Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience.
I have a date with Miss Howe.
She'll be right out. Can I get you something?
Yes, I'll have a brandy... Louis XIII.
Anything for your friend?
No. He's driving.
Ahem! Excuse me, Mr. Colcord?
How do you do, sir? Remember me-- Norm Peterson?
Yes, of course. I never forget a face. You never know
when a name and face may be significant in life.
There you go. You remember me-- Cliff Clavin?
Excuse me?
We were wondering, sir, when you were growing up back in England,
did you get that American TV show called The Millionaire?
No, I'm sorry. I missed that, but we did get Lucy.
Lucy! Now, there's a classic! But getting back to this Millionaire show...
I loved Bilko.
Oh, yeah. "Hey, Doberman, get in that jeep!"
Anyway, this Millionaire show is
is about a guy named J. Beresford Tipton,
and, uh, he was an incredibly nice guy. He had tons of bucks.
He used to just pick people at random and give them a million dollars!
- Really? - Yeah, tax free.
Isn't that something?
Right, the thing that I didn't understand about that show
was he used to give it away to strangers.
It would've made so much more sense to me,
- you know, and you'd probably agree with me, - Oh, absolutely.
If he would've come to people, say, in a bar
you know, and said, "here you are-- just have a million bucks."
- Makes sense. - Yes, I can see how that could be very rewarding.
Sure, sure it would.
I'm ready!
I don't have any cash.
I got it!
No. Cliff Clavin will buy this one.
Clifford Clavin's got it, sir.
I've got a job, I'll pay for it.
Woody, how much I owe you here for the man's drink?
75 bucks.
You got it.
What are you watching, Carla?
It's the end of Criminals at Large.
I've been following this story for weeks.
There's something about it. It's so bizarre.
- A lot of these stories are that way. - Yeah, but this one's really outrageous, Sam.
It's about this woman who meets men, marries them,
steals everything they own, and then kills them.
- What part don't you understand? - For some reason, they want to arrest her.
Not feeling at all bitter toward the opposite sex, are you, Carla?
No, why?
What's with your head?
There was an incident in our Lamaze class.
What happened?
Suffice it to say that Lamaze class is not the place to flirt.
You know, the most wonderful thing just happened to me
on the way over here.
- And what is that? - I was in a car accident.
Oh, yeah, nothing like a little broken glass
and twisted metal to put the spring back in your step.
No, this was actually just a fender-bender,
but the bender happens to be a plastic surgeon.
Now, he doesn't want me to report this to the insurance company,
so he said he will give me the plastic surgery procedure of my choice.
Isn't that great?
Whoo!
He'll only do one thing?
- Uh-huh. - Report the accident.
So, uh... what part are we going to do?
I don't know yet.
He gave me this book to look through and decide what I wanted done.
Miss Howe, I don't think you'd look good with a honker that size.
Woody, that's the before. Here's the after.
Well, that is smaller.
Now, what do they do with the leftover nose bits?
- Oh, man! - Ah, Woody!
That's just a little bit gross.
That's a good question. I mean, they put pig snouts in liver sausage.
Oh!
- They do not! - Read the package.
Hey, Cliff ie!
Hey, friends.
I just got a very auspicious message
on this miracle of modern technology.
I didn't know they made 8-track answering machines.
Seems I got this message from Canada
- from a certain Miss Margaret O'Keefe. - Who's Margaret O'Keefe?
She's a young woman with whom Cliff had a brief romantic encounter.
If you don't want to tell me, just say so. You don't have to make things up.
I'm not gonna give you any fancy build-up.
I'm gonna let you listen to it just as I heard it. You can judge for yourselves. Now feel the heat.
Hi, Cliff.
I just want to let you know I'll be in town tomorrow.
And I hope you can make time for me. I need to see you, bye.
Heh? So, come on, what do you think?
She's hungry for me. I can hear that little body trembling.
Cliff ie, she didn't really say anything there.
Didn't say anything?
"Make time, need to see you, bye."
Huh?
Hey, Clavin, why don't you wise up?
She's probably just coming over here to dump you.
By the way, if I'm in the back room when she comes,
would somebody call me?
Well, you know, uh, Carla,
I gave that possibility some consideration.
And I figured that if that dame wanted to shove this lug in the dead-letter file,
she would've 86ed me with a postcard and a 2-bit stamp.
Sam, is it me, or is Mr. Clavin starting to sound like Raymond Chandler?
No, mis amigos, I know exactly what's going on
in that sexy little egg-shaped head of hers.
She left me lo those many months ago to pursue a career.
That wasn't enough, no sirree. She wanted her man back.
Heck, you've seen my bumper sticker--
"Letter carriers do it on foot."
Yeah, I have seen that. I always wondered what the hell it meant.
Uh, I'm not sure. They were giving them away free.
So, you and her are getting pretty serious, huh?
You betcha. you betcha.
Well, Cliff, that's a pretty big step.
Outside of Margaret,
have you ever had a serious relationship...
or a date?
Yep, one time in high school--
Wendy Beeman.
What happened with Wendy?
I asked her to go steady. She accepted.
Wouldn't you know it, the very next day,
I come down with this darn pesky little teenage problem.
Your face broke out?
No. Hysterical blindness.
What? What did you say?
From the Latin-- blind is hystericolis.
Meaning that you couldn't see, or what?
I couldn't see whenever she was around,
but once she wasn't there, I could see fine.
So we got into a big argument about it,
we broke up, and as soon as she ran crying out of my life,
I could see clear as a bell.
- Cliff? - Yeah.
Would you be interested in taking part in a university project?
Let me rephrase that. Would you be interested in being a university project?
I really don't have a lot of time for that now, but thanks for asking.
You know, guys, I've been telling you for a long time now
That like the proud bird on my sleeve, I was a lone eagle. Yep.
Even the eagle's got to mate once in his life.
Molts in the spring.
You know the female lays one to three eggs?
Incubation period's about 35 days.
Cliff!
Thank God!
Maggie-pants!
Oh, Cliff, I missed you so much.
I missed you, too.
Turn around, let me have a look at you.
Oh, your back bacon is makin' me achin'!
Cliff, I dreamed of hearing you say that.
Sit down here.
It's so great to be with you again.
I can't tell you
How hard these months of separation have been.
The men up in Canada, well, they just don't compare to you.
Ohh.
They're just pale, pathetic imitations of you, Cliff.
Boy, that must be one butt-ugly country.
I finally couldn't stand it anymore,
and I had to come back and ask you something.
Well, what?
- No, I can't. This is crazy. - Come on, Maggie. Tell me. What is it?
Well, Cliff...
Can I be your girl?
C-can you be my girl?
Oh, no. I shouldn't have been that forward. I'm really sorry.
Oh, you betcha, hon. Can you be my girl?
Hey, guys, did you hear that? Cliff Clavin's got a girl!
Sammy, give me a bottle of your best champagne!
Oh, Maggie, you made me the happiest man in the world!
Hey, sorry, guys, you're not gonna be seeing Cliff Clavin around here very much anymore.
Maggie, you've made me the happiest man in the world.
Boy, just think of that-- after all these years,
I got myself a steady girl.
I'm walking on air. I'm high as a kite.
I'm blind as a mole.
Cliff, is something wrong with your vision?
No. No, uh...
It's, uh, you know what happened?
I think when I popped the cork on the champagne,
a little bit of the mist got into my eyes and temporarily blinded me.
Oh, yeah, that must be why Sammy wears those protective goggles all the time.
That's okay. I didn't want champagne anyhow.
I just want to run out and buy something soft and silky
to wear at your apartment tonight.
Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.
Listen, why don't you go buy me one, too?
Okay.
- Bye, honey. - Bye.
Oh, my God. This is terrible.
It's like the Wendy Beeman episode all over again.
You guys got to help me.
Oh, I can see shapes now. I'm coming out of it.
Good, okay, yeah, I can see Carla's face clear as a bell.
What the heck, at least I can see.
That's great.
Let me test your depth perception with these two fingers.
No. this is serious.
It certainly is.
Emotional crises can affect our sensory perceptions
in devastating ways.
I've read volumes on hysterical blindness,
loss of hearing, even total loss of speech.
Clavin had to pick blindness.
Carla, you're not helping.
I'm not trying.
Now, Cliff, don't you think there's a pattern here
that you should recognize?
Now, both your high school incident and this current one
occurred at a time when you were threatened by a commitment of a romantic nature.
Could it be that your fear of commitment is so intense
that it manifests itself in blindness?
Oh, jeez, Doc, that's true.
You got to help me out here, Doc.
I got Margaret coming over tonight. I can't go blind in front of her.
She'll think I'm some kind of a wacko.
You can't just wave a magic wand and make it go away.
There's gotta be something you can prescribe.
Ointments, drops, leeches, something.
Cliff, there's just no quick fix. I'm sorry.
There's got to be some way somebody can help me out through tonight.
Sammy, look, as a fellow stud-Meister yourself,
maybe you can come on over tonight,
help me just to get Margaret in the apartment,
get the lights out, then I can take over myself
and you can skedaddle.
- How's that? - You got it.
Hey, thanks very much, Sammy.
After you leave, my acute sense of touch
will take over.
He had to say it.
Now I'm gonna have the willies for a week.
Well, I'm on my way to the plastic surgeon,
but I don't know what to do. Look, I need some input.
What do you think I should have done?
- Eyelids. - Tummy tuck.
Liposuction.
Age shows first there.
Miss Howe.
I'm getting tired of all this plastic surgery talk.
Now, I know it may not be popular, but I'm going out on a limb
and say I don't think you should change a thing.
You're a beautiful woman
and just about perfect the way God made you.
Well, Woody, nobody's perfect.
There's got to be something.
Well, then your breasts.
Thank you, Woody.
No. thank you.
Oh, boy, Sam, am I glad you could make it.
I'm sorry I'm late. I had a matinee.
Matinee? It's almost 8:00.
Double feature.
What a guy.
How's your vision doing?
Oh, fine. I can see fine. Margaret's not here yet. Corn?
No, thanks.
Hey, you look spiffy.
Oh, yeah, hey.
Feel the material here in this clip-on.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
They're doing incredible things with synthetic fibers nowadays.
Tell me about it. Sam, look at this.
Watch. You can't stain this baby. Look.
Oh, no. Wow.
Look at that. Beads right up.
That is cool.
Isn't that something?
Watch what happens with picante sauce.
No, don't do that.
I'll take your word for it.
Well, look, Margaret's going to be here any second now.
So why don't we just go over the game plan, huh?
Yeah sure.
Alright, if I feel myself, you know, sort of losing my vision,
I'll give a little petite tug on the old tie bone, okay?
Tug the tie. All right.
Then there'll be a signal to lead me back
just in this area here.
We're gonna designate the sofa as home base.
See, I spent the last few hours walking around the apartment blindfolded.
I know every nook and cranny by heart.
Didn't you bang the hell out of your shins?
The first ten or 20 times,
but those nerves are long dead now.
All right, what else do I need to know, here?
The only other thing we got to figure out is some kind of signal
to let you know when it's time for you to leave.
Well... uh, how about, "Good night, Sam"?
All right, yeah. I'll go with that.
Now I just got to figure out how to remember that.
Oop. There's Margaret.
Can you still see?
Clear as a bell. Clear as a bell.
I think now you're on your home turf, you're gonna be just fine.
I think so, too, Sammy.
Go ahead, go ahead.
Hiya, boyfriend. It's your little ball and chain.
Oh, hi, Sam. I didn't expect to see you.
Well, I just ca--
Uh...
I, uh...
Came over to, uh...
To borrow, uh... Cliff ie's tie.
What do you think? It's too short, maybe?
Gee, I don't know.
Well, you know, the--the--the best way...
The best way to find this out
is to see how it looks when you're sitting down.
Why don't we go check it out on the sofa.
You came all this way to borrow a tie?
Uh... yeah.
The tie and, uh... to have some of Cliff ie's corn.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I'm famous for my corn.
Oh, would you like some?
Oh, I don't smoke, Cliff.
I bet you thought that this was an ashtray. No.
It's a specially designed corn server.
Here.
There you go.
Just try some.
You'll never have corn any other way now.
No?
- So... here we are. - Here we are.
Cliff, what do you want to do tonight?
Well, I thought maybe, uh...
I don't know. Maybe just show you how I can walk around the apartment
without any help from anybody at all.
Okay, cliff.
Okay.
Oh, look at this. I must've dropped a dime earlier.
Oh. Here.
Here it is. Yep.
1973-S.
That's mine.
Oh, I got that, Cliff ie. I got that.
This is a really comfortable sofa.
Yeah. It comes out into a sofa bed.
Really? I'd like to see that.
Good night, Sam.
- I better fix this lamp before I go. - Take it with you.
What?
That's what Sammy came over for.
For corn, a tie, and a lamp.
You ought to see the way this guy lives. He's something.
Well, good night.
I'll walk him to the door.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for the corn.
Are you going to be able to handle this?
Oh, yeah, Sammy, I don't have to tell you,
as one stud to another, that when it comes to sofa bed talk,
it's time for lights out.
There you go.
Wrong way.
Good night.
- Hey, Sammy, one more thing. - Yeah.
There's...
Uh...the dress?
Oh, yeah, you're in luck. It's a standard 22-inch zipper.
One, two, three seconds, max.
Remember, it's an easy glide. Don't jerk it.
Good night.
Good night, Sammy.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Cliff, are you all right?!
Hey, Cliff ie, how are the eyes, buddy?
They're fine as long as she's not around.
Wh-wh-what happened?
It was a total disaster, Norm.
I went blind, took a header off the balcony,
and fell in the pool.
Okay. Pay up.
Falling in the pool was ten-to-one odds.
Suckers.
I'll be in the men's room drying off.
There's no towels in there, Mr. Clavin.
That's all right.
I'll just stand in front of that whatchmacallit that blows hot air.
You mean the automatic Clavin.
Is cliff here?
He's in the bathroom drying off.
Thank God because I was so worried about him.
Poor cliff has been through so much.
Sit right here. I'll get you some coffee.
Margaret...
Uh, you should know that cliff is a troubled, deeply disturbed,
and emotionally stunted person.
Now, I can say this because I'm one of his closest friends.
All right, Rebecca's back.
You decide what to have the body and fender man fix?
I not only made the decision by myself, thank you very much,
but I've already had the surgery performed on an outpatient basis.
Already? Wow, they look great.
Woody, he didn't work on my breasts.
Well, then, why are they so much perkier?
Thank you, Woody.
No. thank you.
So, uh, what did you do there?
Uh...let's just say it was something personal.
Come on. You can tell us.
It was nothing major,
it was just a little thing that I wanted done for a long time.
No, you're right. You shouldn't tell us.
That way we can let our imaginations go wild.
Oh, guys... all right, come on.
I had a little tattoo removed.
Ooh, you're kidding. That's very hot. Whoa...
Wait a minute. Where was it?
Inner, upper, outer, frontal...
It was on my lower back.
Oh, lower back.
It was just covering up a big old ugly mole.
I had that removed, too.
Kind of wish she hadn't told us.
I mean, I was imagining something a hell of a lot better than that.
Well, maybe she lied.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's go with that.
- Cliff! - Oh, no. No.
No, wait, cliff. You don't have to run.
Sam explained everything.
Then you know why I can't look at you?
Yes, I do. I know all about high school
and Wendy Beeman and the blindness and Miss Tennessee.
Miss Tennessee?
Yeah, I ran out of stuff on you,
so I threw in some of my own highlights.
I feel so bad about this.
I rushed you into a commitment that you weren't ready to make.
I came down from Canada without any warning,
never giving you a chance to say no or even make up your mind.
I feel like this is all my fault.
So I'm going back up north.
We can talk on the phone,
and in a few months, if we still think it's a good idea,
we know where to find each other.
Good-bye, Cliff.
Hey, hey, Cliff, go get her! Go get her!
Uh, Maggie... Hold on!
Maggie!
I'm ready to make a commitment.
Hey... Maggie, I can see.
Oh, really? Honey, that's wonderful.
I, uh...
I want you to be my honey.
Well, then, I don't want to wait any longer.
I'm going to rush over to my hotel,
and I'm going to get my stuff,
and I'll meet you in an hour at your apartment.
- Hey, man, congratulations. - I am so proud of you.
I'll see you later.
Uh, there's one thing.
What's that?
I seem to be paralyzed from the waist down.