"Coach's Daughter" is the fifth episode of the American television sitcom ''
Cheers
''Cheers'' is an American sitcom television series that ran on NBC from September 30, 1982, to May 20, 1993, with a total of 275 half-hour episodes across 11 seasons. The show was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association w ...
'', written by
Ken Estin
Ken Estin is an American television producer and screenwriter. He has worked on ''Taxi'' and '' Cheers'' and co-created ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' with James L. Brooks''.'' In 1982 Ken won an Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy Series for th ...
and directed by
James Burrows
James Edward Burrows (born December 30, 1940), sometimes known as Jim "Jimmy" Burrows, is an American television director who has been working in television since the 1970s.Stated in interview on ''Inside the Actors Studio'' Burrows has direct ...
. It first aired on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
on October 28, 1982. This episode guest stars
Allyce Beasley
Allyce Beasley ( Tannenberg) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as rhyming, love-struck receptionist Agnes DiPesto in the television series ''Moonlighting''. From 2001 to 2007, she was the announcer on Playhouse Disney, a mor ...
as
Coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
's daughter, Lisa Pantusso. In this episode, Lisa arrives with her fiancé Roy, who is boorish and obnoxious and rude to her, causing Coach to resent him.
When it first aired, this episode scored very low
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
; however, network reruns of this episode improved. Although it did not earn award nominations, it has been praised as a favorite by critics and cast alike, including the late
Nicholas Colasanto
Nicholas Colasanto (January 19, 1924 – February 12, 1985) was an American actor and television director who is best known for his role as "Coach" Ernie Pantusso in the American television sitcom ''Cheers''. He served in the United States Nav ...
.
Plot
Coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
's (
Nicholas Colasanto
Nicholas Colasanto (January 19, 1924 – February 12, 1985) was an American actor and television director who is best known for his role as "Coach" Ernie Pantusso in the American television sitcom ''Cheers''. He served in the United States Nav ...
) daughter Lisa (
Allyce Beasley
Allyce Beasley ( Tannenberg) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as rhyming, love-struck receptionist Agnes DiPesto in the television series ''Moonlighting''. From 2001 to 2007, she was the announcer on Playhouse Disney, a mor ...
), a district manager of her company, arrives with her fiancé Roy (
Philip Charles MacKenzie
Philip Charles MacKenzie (born Philip Charles Harris on May 7, 1946) is an American actor and television director. He is best known for his role as Donald Maltby on ''Brothers'', and as Ted Nichols on '' Open House'', which he worked on with hi ...
), a door-to-door salesman who works for her company but turns out to be abrasive and insensitive.
[Lisa personally characterizes Roy during her conversation with Coach in the office.] Repulsed by Roy's obnoxious, boorish personality and insults toward people, including Lisa, Coach finds Roy not good enough for her. However, Coach is too reluctant to tell her about Roy because she appears to like him and wants her father's blessings. To make matters worse, at Melville's restaurant, Roy forces her to pay for dinner herself, angering Coach.
Unable to keep his silence, Coach escorts Lisa into an office and openly refuses to let Lisa marry someone who treats her badly, like Roy. Lisa admits that she knows everything about Roy and that Roy wants to marry her merely for business reasons. Then Lisa reluctantly tells Coach that, despite all that, she wants to have a family of her own, that Roy is the first man in her life to propose to her but will be the last. Coach, shocked with disbelief, tells her that she's "beautiful", but Lisa objects and begs him for one moment to look at her and see what she really is. Coach then realizes and tells Lisa how much she resembles her mother,
[Coach's wife died before the show premiered in 1982.] who Lisa said was not "comfortable about her
wnbeauty." Coach tells Lisa that she is more beautiful every day, regardless of her appearance, just as her mother was more beautiful every day.
Lisa, feeling self-confident from her talk with Coach, tells Roy that she does not want to marry him because she finds him "more and more obnoxious." Roy vows that he will be "gone" as he exits the bar. Lisa prepares to celebrate her freedom from Roy with Coach, as they leave the bar. Meanwhile,
Diane (
Shelley Long
Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and comedian. Long portrayed Diane Chambers on the hit sitcom ''Cheers'' and received five Emmy nominations, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Serie ...
) draws sketches of people, but her efforts show no resemblance to their subjects.
Production
Ken Levine remarked that the whole audience laughed during the filming of an office scene between Coach and his daughter at the end of the episode. It was reshot but the audience still laughed. Glen and Les Charles decided to lift the laughter from the office scene, so it is not heard in the final cut.
[Levine, Ken. "". ''...by Ken Levine'' April 24, 2011. Web. June 8, 2012. Archived from th]
original
Before portraying Tim—a minor recurring character—in multiple episodes,
Tim Cunningham
Tim Cunningham is an American actor and baseball coach. He is known for playing the recurring role of "Chuck" and " Tim" on 38 episodes of the American sitcom television series ''Cheers''. Cunningham guest-starred in television programs includin ...
portrays Chuck,
[ who works at the lab that mutates viruses. Jacqueline Cassel and Teddy Bergeron are credited as a couple, to whom Diane shows her botched artwork.][
]
Reception
Ratings
This episode first aired on NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
on October 28, 1982, at 9:00pm Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
/Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
(8:00pm Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
/Mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...
), competing against CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
's ''Simon & Simon
''Simon & Simon'' is an American crime drama television series that originally ran from November 24, 1981, to September 16, 1989. The series was broadcast on CBS, and starred Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker as two disparate brothers who operate ...
'' and ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
's ''Too Close for Comfort
''Too Close for Comfort'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on ABC from November 11, 1980, to May 5, 1983, and in first-run syndication from April 7, 1984, to February 7, 1987. Its name was changed to ''The Ted Knight Show'' whe ...
'',[October 28, 1982. "Television Schedule", Calendar section (Pt. VI), p. 10.][ and landed on No. 66 out of 75 nationally broadcast prime time programs with an 11.0 ]Nielsen rating
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rati ...
.[November 4, 1982. "Television Ratings", Calendar section (Part VI), page 12. A rating is based on 83.3 million households with at least one television set.] In Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, it aired on November 11, 1982, at 8:00pm AKT
Protein kinase B (PKB), also known as Akt, is the collective name of a set of three serine/threonine-specific protein kinases that play key roles in multiple cellular processes such as glucose metabolism, apoptosis, cell proliferation, transc ...
.
This episode subsequently aired on NBC on March 10, 1983, at 9:30pm ET/PT (8:30pm CT/MT), competing against ''Simon & Simon'' and '' It Takes Two'',[March 10, 1983. "Television Schedule", Calendar section (Pt. VI), p. 8.] and landed on No. 42 out of 72 nationally broadcast programs with the 14.8 rating.[March 17, 1983. "Television Ratings", Calendar section (Pt. VI). A rating is based on 83.3 million households with at least one television set.] It aired again on NBC on July 7, 1983, at 9:30pm ET/PT (8:30pm CT/MT), competing against a rerun of ''Simon & Simon'' and ABC's two-hour television movie, ''The Last Ninja'',["Television Schedule".]
''Spokane Chronicle
The ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'' is a daily digital newspaper in Spokane, Washington. It was founded as a weekly paper in 1881 and grew into an afternoon daily, competing with ''The Spokesman-Review'', which was formed from the merger of two comp ...
'' July 7, 1983: 16. ''Google News
Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web.
Google rel ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012. and landed on No. 21 out of 66 nationally broadcast programs with a 12.9 rating and 23 share.["NBC Wins Nielsen Race". '']Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'' July 13, 1983: 12A. ''NewsBank
NewsBank is a news database resource that provides archives of media publications as reference materials to libraries.
History
John Naisbitt, the author of the book ''Megatrends'', founded NewsBank.Andrews 1998, p. 17. The company was launched i ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012. Document no. 8302240139. . Article at MiamiHerald.com: . A rating is based on 83.3 million households with at least one television set, and a share is a percentage of viewership within a specific period.
Critical reaction
Reviews have been positive. It is considered one of the favorites of cast and crew who were involved with this episode, including Allyce Beasley[King, Susan]
"With An Eye On...: The Beast In Beasley Finally Emerges In 'The Tommyknockers'."
May 9, 1993. Web. June 8, 2012. and especially the late Nicholas Colasanto.[ ]George Wendt
George Robert Wendt Jr. (born October 17, 1948) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Norm Peterson on the television sitcom ''Cheers'' (1982–1993), which earned him six consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy ...
and John Ratzenberger
John Dezso Ratzenberger (born April 6, 1947)[About John](_blank)
from Ratzenberger's official website is an Americ ...
—who portrayed Norm
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...
and Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...
, respectively—considered it one of their personal favorites, mainly because of the office scene between Coach and his daughter.[Jefferson, Graham.]
As Cliff and Carla wrap up on `Cheers' // Ratzenberger: From bar to barbershop
" ''USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'' May 5, 1993: D3. ''ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012. . Article at USAToday.com: .[Harris, Mark.]
Cover Story: Cheers!
''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' October 26, 1990. Web. June 8, 2012. R.D. Heldenfels from ''The Sunday Gazette'' called the office scene "poignant."[Heldenfels, R.D.]
`Human comedy' made `Cheers' endearing.
''TV Plus'' at ''The Sunday Gazette'' chenectady, New YorkMay 16, 1993: 3. ''Google News
Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web.
Google rel ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012. Robert Bianco of ''The Pittsburgh Press
''The Pittsburgh Press'' (formerly ''The Pittsburg Press'' and originally ''The Evening Penny Press'') was a major afternoon daily newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1884 to 1992. At one time, the ''Press'' was the second larg ...
'' praised this episode as one of his favorites and called its office scene between Coach and his daughter "tender".[ Record no. at '']NewsBank
NewsBank is a news database resource that provides archives of media publications as reference materials to libraries.
History
John Naisbitt, the author of the book ''Megatrends'', founded NewsBank.Andrews 1998, p. 17. The company was launched i ...
'': 9001080362 .
Many reviewers at ''The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' agreed that the scene between Coach and his daughter at the office is the most redeeming part of the episode, but they have mixed feelings about the rest of the episode. Ryan McGee found this episode too draggy and found Coach's daughter—Lisa—underdeveloped. Meredith Blake found this episode "underwhelming". Others praised this episode overall, including moments outside the story of Coach's daughter. Erik Adams observed that Coach can immediately sense a bad aspect about Roy, even when he is a "simpleton".[Reviews of "Coach's Daughter".]
''The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' December 1, 2011. Web. June 8, 2012.
Aftermath
Glen and Les Charles
Glen Gerald Charles (born February 18, 1943) and Les Charles (born March 25, 1948) are American screenwriters and television producers, best known for ''Taxi'' and '' Cheers''.
Early life and careers
The Charles brothers attended University o ...
wanted this episode Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, but Ken Estin, writer of this episode, declined. (Estin was working simultaneously on ''Taxi
A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...
'', and as he was permitted only to submit one episode to the nominating committee for consideration, he submitted a ''Taxi'' script instead.)[
Before appearing as a receptionist for a fictional detective agency in the television show, '']Moonlighting
Moonlighting may refer to:
* Side job, a job taken in addition to one's primary employment
Entertainment
* ''Moonlighting'' (film), a 1982 drama film by Jerzy Skolimowski
* ''Moonlighting'' (TV series), 1985–1989 American television series, s ...
'', Allyce Beasley had not found other roles for one year after this episode, according to Beasley herself.[Carter, Alan]
"Future's Bright for Allyce Beasley."
''Evening Independent
The ''Evening Independent'' was St. Petersburg, Florida's first daily newspaper. The sister evening newspaper of the ''St. Petersburg Times'', it was launched as a weekly newspaper in March 1906 under the ownership of Willis B. Powell. In Novem ...
'' t. Petersburg, FloridaJune 10, 1986: 5B. ''Google News
Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web.
Google rel ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012.
In popular culture
This episode is referenced in the novel ''American Gods
''American Gods'' (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shadow.
The book was pub ...
'' by Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
. In the novel, the main character is revealed to have watched this episode, particularly the office scene between Coach and his daughter. Later, gods contact him by controlling Carla, Cliff, and Diane via broadcast of this episode.
References
;From this episode
;''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''
;Other sources
[Bjorklund, Dennis A. "Season One: 1982-83." ''Cheers TV Show: A Comprehensive Reference''. Praetorian Publishing, 1993. 285. '']Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012.
[Snauffer, Douglas.]
Cheers
" ''The Show Must Go On: How the Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected the Television Series''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008. 54. ''Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
''. Web. June 8, 2012.
External links
*
*
Coach's Daughter
at TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
{{Cheers
1982 American television episodes
Cheers episodes
Television episodes directed by James Burrows