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Cheers to George Wendt, World’s Greatest Barfly
How he made Norm Peterson into TV’s Everyman.
Mr. Peterson (if you were Woody the bartender), was an accountant written as an easygoing, utterly average dude who liked his beer and his bar pals and made jokes about how unsatisfying every aspect of his life was, including his weight, his age, his health, his job, and his marriage to Vera, the only woman he’d ever been with. 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-checked in parentheses. It’s also why, in season four’s “The Peterson Principle,” Norm lies to Vera after finding out that he lost a big promotion because the bosses’ wives didn’t think she was classy enough to hang with them, telling her that he was passed over for a better candidate.
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