George Wendt Cheers’s Norm Peterson Obitury – ryan

Wendt with Cheers Co-Creer Glen Charles and Ted Danson.
Photo: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal Via Getty Images

Cheers‘s opening theme song said the eponymous bar was wherereebody knows your name. But Only One of Its Regulars was Beloved Enough to have his name shouted in unison every time he walked into the place. Norm, AKA Norman Peterson, AKA Normie, AKA Mr. Peterson (if you were woody the bartender), was an accountant Written as an EasyGOING, Utterly Average dude who likes and his pals and made jokes About How unsatistfying aspects of his life, including his, his, his, his. Health, His Job, and His Mariage to Vera, The Only Woman He’d Ever Been With. But the most viewers got to know the character – played, of Course, by George Wendt, Who Died YESTERDAY AT 76 IN HIS SLEEP OF UNKNOWN Causes, Acciting to His Family – The More Complex, and SEEED.

The Seeds of the Character’s Greatness Were there in the work from the moment the show premiered in 1982 with “give me a ring Someime,” Which Featured the first of 273 Exchanges Norm and Bar Patrons Following His Entrance. (The Bar’s Owner, Ex -Red Sox Pitcher Sam Malone, Played by Ted Danson, Calls Out, “How Ya Doin ‘, Norm? Whatdaya Know?” And Norm Mutters, “Not Enough,” Before Taching His Customa Seat.)

Wendt Embodied Norm SO Completely from Frame One That He Insided The Writers and Producers to Keep Unpacking New Layers, All the Way Through the Show’s 11th and Last Season, Wen, in The Final Episode, The Highest that Norm: He gets to retroactive define what the show has always been about. Following Yet Another of Sam’s Botched ATTEMPTS at reuniting with his ex-girlfriend Diane Chambers (shelley long), the diehards hang Out after-hours and smoke cigarette before exity one by one, leaving only sam and norm, who pauses at the front on His on and on and on his way on and on his way on and Quietly Sayys, “She’ll Always Come Back to You” – an oblique confirmation that sam’s true great love was always cheers itself.

The Show Took a-Déclassé Format, the half-hour situation comedy wrink and filmed like a stage play, and raising it to the level of the best screenwber COMEDIES of Hollywood Early Sound, we are directors like Howards and preston Sturges and Frank Cap. Eccentric Characters into a Story Line Engineered with the precision of a pinball game to make me tumble and collide. The Writing rhythm was particular and ritualized. The Viewer Got Used to It and Could Usually predict where the moment would go, this is what it was difficult to guess exactly how it would there. It was up to the actors to inject suspens or surprise through their delivery. All the Cast Members Were Wizards of the Timing that the form demanded. But wendt was a cut Above, Maybe Becusee he was in many ways the “Smallat” in terms of His Acting, Always Doing More with LESS, A MASTER OF THE Expertly Judes Pauses that Could Knock A Funny Line Into The Next County. Whether wendt was working with an ensemble or breaking off for a duet with Sam, Diane, or One of the Other Regulars, Norma the Bar’s Stealthy Standout.

Wendt was the first actor of the recall Seeing identified in a review with the adjective the great in front of his name. Writing About the first episode, the TV critic for my local newspaper did the expert Rundown of the full and the characters. Every Actor – Including Danson, ALREADY SomeWhat of a Familiar Face Thanks to roles in the films Body Heat and The onion Field and many guest shots on hit tv programs-was name-cocked in parentheses. Wendt, Though, Was Described As “The Great George Wendt.” I took this to mean that wendt was an acclaimed character actor who, as a budding movie nerd, I should have already known about, like jack warten or walter huston. But no: it tourned out the norm was the first role of any significance that wendt had ever boked, after bopping around his hometown stages in chicago (where he was of the origin of the Second City). “The Great” was in there, i Now Suspect, Because the Writer was gobsmacked by Him and wanted to make sura his name jumped out.

Wendt was indeed great in just about everything, including the Comedies Airprane II, Fletch, The Little Rascals, and Spice World; Memorable One-off Guest Shots Bebind a Microphone for The Simpsons and Family Guy (Parodying Cheers); laid-back, intimate drama like Outside Providence, somehre in timeand the underseen Lakeboat (A tribute to the crews of the great laks, Written by wendt’s Friend and Fellow Chicagoan David Mamet); and SKETCH-DRIENCE LIKE PROGRAMS Portlandia and Saturday Night Live (Where Wendt Was One Of “Bob Swerski’s Superfans”). But Norm overhadowed everything in wendt’s cv, getting Him Six Emmy Nominations (he never won, alas) and guaranteing that he would Pay for His Own Drinks.

I Started Watching Norm-Centric Episodes of Cheers Last Night while Writing This, Intending to Skim the Highlights, But the Richness of Both the Character and the Acve Proved SO Engrossing That I Ended Up Staying Till Dawn Watching Norm full and subplot, marveling at the correctness of Judgment. Character Kept Revealing New Layers. The Most Rewarding Can Be Found in the Substrates About Vera, WHOM he Constantly cuts down as unattractive, uninterested in sex, materialistic, and various other ld-Ball-chain clichés but who is secrely norm’s rock. In Season Two’s “Norman’s Conquest” – The One in Which Norm is tempted to cheat on vera with a client of his – we learn that norms jokes are reflexive stove he has never really interrogated. The gist is that he has haen conditioned to act that way arund other men and doesn’t have the tools or self-awareness to the figure out to quit. (There’s a classic Cheers Construction in this episode when Norm Talls Sam, “Those Jokes About Vera Aren’t Treat TRUE. You know, like the one about the tentacles.”) Norm Makes a “confession” to Sam: “I love my wife.” Of Course, Norm Resolves to Do Better, then immediately rushes into the back room, where he’d just had a Heart-to-Heart with Sam and Diane, so he can fetch a jacket as a prop in yet another vera Story, then pauses at the day! “

It ‘samply true that drama is about People Changing, while comedy is about how People Never Change. Normal was one of the best and funniest examples of that principle, as evidenced in classic episodes like season three “Peterson crusoe,” in which he has a medical scare and decides to be Existing away and run off to bora snow, then chicretly hid hiding Office for a Week; and another season-three episode, “The Executive’s Executioner,” in Which Norm Accepts a Soul-Destroying Job as a hatchet man for his fiter an Executive tells Him he’ll gets as much and that if heys “no,” he firmed. “Sir,” Norm Says, “I will have you know that I cannot be bought and i cannot be threatened.” (Quarter-Second Pause) “But if you put the two together, i’m your man.”

Stasis can be a bad thing if you’re stack in a professional rut like norm. But it can be a net good if the thing is never changes is essentially positive and healthy. This comes through Clearly in Scenes About Norm and His Relationship with, and to, Vera. (Wendt’s Real-Life Widow, The Actress Bernadette BIRKETT, MET HIM at the Second City in 1974.) Norm’s Life is a Disappointment, by His Own Admission, but were clears the fog from his mind, he has had Having met in High School is swimming all the time. And that vera’s loyalty is not to be taken for gram, so we are telling jokes that Ralph Kramden Might Have Found Insensitive. There’s a bit of Willy loman in norms and away from his best buddy, Cliff (John Ratzenberger). When they’re Together, there’s Vladimir-Estragon Energy with a splash of Laurel and Hardy. Consider as His Own Fictional Creation, apart from the show and from sitcom history, norm is an exquisitely shaped character, far more impressive to consider an episode has ended than you’re screw up and then try to repair the damage.

The Goodness in Norm Comes Through Ever More Strongly As The Seasons Roll on. He may be a wreck, but he’s a wreck we can all recognis and related to. And he’i’s still got a moral comass. That’s why he quits the corplate-killer jab after figures out, with Diane’s help, that it is destroying the heart-on-slee empathy that made his bosses reCruit Him in the first place. It ‘also why, in the season four’s “The Peterson Principle,” Norm Lies to Vera After Finding Out and Lost a Big Promotion Because the Bosses’ Wives Didn’t Think She Was Classy Enough to Hang, Talat Her and Passed Over Over For A Better Candidate. “I’m a Laser,” he tells her on the phone. “I don’t know why you don’t just go Pack up your bags and leaves.” Then he adds, “On a terrible day likety, I feel like the Luckies man in the World Because of Maried you.” Here, as Always, wendt makes you feed the pain of youing but also the value. There’s always more going on the performer’s face than the dialogue is ready to tell us – more, spread, said Norm Himself Could real. That critic was right so Very Long Ago: George wendt was always great. Norm let us see it.