Not going to lie, I’d probably find it cheesy as well but you never know unless you try. At the very least it may loosen him up and get them both talking. I will always remember this one guy who came chatting me up on 20th birthday (31 next week so a while ago). He came with those really bad cheesy chat up lines (like “if I could change the alphabet I’d put I and U together”). He kept going with as many as he could remember, laughing through them (making me laugh as well), in a charming way that somehow worked. Cheesy as but it got me laughing, got us talking and made him memorable.