Diane (Shelley Long): I find older men stimulating.
Sam (Ted Danson): I hope you're not talking about me.
Diane: Oh, certainly not. You're not the least bit stimulating.
Harry Anderson is probably best known for his work as Judge Harry T. Stone on Night Court.
But before, during and after Night Court, Anderson was Harry the Hat, a recurring character on Cheers! In fact, he made six appearances as Harry the Hat, and his best may well have been in the episode that first aired on this night in 1983, "Pick a Con ... Any Con."
Harry the Hat was a hustler, and his services were needed in this episode because Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) had been losing a lot of money to a conman, and Harry was just the guy to get it back.
Harry's idea was to set up the conman with a poker game. That was his weakness. So arrangements were made for what would appear to be a friendly game of poker at the bar. The other participants were going to be the guys from the bar.
The guys would have to provide their own money to make everything seem on the up and up. And Sam (Ted Danson) had to provide some $5,000 with which Harry could gamble. But the guys all thought they were going to get their money back so it didn't take much convincing to get them to invest their money in the plan.
But Harry double–crossed them. He merely let them think they were setting up the conman. In reality, Harry and the conman were setting up the guys in the bar, and it appeared they were going to get away with it.
But the guys caught on to what was happening, which led to a one–on–one round of five–card draw between Harry and the other conman.
Sam thought Harry was going to win back the money for the guys in the bar, which was what the original plan had been — and it turned out that he did — but he made a beeline for the door, and it looked like he had conned everyone.
Then, in one of the niftiest switcheroos since "The Sting," it turned out that Harry and the Coach (of all people) had actually cooked up the whole thing in advance. They had conned the conman and the guys at the bar.
Sleight of hand. It'll get ya every time.
If you've never seen it, try to catch it somehow — on DVD or Netflix or whatever.
