Title: The Little Match Girl
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Dan Staley and Rob Long
Air Date: September 24, 1992
Previous: An Old-Fashioned Wedding
Next: The Beer Is Always Greener
Guest Starring: Jackie Swanson, Keene Curtis
"The Little Match Girl" is the first episode of the eleventh season of Cheers.
The gang comes back to the bar after Woody and Kelly's wedding in the Season 10 finale, "An Old-Fashioned Wedding". Rebecca, in an introspective mood after seeing the wedding, and thinking about how badly her life has gone downhill over the last few years, decides that she's going to make a change. She's going to turn her life around, and she's going to start by quitting smoking. She grounds out her last cigarette in an ashtray, and on the way out, she dumps the ashtray in a trashcan.
She sets the bar on fire.
Cheers isn't a total loss, but the office is completely gone, the back corner is burnt out, and Norm's end of the actual bar is destroyed. Things go from bad to worse when Sam learns that his insurance policy has a deductible of a whopping $25,000. He's turned down for a bank loan—it seems that Cheers has a very narrow profit margin. With no other options he has no choice but to perform the ultimate sacrifice...sell the Corvette.
Meanwhile, it doesn't take the fire department very long to figure out that the source of the fire was a cigarette butt in a trash can. Rebecca, the screw-up, is terrified of telling Sam.
Tropes:
- Brick Joke: Cliff's dedication to his job is shown when he throws his bag of undelivered mail behind the bar and goes home. The next morning, after the fire, Cliff says that he'll cover up losing a bag of mail "by staging a Jeep accident." Later in the episode, Cliff has a bandage on his forehead, and when he's asked why he says "Jeep accident."
- A Friend in Need: Despite the fact that she burned down his bar, Sam gives Rebecca her job back. When a shocked Rebecca asks why, Sam remembers how five years ago he was broke and desperate, and she gave him a chance and a job.Sam: Listen, this is very important. We're even now.
- Get Out!: Sam's "Get out. Get out of my bar," said to Rebecca, is even scarier because of the Tranquil Fury way that he says it.
- House Fire: Rebecca's carelessly tossed cigarette butt burns down the back half of the bar.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Rebecca's go-to move, as she bursts into tears while saying "I have something to tell you!" to Sam. It doesn't save her from being fired by a furious Sam.
- Immediate Sequel: Events pick up on the same night as the previous episode, with the gang coming back to Cheers after Woody and Kelly's wedding.
- Noodle Incident:
- As crazy as "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" was, we learn that the actual wedding ceremony was even crazier. Cliff calls it "a comedy of errors" but doesn't say exactly what went wrong. (The minister being drunk off his ass probably factored in.)
- Apparently Woody's family was responsible for the 1871 Chicago Fire. They had to move to Ohio and change their name (from O'Leary) to Wilkins.
Kelly: But Woody, you're from Indiana, and your family name is Boyd.
Woody: Oh, well, some stuff happened in Ohio. - Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Tragically, yet also fittingly, Rebecca's finest hour, namely saving Woody and Kelly's wedding from being a total dumpster fire, is entirely offscreen. And then she returns to form by burning Cheers down.
- Oh, the Humanity!: Norm says "Oh the humanity!" when walking through Cheers after the fire. Then he says he's going to Gary's, and to call him back when the place looks decent. (He comes back, because Gary wouldn't run him a tab.)
- Previously on…: "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" wasn't a cliffhanger but this episode is structured like the follow-up to a cliffhanger, with Norm and Cliff chortling over the events of the wedding while driving back to the bar.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Rebecca gives Sam her life savings to help pay for the insurance deductible and tells him that he deeply hurt her and never wants to see him or Cheers again. Though she immediately comes back when Sam offers her job back.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Frasier, Norm and Cliff don't seem too happy with Sam when he verbally abused Rebecca and told her to leave. Frasier in particular piped up.Frasier: Sam! It was an accident!
Carla: She had it coming.
Frasier: Nobody had that coming!
