🪰 NORM! The ‘Old Guy’ Who Waddled Into Cheers Bar Every Night Was Only 34

Rewatching an old sitcom is all fun and games until somebody starts looking at the cast’s ages. One quick visit to IMDB, and suddenly you find yourself sitting there, realizing that the weathered old guy at the bar downing beers is actually younger than you.

What really puts this into perspective is George Wendt, who was 33 when Cheers premiered in September 1982, a few weeks away from turning 34.

Norm just had the energy of a guy who was ready to throw in the towel on life. Like he was getting to that age where it was time to slow down and start planning out his golden years. But then you find out the actor was only thirty-freaking-three. Seriously, you’re still about three decades away from being Medicare eligible.

The TikTok that prompted this harsh realization runs through a series of these unsettling age comparisons. Like Mr. Miyagi being only 52! Are we serious people?!

@79uwdw54 Feeling nostalgic? 🤔 Did you know many iconic TV and movie characters were younger than they appeared? From Norm to Mr. Miyagi, aging in Hollywood can be surprising! Share your thoughts on age perceptions in shows below! #Nostalgia #AgePerception #Hollywood #TVFacts #ClassicMovies #fyp #foryou #fypシ #tiktok ♬ original sound – 79uwdw54

Let’s think about the iconic Florence Henderson. She was 35 when The Brady Bunch began in 1969. Then, for comparisons’ sake, Kim Kardashian was also 35 at Paris’ 2016 Fashion Week. Put Carol Brady beside Kim with her glowing skin and gold chains, and the whole concept of what a person in their mid-thirties looked like roughly five decades ago seems mind-blowing.

Blanche Was Only 51?

Here’s another shocker: Rue McClanahan was only 51 when The Golden Girls premiered in September 1985. Then Jennifer Lopez was 51 when she performed at 2021 AMAs. Look, just to be frank, Rue looks like she’s about a solid 30 years older than Lopez in this comparison.

And while we’re on the subject of Golden Girls, let’s talk about Bea Arthur, because she’s a whole ‘nother jump scare. She was 50 when Maude launched in September 1972, the same age Jennifer Aniston was at the January 2020 SAG Awards. Again, how can these two people possibly be the same age?!

The Haircut Has a Lot to Answer For

Look, there’s something to be said about the hair. We’ve just gotta put that out there. All the mousse, hairspray, teasing, frying, and everything from back in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s wasn’t exactly giving “youthful.”

Honestly, if you were to plop Anniston’s hair on top of Arthur, that would probably shave off at least 15 years. Which just proves that it’s really difficult to separate the face from the whole presentation around it.

Research published in PLOS ONE found that hair greying contributed to perceived age alongside facial features such as wrinkles. The study also examined how judgments differed when viewers saw different types of photographs, including images that showed hair and other appearance cues. So, we really do use more than just skin quality itself when estimating age.

But then there’s a cultural factor, and that’s where things can get murky. If a particular hairstyle belongs to your grandmother in your memory, seeing it on a thirty-five-year-old still makes you correlate it with someone older. That’s a big reason why so many older celebrities, especially female celebs, look older just by their hairdos alone. Unfortunately, big, boofanty hair seems to instantly add on the years.

A familiar hairstyle can bring an entire person with it. If the person you associate with that look was already your grandmother when you knew her, a photograph of somebody younger wearing it has quite a lot of family history to overcome.

What’s interesting too is that a set of glasses can create the same “old person” association. While wearing glasses at all ages is completely normal, seeing someone with the whole dated hair thing and a set of glasses seems to really be the kiss of death.

Vicki Lawrence’s Mama is probably the best example of both of these factors converging at once. Lawrence was a young actress playing an older woman. So what did they do to age her up? Slap on a big, poofy gray wig and a set of glasses. And just like that, she’s an old lady.

What’s really jarring is seeing “normal” Lawrence. She’s not playing her famous role of Mama, she’s just a normal woman in her early 30s.

Cigarettes and Sunshine Were Doing Their Part

You know, there was a time where you could sit under the sun, soaking up the rays all while smoking a cigarette. And literally no one batted an eye.

Well, as it turns out, the sun and cigarettes aren’t doing us any favors in the aging department. The American Academy of Dermatology puts it pretty bluntly:

“The sun plays a major role in prematurely aging our skin.”

That information is pretty much common knowledge nowadays, but back in the 1960s and beyond, the sun’s negative effects would’ve been much less known, especially among the general population.

The same thing goes for smoking, which is another big cause of accelerated skin aging, including wrinkles. Obviously, these two habits were more prevalent decades ago, hence why the physical difference between two people of the same age can be pretty startling.

Awareness of sun exposure is one thing, but the decrease in smoking is what really paints a stark contrast. According to the CDC, 42.4% of American adults smoked cigarettes in 1965, compared with only 11.6% in 2022. That alone is a massive difference.

So lifestyle habits certainly can’t be underestimated, but still, it can’t 100% explain the difference in certain individuals aging between then and now. Unfortunately, Norm’s publicity photograph doesn’t tell us his skincare routine or how many packs a day he smoked.

Looking Young Can Be a Production

There’s another big difference between how we aged then and how we age now: very careful staging.

Here’s another comparison: Anne Bancroft was 35 while filming The Graduate in 1967 and had turned 36 by its release. Anne Hathaway was 35 during her 2018 Ocean’s 8 publicity period and that year’s Met Gala. The two Annes give us another way to see how much meaning can be attached to an age.

It’s funny because Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson enters most of our memories as the older vixen who seduces a young man, which is hilarious because Bancroft is a mere 35 years old.

Now just look at these two ladies side-by-side:

But here’s the thing: for that 2018 Met Gala, Vogue published behind-the-scenes photographs of Hathaway getting ready with her team, and the images show some major work involved in her final appearance. We’re talking hairstylists, makeup artists, and stylists all buzzing around Hathaway, just to get her to look perfect. What looks effortless on the red carpet has a whole team of folks behind the scenes putting in their literal blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen.

Then we’ve got cosmetic treatments, which in recent years have really gone from 0 to 100. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons’ 2024 report records millions of procedures involving wrinkle-relaxing injections, fillers, and skin resurfacing. Those figures count procedures, rather than individual people, but they demonstrate how substantial that part of appearance maintenance has become.

Now, thanks to Hollywood and all of their “secrets,” it’s hard to know exactly who has had these procedures and to what degree, but I think it’s safe to assume the number is pretty large. Then add on top of that a polished and likely enhanced photograph, and you’re looking at something that’s pretty far from reality. Seriously, don’t underestimate the powers of lighting, makeup, and Photoshop.

Of course, earlier performers had professional help with their appearances as well. In fact, the Mama example shows how effectively that help could work in the opposite direction. But still, let’s not pretend that nowadays we’re working with a whole different, more advanced set of tools.

But let’s not leave the fellas out of these comparisons. Coming in hot, we have Carroll O’Connor, who was 46 when All in the Family premiered in January 1971. Then we’ve got Paul Rudd, who was 46 while promoting Ant-Man in 2015. Archie Bunker and a Marvel leading man look like they’re lightyears away when it comes to age.

We’re asking photographs made for different purposes to settle an argument about aging. A convincing, weary sitcom father and a movie star arriving for a premiere both involve choices about appearance. Matching the birthdays is useful, but it doesn’t make everything else in the pictures equal.

Our Idea of Old Has Moved Too

One study takes this whole idea of what’s “old” in a totally different direction.

Researchers used photographs of 382 Danish adults over 70, taken in 2001. The pictures were assessed for perceived age in 2002 and again in 2012. With the later assessment, the people in those same photographs were judged about 2.3 years older on average. Interesting.

Somehow, a decade had changed how people scored those photographed faces that hadn’t aged a day.

Also, the participants were much older than our thirtysomething sitcom stars, so the result doesn’t tell us exactly what happened to our idea of 35, for example. But it does show that estimates of age can change over time even when the faces remain unchanged.

This brings us back to the weird experience of rewatching childhood television. A character can remain firmly installed in the “grown-ups” category of our head, even after you’ve reached the age of the actor you’re watching. Reruns literally preserve our idea of someone while time still keeps moving forward around us.

Now, we’ll probably all look at Norm a little different now. Being in your early thirties and wanting everyone to leave you alone for a drink feels oddly understandable now.