Jason Sudeikis' uncle earned Emmy nominations six years running after getting started on Second City in his hometown of Chicago.

For 11 years, fans watched George Wendt saunter onto the screen and into Cheers bar as his friends and its patrons shouted out “Norm!” to which he always responded with a sarcastic one-liner that had everyone belly laughing for days.

But the more viewers got to know the character — played, of course, by George Wendt, who died yesterday at 76 in his sleep of unknown causes, according to his family — the more complex, and in some ways tragic,