Diane the blogger

Hope those of you who are fathers had a good Father's Day and those of you who have fathers or a partnered with fathers or who know a father had a nice day, whether or not it was Father's Day centered.

I made out pretty well.  Except for the two hours I spent working on the @#$%^&%#$*$***!!!! pool, I got to relax most of the day.  The blonde gave me one of the very few John McPhee books I haven't read, The Founding Fish, and the boys gave me the eighth season of Cheers on DVD.

Tonight we watched a couple of my favorite episodes, not just from that season but all time---the one in which Norm invents a business partner to get tough with his painting crew, The Two Faces of Norm, and the one in which Lilith goes into labor during Cheers' 100th Anniversary celebration, The Stork Brings a Crane.

The funniest episodes were all after Shelley Long left, but I still enjoy the ones with Diane.  Thinking about her tonight, it occured to me that Diane Chambers, wherever she is, working on the 15th draft of her unpublishable novel, must have a blog by now.  She has the perfect temperament for a blogger.  She's a know-it-all, an intellectual show off, opinionated, judgmental, endlessly self-referential, and a wee bit, um, self-absorbed?

A quiet hour at Cheers.  Diane and Woody are the only ones in the place.  Diane is behind the bar, polishing glasses, doing prep work.  Woody is standing halfway to the door, on his way out for the evening.  He's wearing a jacket and tie. 

Woody (adjusting his necktie, getting ready to leave):  Uh, Miss Chambers, can I ask you something?

Diane:  Mmm-hmmm.

Woody:  You're a girl, right?

Diane:  Well, I'm a woman.

Woody:  That's close enough.  In about five minutes I'm going out on my first date with a city girl and I'm really nervous about it, you know?  I'm afraid I might get tongue-tied and make a fool of myself.  I don't want that to get in the way of me picking up babes.

Diane:  Et tu, Woody?  After only a few months here at Cheers you're starting to talk like the other reprobates.

Woody:  Well, thanks, Miss Chambers, but, you know, that's not enough.  I want to be smooth with the ladies, like Sam.

Diane:  Well, I think I can help you out.  Have a seat. (Woody, who wants to get going, hops up on a stool, reluctantly.  He's afraid Diane's about to launch into one of her long-winded lectures.  He's right.)  A good conversationalist is usually a good listener.  I've found that people love to talk about themselves.

Woody:  Really?

Diane:  Oh yes.  (She goes about her work while talking, hardly paying any attention to Woody.)  People have an endless fascination with their own little world.  It's an observation I made as a small child.  (Woody checks his watch.)  Although I've never understood why it holds true.  I, myself, have always found many more interesting topics to talk about.  Of course I've always made it a point to broaden my horizons.  (Woody has to go.  He wants to excuse himself, but sees there's no chance of getting her attention.  He dashes out.  Cliff comes in and takes his place at the bar.  Diane continues right along.)  As a matter of fact, I was reading the New York Times at the age of four.  And then onto the classics.  Of couse it caused some hardships as a youngster, always being far and away the brightest in the class.  Usually the brightest in the class is regarded as some sort of pimply-faced egghead...(She turns and is momentarily startled to see Cliff sitting there.  But Woody's entirely forgotten.)  I'm sorry, Clifford, what was your question again?

Cue opening theme.

See?  Lance Mannion's long lost sister.

Goodnight, folks.  Happy Father's Day!

Comments

[harry near indy]

i'm like you, lance. i enjoy the second half of cheers' run after kirstie alley replaced shelley long. diane chambers was too prissy for my tastes, but as for rebecca howe, when you have a beautiful woman (and alley is beautiful, while long is just pretty) who does slapstick .... ah, paradise.

[Kevin Wolf]

I love these ideas you get, Lance. Diane as blogger - perfect.

I had the pleasure in my brief career in film school seeing the first few episodes of Cheers ahead of their broadcast, introduced personally by James Burrows.

I'm so glad they didn't go with their original idea hiring Bill Cosby.

[Claire]

Ha! Hope you had a good father's day!

[Mike Schilling]

My favorite Cheers scene was quite early, perhaps even the first year. It's the one where the Coach's daughter, played by the very homely Allyce Beasley (Ms. Dipesto from Moonlighting), dumps her ultra-obnoxious fiancee. Afterwards, Coach tries to comfort her, saying that a beautiful girl like her will easily find someone else: She responds that he's always told her she's beautiful, but he needs to look at her, not as his daughter, but as a woman. He does, and chokes up, saying that he's amazed; he'd never realized how much she looks like her late mother. She agrees. "Yes, I look exactly like her, and Mama wasn't ...".

And she can't say it.

Instead, she finishes "... comfortable with her beauty."

[Lizzy]

Hope you got the pool up and I hope that you enjoying the episodes of Cheers.

[David Parsons]

«played by the very homely Allyce Beasley»

Goodness, how people's tastes vary. I find Ms. Beasley to be a very handsome woman, even though she was typecast as an ugly woman (the hairdos! The clothes! Oy, the curse of not having a tiny nose in Hollywood.)

[Dave Rovinson]

What I thought Shelley Long could do exceptionally well was what I call intelligent comedy and physical comedy. For instance she could take really good lines and make them even better. EG when Sam makes one of his moronic comments Diane comments "Do you know what bothers me. Their are women who believe this and they are allowed to vote and drive cars" and when Sam says about her going into a dimly lit room with him etc and Diane says "Much like your mind" good lines in themaselves but even better when Shelley Long said them and there are many examples where she did this. Physical comedy well you only have to look when Sam slaps her and she slaps him back until he gives in and the nose pincer movement that ends up on the floor and she says "We,ve sunk as low as we can go". In snow job when Sam has given her all his lame excuses Diane strides down the bar with her eyes literally blazing and says "You slime" and then gives it to him. On Good advice you should see her when she tries to strangle her cheating husband Joey. With eyes absolutely blazing she gets him by the neck and seeks to strangle him. No Shelley first class comic when it came to delivering her lines but a clever one and physical comedy brilliant when given the opportunity. I wish she would tell us how she is keeping and does anyone know anything about getting her film Trust Me.