The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be.
Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role model for those who used to haunt bars and pubs, and for many who still do. This cuddly, ursine and somewhat shambolic character was held in affection by viewers and all in the fictional drinking-hole – he was greeted upon his arrival with the universal salutation, ‘Norm!’ – mostly because he was just consistently funny. He would deploy killer responses to routine enquiries: ‘What’d you like, Normie?’ ‘A reason to live. Give me another beer.’ And despite an evident over-fondness for the drink, he rarely got drunk.
If his sardonic replies and lugubrious disposition betrayed an obvious disappointment with life, that made him all the more endearing.
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