It’s true! While no tape exists of the scenes that featured actor Tobin Bell visiting the Cheers bar, we recently managed to get our hands on a small piece of the script.
(In this scene, Norm and Cliff have been arguing. Feeling aggrieved, he moves around the bar, ending up sitting next to Saw).
SAW: It appears that your watch has stopped, may I?
CLIFF: Huh? Oh, sure, pal, be my guest. (He hands his watch to Saw, who fiddles with it for a moment and then hands it back).
SAW: There you go.
CLIFF: What the- that’s amazing! How’d you do that? You must be some sort of mechanical genius!
SAW: I would hope so. (Pause) I also build intricate machines that torture and dismember people, usually involving some sort of behavioral choice. It’s very challenging work.
CLIFF: Huh. (Long pause) Lotta money in something like that?
SAW: Not really. I do it out of love.
CLIFF: (Thinking) Would you be able to make a machine to handle a guy who weighs, say, 300 pounds? (He glares at Norm).
SAW: Yeah, sure, I could do that.
CLIFF: And maybe just torture him a little, you know? Maybe just tickle him with a feather. Where does, uh, this torturing take place?
SAW: In dank, fetid basements and tunnels. I own seventeen miles of basement in this town.
This is all that survives… a scrap rescued from a fire. Apparently the show was considered “too upsetting” for the Cheers audience.
