Cheers' Thanksgiving Food Fight Episode Came With A Nightmarish Stench
Ask a dozen "Cheers" fans what the show's funniest moment is, and you'll get a dozen different answers. The beloved '80s sitcom bowed out in 1993 with a grand total of 275 episodes under its belt and countless laugh-out-loud bits in pretty much every episode. It's tough to pinpoint the show's funniest moment, but when it comes to crowning its most spontaneous-feeling comedic one, there's an obvious contender: the knock-down, drag-out food fight from season 5's holiday episode "Thanksgiving Orphans."
The food fight that takes place at Carla's (Rhea Perlman) house is clearly a scripted part of the series, but it unfolds with a surprising mix of precise aim and comedic chaos, much of which feels totally organic. The kerfuffle starts with a simple bit of antagonism; when Norm (George Wendt) fails to produce a cooked turkey after hours spent waiting, he and Carla begin sniping at each other about their respective cooking skills. Soon, Norm lobs a pea at Carla and she returns the favor by flinging carrots in his face. Diane (Shelley Long) attempts to stop the chaos but gets struck down in the line of duty by a spoonful of cranberry sauce — a striking image episode co-writer Bill Steinkellner once compared to an action movie death scene. From then on, all hell breaks loose.
A smell to remember
The "Cheers" food fight is hilarious both for its relatability — it's a cathartic expression of all the bad holiday dinner feelings any of us have ever felt — and its real-feeling intensity. The thwack sounds of food making contact with skin become almost ridiculously loud, and at one point, a set wall begins to tremble from the impact of so many bodies being flung around. In a Hollywood Reporter retrospective from 2018, though, series co-creator Glen Charles said at least one element of the scene wasn't real: the food itself.
"It wasn't real food," Charles told the outlet. "Real food wouldn't have stuck on things." Though the TV veteran didn't give away the starchy secrets behind the fake Thanksgiving dishes, he admitted that they were pretty rank. "The combination of things we used caused the worst smell," Charles said. In fact, the memory of that foul odor lingered on for the involved cast members, even decades later. "When I run into anyone in the cast they still comment on the smell," he added. In a separate 2015 retrospective by Yahoo, Long recalled the smell as well, saying, "The smell of the food fight was unbelievable." Director James Burrows, who noted his memory could be hazy on the details of the shoot, told Yahoo he did remember some real food on set and noted that "there was definitely a major odor."
The scene is Cheers at its most spontaneous and entertaining
Other parts of the sequence, like moments in which castmates including Ted Danson seem poised to fall flat on their faces, were definitely real. "Nobody could keep their footing so not only were they getting pummeled with food, but everybody was slipping and falling," writer-producer Peter Casey told THR. Casey noted that the cast and crew didn't anticipate the effect the warm "food" would have on the set floor, but says that "the audience went crazy" when witnessing the filming of the scene. The fun didn't stop when the scene ended, either. "Jimmy yelled 'Cut!' but nobody stopped," Steinkellner recalled. "It went on and on."
The actual choreography of the fight apparently wasn't rehearsed, which may be what makes it feel so dynamic. "It had to be all set before that food fight. We had to film everything [else first]," Steinkellner told Yahoo, to which his wife and co-writer Cheri added, "Because once they get gravy in their hair, there's no going back." The cast apparently shot the scene twice in total, aided in clean-up in between by a (slippery) tarp that had been laid down during filming.
Like many of the best parts of "Cheers," the food fight is a scene that teeters on the brink between good-natured mayhem and outright meanness. This ragtag group of people loves each other, but they also spend much of the series wishing they could clobber one another, and in one memorable, slippery, disgusting scene, they finally get to — in the most entertaining way possible.