Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 83

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Sam’s interaction with women is comic and ritualistic: she
comes, he sees, he conquers, he is applauded. But for the sake of
comedy there are variations of this ritual. Numerous complications
and occasional rejection elicit laughter. Sometimes the pursuit of a
woman takes years until it is crowned by success. This is the case with
Rebecca Howe. While Sam tells Carla right after first laying eyes on
Rebecca, "I wonder what she’ll make me for breakfast,” he does not
score that victory for a long time. But while there are certain limits
to his pursuits, Sam is challenged by those limits. When, at one time,
one of his old loves comes back into Sam’s life and now has a daughter
who is in her late teens, Sam is at first reluctant to date mother and
daughter simultaneously but finally decides to do so. Before he can go
to action, however, the daughter announces to "Uncle Sanuny" that
she is about to get married and asks him to give her away at her
wedding. Sam becomes Uncle Sam, the protector of American values
and traditions.
Like the Don Juan type, Sam needs success as well as the
applause of onlookers to reward his efforts. And like Don Juan, Sam is
a womanizer out of weakness and out of a desire to compensate for
other shortcomings. In Sam’s case, those shortcomings are his failed
baseball career, his former alcoholism, his divorce (which is only
mentioned in very early episodes), and his inferiority complex
toward his brother. But despite his weaknesses Sam is a father
figure to whom the rest of the bar looks up. After Coach (played by
Nicholas Colosanto), who embodied the understanding, good-natured
father for all, has left C h e ers. Sam takes on the role of the
experienced father, especially for Woody and Cliff. Cliff even calls
Sam for some last-minute advice as he thinks he is about to lose his
virginity. By the end of the 1990/91 season Sam has decided that he
wants to be a genuine father himself.
While he is usually the undisputed leader among the male
characters in the bar, Sam finds his match in two women: Carla and
Diane in the show’s early years, and Carla and Rebecca in the past
four seasons. The waitress Carla Tortelli (played by Rhea Perlnum)
is a cynical realist. While all major characters on this show are
mischievous brats in one way or another, Carla is definitely Cheers’s
main brat. The men in the bar fear her power, which extends from
giving snappy retorts to spitting into drinks. If Sam is "the guys’"
hero, Carla is their respected leader. She is always ready to set Sam