The sitcom Cheers had as warm a cast of neurotics as you could hope to enjoy on the screen but whom you would never want to have live in your home. There was the obsessive narcissist and mentally challenged Sam, in its early years there was the limited intellectual snob Diane who had the best, most brilliant, acting face since Marcel Marceau, there was coach who had taken one-too-many baseballs on the head, there was sexually obsessed Carla, with a heart of gold who covered it with a mean streak that fired darts in almost every show. Then there was Cliff and Norm. Cliff wore proudly his postman’s uniform and had a head filled with knowledge that suffered from unconnected dots. Norm, his barstool buddy, who was weighed down by a lifetime of defeat in marriage and in his world beyond the hearth, found solace in his beer and bar companions. More than thirty years later, the comedy, because it dealt with common human foibles, is as appealing today in reruns as it was then. In one episode, Cliff applied his Buffalo Theory to applied boozing.
Cliff speaks:
Well, you see Norm, it’s like this . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that’re killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why we always feel smarter after a few beers.
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