The only Cheers to play in real time. The story has no time-lapse between commercial breaks; it is the shortest Cheers story.
Diane interrupts a conversation with John Updike. John Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others were Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner), Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career. He lived most of his life in Massachusetts.
The title is derived from the 1965 film, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold."
Cliff, played by John Ratzenberger, says the smartest animal is a pig. Ratzenberger would go on to voice the piggy bank Hamm in Toy Story (1995), as well as all of the sequels and shorts.
Diane's recreation reading: Plato.