MovieChat Forums > Cheers (1982) Discussion > Where have all the floorboards gone?

Where have all the floorboards gone?


Early in episode (S10,E8), Cliff mentions that the parquet floor at Boston Garden is comprised of 240 individual squares held down by 2860 bolts. Norm corrects him and says it's 2880 bolts. A little bit of math presuming the squares are 5'x 5' and the fact that a standard basketball court is 50'x 94', the 240 squares would make sense arranged 12 squares by 20 squares. the 60'x 200' playing surface would have a logical 5' border on each side and a 3' border on each end. Cliff's number of 2860 bolts is not evenly divisible by 240, but Norm's number of 2880 bolts is evenly divisible by 240, being 12 bolts in each panel. Later in the episode, Woody unbolts one of the floor panels and it is shown that there are only 8 bolts holding down each panel, now the total looks like 240 x 8 = 1920 bolts. Does anyone have any further comment on this subject other than that I am an engineer with entirely too much time on my hands? 😁

Update... At the end of the episode, they have a better shot of the floor of the Boston Garden. My original estimate of 3' border on the ends of the court were wrong, there is a good 8' border at the ends. 12 squares by 22 squares = 264 squares. 264 squares with 8 bolts in each square = 2112 bolts.

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NERD ALERT!!!!!

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Yep, Nerd Alert. I got beat up and harassed by the jocks in high school. I went to Louisiana Tech at the same time as Phil Robertson and Terry Bradshaw but never knew them, I was in the school of engineering and they were jocks. I have professional engineer licenses in 5 states. Definitely a Nerd Alert.

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I like that it leads into how Alice should ask herself how she should best prepare herself if the Brady Bunch were marooned on an island.

RIP Gene Wilder. RIP Barbara Hale. You were great in Perry Mason. RIP William Christopher.

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