Clifford Clavin was the famous trivia spewing mailman on "Cheers". Cliff was played By John Ratzenberger.

The character of Cliff Clavin was original scheduled for 7 episodes. Cliff started out as a mailman who had a great knowledge of trivia. He slowly became a regular cast member who's knowledge of trivia became a little quirkier.

The most memorable feature of Cliff was the fact he always had some useless fact of trivia to share with the regular crowd in the Cheers bar. Quite often Cliff's trivia was quite often semi wrong.

Cliff lived with his mom for most of the show's run. Cliff's mother taught Cliff most of his trivia. Cliff was quite heartbroken when his mother moved. Finally at one point Cliff's mother went down to Florida, but quite often Cliff's mother was still brought up. Cliff was sometimes heard shout "My mother isn't old and she is never going to die before I do." then would leave the room.

Norm Peterson was Cliff's best friend. The reason for this is that Norm never said anything mean to Cliff as well as Norm was always around to listen to his trivia factoids. Cliff would almost constantly rely on Norm to be there for him. As Norm's life revolved around the bar, Norm would always be there for anyone and Cliff took him up on that fact more then once.

Cliff believed that being a mailman is the highest position a man can take. Once when met Martin Crane, Frasier Crane's father and found out that he was a cop, he responded with "Couldn't pass the mail carrier's exam?" Cliff would defend the post office so much, one may think he will die for it.

Cliff also believed that all Americans should be involved in the country any way they could. Cliff often wrote to politicians in Boston and Massachusetts. When the mayor came to visit and Cliff introduced himself and mentioned his letters he was arrested and detained. Cliff thought that he was always making a huge difference in the world.

One of the major episodes of "Cheers" that revolved around Cliff was the episode where Cliff went on "Jeopardy" the first time they went on location. The categories were

  • "Civil Servants"
  • "Stamps from Around the world"
  • "Mothers and Sons"
  • "Beer"
  • "Bar Trivia"
  • "Celibacy"
Cliff ended up going into Final Jeopardy with $22,000 dollars. He risked all $22,000 dollars on the final question and ended up losing the game to a woman with 400 dollars.

While serving mail, Cliff was assigned to train a new postal carrier Margaret O'Keefe. Cliff fell in love with Margaret who he called Maggie. Maggie graduated from Cliff's training. Later, when they arranged to meet and have an affair she took a postal vehicle to the rendezvous. When they turned themselves in she was fired and ended up taking a job in the Canadian Postal Office.

A couple months later Maggie came back and Cliff and Maggie were engaged. Cliff's engagement caused his eyesight to disappear when in the room with Maggie. Finally Maggie returned when she was pregnant with Cliff's baby. When all was said and done, Clifford was single yet again.

Carla Tortelli, Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin all were guest stars on an episode of "Frasier" at the end of the 2001 season in an episode called "Cheerful Goodbyes". The episode involved a going away party for Cliff Clavin, but alas at the end of the episode Cliff decided to stay in Boston and continue to work for the post office.

In addition Cliff's favorite song was "Ballad of the Green Berets"

In Cliff's Final Jeopardy! the answer was

Archibald Leach,
Bernard Schwartz,
and Lucille LeSuer

Cliff's correct but unacceptable response: "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?"

The correct question is "What were the real names of Cary Grant, Tony Curtis and Joan Crawford?"

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