart.
Cold open: Everyone at Cheers stuffs themselves into the
bathroom to set a world’s record (Cliff tries to set his own record in the
subplot). A recently arrived man tries to use it, to a chorus of “Occupied!”
Norm’s opener: Sam: “What’s the good word, Norm?” Norm: “Plop,
plop, fizz, fizz.” (He had just eaten at the Hungry Heffer.)
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