Nick Tortelli, was a recurring character on the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 show Cheers

Cheers

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

, portrayed by Dan Hedaya

Dan Hedaya

Daniel G. “Dan” Hedaya is an American character actor. He often plays sleazy villains or uptight, wisecracking individuals; three of his best-known roles are as Italian Mafia boss Tony Costello in Wise Guys, a cuckolded husband in the Coen brothers' crime thriller Blood Simple, and the scheming...

. Nick was Carla's

Carla Tortelli

Carla Maria Victoria Angelina Teresa Apollonia Lozupone Tortelli LeBec, known as Carla Tortelli, is a waitress on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Rhea Perlman. Outwardly, at least, Carla is a mean-spirited woman who expresses disdain for many people...

 sleazy first husband who occasionally stopped by Cheers for one reason or another. Nick married his second wife, Loretta

Loretta Tortelli

Loretta Tortelli is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Jean Kasem. Loretta was Nick Tortelli's ditzy blonde trophy second wife who occasionally stopped by Cheers with Nick...

, in the second season episode "Battle of the Exes". Nick was generally used as comic relief

Comic relief

Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...

, appearing as a caricature

Caricature

A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

 of a deadbeat dad

Deadbeat dad

Deadbeat parent is a term referring to obligor parents of either gender that have freely chosen not to be a financially supportive parent in their children's lives...

 and ex-husband, and a negative stereotype of Italian-Americans. This was sometimes taken to extremes, Frasier

Frasier Crane

Frasier W. Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for 20 years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who played Marshal...

 once asking if Nick was featured at a World's Fair

World's Fair

World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...

 as a missing link

Transitional fossil

A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a lifeform that exhibits characteristics of two distinct taxonomic groups. A transitional fossil is the fossil of an organism near the branching point where major individual lineages diverge...

. Nick has on occasion tried to reunite with Carla, without success.

Nick was the main character in a very short-lived spinoff sitcom, The Tortellis

The Tortellis

The Tortellis is an American sitcom that aired from January to May 1987 on NBC. A spin-off of the hit series Cheers, The Tortellis stars Dan Hedaya and Jean Kasem....

.