Norm Peterson - Fictional Biography

Fictional Biography

Prior to the show, Norm was born in Chicago, and moved to Boston to become an accountant, although he was a childhood friend of Cliff Clavin, and is a lifelong Boston Celtics fan who went to Boston Garden as a child. Norm previously served in the United States Coast Guard. He loses his job in an accounting firm by defending Diane from his boss, and after struggling for few years as an independent accountant, eventually becomes a housepainter. Norm was also revealed to be an accomplished interior decorator and beer taster, capable of spotting a bad vat in a factory by drinking a single bottle.

Ironically, even when unemployed, Norm is the bar's best customer. A running gag throughout the series are the numerous jokes made about the enormous size of Norm's tab at Cheers (e.g., several large binders are shown as being just a portion of it – in the episode Home Malone (season 9, episode 25), when Woody's rich, naive girlfriend Kelly waitresses at Cheers to gain "real-life experience", Norm convinces her that the tab is a record of the beers for which he has already paid, and for each new beer a mark should be erased – and in the finale Sam has to have his total tab for the series calculated by NASA). In the few instances when Norm drinks at another bar, he is immediately kicked out because the bartenders demand an immediate cash payment instead of a tab.

Norm's best friend is postman and fellow barfly Cliff Clavin, who calls him "Normy", which when pronounced in Cliff's Boston accent, sounds like "Nommy" (rhyming with "Mommy"). Norm has a tattoo on his rear of an American flag which reads "God Bless the U.S. Postal Service" which he got after a mix up at a tattoo parlor he and Cliff visited after a night drinking cocktails made by Carla at Cheers.

Norm has a wife named Vera who is often mentioned but her face is never seen. When she is finally shown, her face is covered in pie thrown by Diane (season 5, episode 9 Thanksgiving Orphans), and the actress is uncredited. The only other times she is seen, viewers can see only her legs and at one time her waving from a car which drives past Cheers on her and Norm's 15th wedding anniversary. Vera is the brunt of many of Norm's jokes, but on many occasions, Norm has professed secretly an undying love for his wife, or defended her honor. Norm and Vera separated during the second season of Cheers but reconciled in the last episode of the season, ironically contrasting the romance between Sam and Diane, who enjoyed a romance then bitterly broke up in that last episode. When Vera got a job at Melville's however, he was deeply disturbed by her proximity to him during his bar time. Vera was played by George Wendt's real-life wife, Bernadette Birkett.

In the Cheers episode It's a Wonderful Wife (season 9, episode 20) Vera tells Rebecca off-camera that Norm's real first name is Hillary. He explains that he was named after his grandfather who "once killed a man for laughing at him". Cliff asks if his grandfather really killed a man for laughing at his first name, and Norm replies, "Not exactly – he was a surgeon and he sort of botched an operation."

When not sipping beer at Cheers, Norm satisfies his hunger at an eatery called The Hungry Heifer, whose emblem is a young cow smacking her chops. The customers there greet him just the same as the Cheers patrons do. He knows the waitresses by name, and usually orders a meal called a Feeding Frenzy, a monstrous supply of corn and beef. He denigrated the eatery when he first visited it in season 2, but when the place was being shut down in season 9, he insinuates it was an important place to him throughout his life and knew the owner since at latest his college years. Corrine (played by Doris Grau), who worked at Cheers occasionally as a temp waitress, was a server at The Hungry Heifer, and said the waitstaff knew Norm as "the guy who comes back".