Cheers Mailman John Ratzenberger Supports the USPS: 'Help Your Local Post Office'

John Ratzenberger, who played mailman Cliff Calvin on the NBC sitcom Cheers, is urging people to support the United States Postal Service.

In a Cameo video shared on social media by musician Tim Kasher, the actor, 73, pleaded for Americans to support the USPS. The institution has come under fire by President Donald Trump due to his dislike for mail-in voting, the option many Americans will likely turn to in November thanks to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

"Hey everybody, John Ratzenberger here. That's right, the former mailman from the TV show Cheers," he said at the start of the video.

"Speaking of mailmen," Ratzenberger added, "you know the post office is in a little bit of a pickle right now. It's certainly in the news, being bounced back and forth."

"So I had an idea," the actor said. "Why not do all your Christmas shopping early at the post office store? Yeah, the post office, they got a store in there. Obviously stamps and things like that. So why not translate the dollar amount you're going to pay for Aunt Tilly's new hat and just buy that amount in stamps? Easy to carry, easy to mail, easy to ship, and it's worth something, and it'll be worth something for a long time."

"And how many times is Aunt Tilly going to be wearing that hat? Once, twice," Ratzenberger noted. "But, how many times will she be using those stamps? That's right, always thinking."

Concluding his video message, the star said, "Help your local post office, and go down there and buy something. Take care."

In addition to suggesting the election be delayed, Trump has claimed that mail-in voting will lead to fraudulent results and that the Postal Service doesn't have the wherewithal to accommodate the surge in mail-in voting heading into the upcoming election, which USPS has denied.

"The Postal Service has ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projected Election and Political Mail volume, including any additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic," the agency said in a statement to CNN earlier this month.

Louis DeJoy, the newly installed postmaster general and a Trump donor, has also made cost-cutting changes to the USPS that he defended as improving the efficiency of a bogged-down bureaucracy. But those moves have led to widespread concerns over voter suppression.

Last week, CNN reported that the Postal Service had begun reducing hours and removing mail collection boxes in a number of states, though a USPS spokesperson has since announced that the push will be halted until after Nov. 3.

"We are not going to be removing any boxes," the spokesperson said in a statement, according to the outlet. "After the election, we're going to take a look at operations and see what we need and don’t need."