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7 months ago

John Ratzenberger was about to walk out of an audition in 1982 when he decided to try something reckless. The producers of a new NBC sitcom about a Boston bar had just told him they already had enough characters. Instead of leaving, Ratzenberger leaned forward and said the show was missing one thing. A bar needs someone who thinks he knows everything. He pitched the character right there in the room. A postal worker who hangs at the end of the bar explaining strange facts nobody asked for. The man’s name would be Cliff Clavin. The producers laughed. Then they wrote him into the script. That last minute idea turned into one of television’s longest running characters. Cheers ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993, and Ratzenberger appeared in 273 episodes. Cliff became the guy delivering bizarre trivia about everything from volcanoes to postal routes while everyone else rolled their eyes. But the strangest part of Ratzenberger’s career happened after the sitcom ended. In 1995, a brand new animation studio released its first movie. The film was Toy Story. Ratzenberger voiced Hamm the sarcastic piggy bank. It looked like a small voice acting job. It quietly became a tradition. Pixar invited Ratzenberger back again. And again. And again. He voiced the Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc. (2001). A construction foreman in Up (2009). A crab in Finding Nemo (2003). A flea circus ringmaster in A Bug’s Life (1998). Film after film, a pattern formed. Ratzenberger appeared in every Pixar movie for more than two decades. Fans eventually realized the running joke. The former sitcom side character had become Pixar’s hidden mascot. More than 20 films, billions of dollars at the box office, and one voice popping up somewhere inside each story. Ratzenberger once explained the secret simply. “If they call, I show up.” To most people, John Ratzenberger is still Cliff Clavin leaning on a bar in Boston explaining useless facts. But behind the scenes, the actor who almost left an audition in 1982 accidentally built one of the most unusual streaks in movie history. One improvised character created a sitcom legend. One piggy bank voice turned him into Pixar’s quiet good luck charm.

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