CHEERS Season 5, episode 3: “Money Dearest”
Hosted by Ryan Daly with special guest Gregg Solomon.
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I’m pretty sure I watched this as it aired (I think this is when I started) and I think it was public knowledge, at least at some point before the end, that Shelly was leaving. I was 10 so I could be just remembering the news from the summer after though.
And yes Esther is the only good part of this episode and we’re lucky to have her. For me, Cliff-centric episodes just don’t work. He’s my least favourite character by a mile. He’s great in small doses but never really as the centrepiece. The exceptions are his iconic Jeopardy episode and the final one where he moves Esther to a retirement home and the bar assumes he’s murdered her.
You hit the nail on the head when you said the episode fails on a basic level because its stakes aren’t really about any of the regulars, and the one regular arguably involved is made to look extremely bad to fit the very very very very “sitcom” plot. Magical inheritance is up there with a judge condemning someone to be Seinfeld’s butler.
“magical inheritance” is a great term. One of the creakier sitcom plots.
Insightful comments by you, your guest, and the commenters about why Cliff-centric episodes generally aren’t the best Cheers has to be offer, with a couple exceptions. I do like Cliff as a side character or as part of the Norm and Cliff pairing, or even on his own for the B plot, but Cliff as the main character for the A plot (and in this episode without even a B plot) can be tough because he’s written to be such a selfish weasel. But I agree that even a weak Cheers episode is better than most anything else on television. And the introduction of Cliff’s mom – a character who we will see throughout the remainder of the series (and who will even be mentioned in a season 9 episode of Frasier in which Cliff, Norm, and Carla appear) – is a high point here.
Also I agree with the point by the previous commenter that the couple exceptions to Cliff-centric episodes being weak are the famous Jeopardy episode and the episode near the end of the series when Cliff puts his mom in a retirement home but Norm, Carla, and Paul think something nefarious is going on. Anyway, this was a very insightful episode of the podcast as usual!
Yes, Carla, Norm and Paul are a big part of the appeal of that ep. (“I thought you had gum!”) Also Frasier’s defence of/quick turn on Cliff is great.
I think Cliff is just too thin a character to base an episode on, so any time they try it makes for a less than compelling half hour.
The thing that saves this for me is that it features the great character actor Richard Erdman. You mentioned his COMMUNITY credit, but he was in classics like STALAG 17, CRY DANGER, and TORA TORA TORA. One of the great Hollywood careers.