Title: The Last Angry Mailman
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Ken Levine & David Isaacs
Air Date: November 12, 1987
Previous: Paint Your Office
Next: Bidding on the Boys
Guest Starring: Frances Sternhagen, Kevin Dunn
"The Last Angry Mailman" is the 7th episode of the sixth season of Cheers.
It effectively has two separate A-plots. In one, Frasier shares some delicious gossip he heard from a colleague: apparently, back in her college days at the University of Connecticut, Rebecca Howe was a wild party girl. In fact it turns out she had a nickname: "Backseat Becky". The whole gang, and Sam in particular, become consumed with curiosity as to just how she got that name.
In the other plot, developers have come to the neighborhood where Cliff grew up. Cliff and Ma Clavin (second of seven appearances for Frances Sternhagen) refuse to vacate Cliff's childhood home—until a developer shows up and offers Esther Clavin $250,000, which she happily accepts. This leaves Cliff alone, trying to stop the demolition of the family home.
First episode to show Cliff's home life. The show would leave the bar more often in later years as the departure of Diane Chambers left the writers looking for new storylines.
Tropes:
- Banister Slide: A little background detail to fill out Cliff's vague creepiness, as Ma looks at a picture of Cliff sliding down the banister and says "I always thought you spent entirely too much time doing that."
- Childhood Memory Demolition Team: Cliff takes it a little too seriously when his Ma sells her house to developers who will bulldoze it.
- Jackhammered Conversation: Cliff has handcuffed himself to a pillar in the house, as the demolition crew is working right outside. Norm comes over and yells at Cliff in a moment where all the conversation is inaudible thanks to the whistling and jackhammering. Everything outside suddenly stops just in time for the audience to hear Norm saying "—the world's biggest ass!"
- Little Known Facts: Ma Clavin tells Cliff a Little Known Fact about how Yorkshire pudding was invented during a meat shortage. Cliff then regurgitates this at the bar, showing where much of his inane trivia comes from.
- Meaningful Background Event: This episode marks the return of Nicholas Colasanto's Geronimo picture, which had been hanging off the back wall as a Shout-Out ever since Colasanto's death in Season Three, but was missing for the Season Six premiere. In-Universe, it fits in with the arc throughout early Season 6 of Sam and the gang slowly getting Rebecca to get rid of all the ugly new decor and bring the bar back to normal.
- Mythology Gag: When Ma Clavin says she's going to take that $250K and move to Florida, Cliff says "Florida? Who would ever want to live in that stink hole?" A Running Gag in Season 3 had Cliff come back from a Florida vacation and continually bore the pants off of everybody by talking about it.
- Noodle Incident: The exact nature of how Rebecca got the "Backseat Becky" nickname in college. Rebecca eventually tells a steamy story about having sex with a fireman in the back seat of a car—a story that she got from Carla for $10.
- Plot Hole: Frasier reports that he had lunch with an old colleague, who says that back at UConn Rebecca Howe was quite the "party girl". Just how did this come up in conversation? Why would Frasier bring up the name of the woman who manages his Local Hangout, especially when he didn't know that Rebecca went to Connecticut?
- Spit Take: Not shown, but the shooting noise of a Spit Take can be heard offscreen as Ma Clavin says she signed the petition to stop development in the neighborhood.
- Your Mom: The sniping between Cliff and his neighbor Jim leads Jim to insult Cliff for living with his mom, which leads Cliff to insult Jim's mom, which makes Jim say "My mother's a saint!", only for Cliff to shoot back "St. Bernard!"
