Recap / Cheers S 10 E 9

Episode: Season 10, Episode 9
Title: Head Over Hill
Directed by: John Ratzenberger
Written by: Dan Staley and Rob Long
Air Date: November 14, 1991
Previous: Where Have All the Floorboards Gone?
Next: A Fine French Whine
Guest Starring: Keene Curtis, Paul Willson

"Head Over Hill" is the ninth episode of the tenth season of Cheers.

Everyone's least favourite restaurateur, John Allen Hill, is back to irritate Sam again. The subject this time is the dumpsters in the alleyway behind Cheers. Seems John feels they're exclusively his, and asks Sam not to use them again. Only without the asking.

Pissed off by Hill, Sam decides to unleash the meanest bundle of hate and evil he knows on the man... but since Woody's busy, Carla is sent instead. It takes two hours before Boston's meanest bartender returns, acting very unusual for her.

Meanwhile, Cliff has gotten a plum assignment, re-enacting the delivery of the first letter sent to Boston, which he's meant to do on horseback, despite Cliff not being a trained equestrian, in addition to being Cliff.

First of four Cheers episodes over the last two seasons directed by John Ratzenberger.

---

Tropes:

• All Girls Like Ponies: Early on, Rebecca shares a story about a pony she had as a kid, but trails off as she starts recounting how she fed it sugar cubes while she ate lots of snickers bars, and sometimes she'd eat the sugar cubes as well, and eventually her instructor said she'd "outgrown" it, before running off to cry again.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Turns out when Carla and Hill have been volleying those insults at one another, it was a bad case of this.
  Carla: I guess all the insults and the venom and the blood hatred kind of turned us on.
• Comically Missing the Point: Wanting revenge, Sam announces he's going to send the evilest person in Cheers after Hill. Woody, standing right next to him, politely demurs because he's busy.
• Continuity Nod: Rebecca's youthful issues with her weight, mentioned several times before, comes up again.
• Dissimile: Sam's extended metaphor on how Carla sleeping with Hill hurts him works relatively fine up until the last hurdle.
  Sam: Well, the way I see it, uh... you let down the whole team. It's like, you know, the bottom of the ninth. One out, runner on first, you're up at bat. The coach tells you to bunt. The team expects you to bunt, the runner on first expects you to bunt, fans expect you to bunt. But instead of bunting... YOU SLEEP WITH JOHN! ALLEN! HILL!
• Don't Explain the Joke: The cold open ends with Frasier telling Lilith that this is what she did wrong with the "is your refrigerator running?" prank call to Woody.
• Epic Fail: Cliff manages to be several days late delivering a ceremonial letter, but as he notes, the original letter was several weeks late.
• Failed a Spot Check: Norm and Paul are completely indifferent to Cliff's absence, not even noticing he's gone for some days.
• Gossipy Hens: Lilith learns the truth about Carla and Hill first, then tells Frasier. Soon everyone in the bar knows.
• Insistent Terminology: Carla states she didn't hate Diane, she disapproved of her, even though Sam states she threatened every morning to stick a live grenade in her mouth and pull the trigger. That's some disapproval...
• Meaningful Background Event: In the cold open, as Woody's on the phone, Lilith can be seen in the background using the Cheers payphone. At the cold open's end, there's payoff.
• Mistaken for Gay: Norm, out scouting the streets for a missing Cliff, stops by a strip-club and tells the doorman he's looking for a man on a horse. The doorman suggests he check two doors down, then mutters "freak" under his breath.
• Never My Fault: Frasier's the one who lets slip about Carla and Hill doin' the horizontal hoedown, but he blames Lilith for gabbing first.
• Noodle Incident: When asked why he didn't pass around the flyer Cliff brought to the other barflies, Woody mentions that it's a flier Cliff's brought in, and they've had trouble with this sort of thing before. Norm only nods in agreement.
• Red Light District: Cliff's horse has taken him to wherever the Boston red light district is. Cliff, outside a strip club where a barker is droning "naked, naked, naked", describes it to Norm as a "combat zone".
• Running Gag: Sam continues to be irritated by the way Hill draws out the vowel in his name: "Saaaaaam." He tries to teach Hill how to say it, only to find that Hill doesn't like to eat "haaaaaaam".
• Suddenly Shouting: Sam's attempt to calmly explain, using a baseball metaphor, how Carla let him down (see Dissimile above) falls apart as he lets his anger get to him and suddenly screams "YOU SLEPT WITH JOHN ALLEN HILL!".
• Tempting Fate: Rebecca, despite knowing full well at this point Carla can be damn vicious, says she doesn't think Carla can make a person cry. Carla immediately decides to prove her wrong.
• Too Dumb to Fool: In the cold open, a prank call fails because Woody picks up the phone, and feels the need to instruct the would-be caller on the nature of homonyms.
• With Friends Like These...: Having received a call from Cliff that he's trapped on a moody horse lost in Boston's red light district, Norm considers whether to spring into action and look for his buddy... or stay in the bar and watch TV. Phil solves the conundrum by telling him the plot of the show.
• You Are Fat: Or You Were Fat, in Rebecca's case, as Carla zooms in her childhood insecurities to reduce her to a blubbering mess.
  Carla: When you were a little girl, why did you stop riding that pony? (Rebecca tenses up) Was it because you got too fat? Just too damned fat? (Rebecca's lip starts quivering) So damned fat you broke the back of a horse? What's the matter, Becks? Your eyes are looking a little shiny.
  Rebecca: 's just an allergy or something.