You know, usually when we look back at the 1990s,
we get completely caught up in the specific aesthetic
of the era. Oh, for sure. The clothes, the music.
Right. We talk about the grunge movement, the
flannel shirts everywhere, the rise of the early
Internet, or even just, well, the friends. The
Rachel. You couldn't escape it. Exactly. Yeah.
But if you actually look at the raw data of pop
culture from that time, specifically television
history, there is this one monolith that just
sits there. It really does. It's just blocking
out the sun. And I think people forget just how
big it was, mostly because it was so quiet about
it. It wasn't flashy. Not at all. It wasn't flashy
in the way Seinfeld was with its big cultural
catchphrases, or Friends was with, you know,
being on the cover of every magazine at the grocery
store checkout. Right, it didn't have no soup
for you. Exactly. It was just consistently, undeniably
excellent. I was looking at the numbers in the
prep packet you sent over for this deep dive,
and I actually thought there was a typo at first.
The Emmy numbers. 37 Primetime Emmy Awards. No
typo. That was the absolute record for a scripted
series. Period. That is an insane number to me.
And it held that record for a very, very long
time. I mean, think about the prestige shows
that have come and gone since the 90s. Right.
You've got The Sopranos. Yeah. The West Wing,
Mad Men. None of those massive cultural touchstones
even touched that number. It actually took Game
of Thrones to finally topple Frasier. Yeah, in
2016. It took a show with a GDP -sized budget,
CGI dragons, and ice zombies to beat a show about
a psychiatrist living in a Seattle apartment
with his dad. That really puts the scale of the
achievement into perspective. It really does.
But here's the metric that I think is actually
more impressive. And maybe it's more relevant.
to what we're going to explore today. You're
talking about the consistency, the five -peat.
The five -peat. Winning Outstanding Comedy Series
for five consecutive years. 1994 to 1998. The
only other show to ever tie that record is Modern
Family. Which is wild when you think about how
quickly comedy ages. It ages terribly. Drama
can sustain itself easily because, you know,
you want to know who's doing it or who's going
to die next. The plot pulls you forward. Comedy
relies entirely on surprise. Exactly. And usually
by season five of the sitcom, you're just running
on fumes. The writers are exhausted. The actors
are completely bored with their characters. That's
when you start seeing the desperation creeping
in. The Cousin Oliver Syndrome. Bring in a new
kid. Or, hey, let's send the whole cast to Hawaii
for a special two -part episode. Oh, man, the
desperate vacation gimmick. Frasier managed to
avoid all of that for an incredibly long time.
It was this strange, perfect alchemy. Because
it mixed things that shouldn't mix. Right. You
had highbrow intellectualism. We're talking deeply
specific jokes about opera, rare sherry, Jungian
psychology. And they just smashed it right up
against the most traditional door -slamming physical
farce you can imagine. It was honestly a game.
gateway drug for me as a kid. How so? I think
I learned what Le Cigar Volant was before I even
knew how to do my own laundry. The legendary
fictional restaurant. I felt smarter just by
having the show on even if honestly half the
jokes went completely over my head at the time.
But that was the magic trick they pulled off.
Flattering the audience. Yes. It flattered your
intelligence. It assumed you were smart enough
to keep up but then it hit you with a purely
visual physical gag so you were laughing on multiple
levels. Which makes it such a rich topic for
us today. But here's the thing about our deep
dive into these sources. On paper, this show
was a terrible idea. It was a disaster waiting
to happen. Explain that to me. Yeah. Because
looking back now, with all the success, it seems
like the biggest slam dunk in television history.
Sure, with hindsight. You take the most popular
character from Tears, which was already one of
the biggest shows ever made, and you just give
him his own show. That sounds like a license
to print money. You would definitely think so.
Yeah. But the history of television is just littered
with the corpses of spinoffs that tried to do
exactly that. Great. For every successful spinoff,
there is an aftermash. Oh, wow. Aftermash. That
hurts to even think about. Or the Tortellas.
Remember them. Vaguely. From Cheers. Exactly.
Another Cheers spinoff. And that's the point.
Spinoffs usually fail because you take a character
who works perfectly as a side dish. Like a flavor
enhancer. Right. And you try to make them the
main course. Suddenly the flavor is just way
too strong. Or it's totally OneNote. And the
creators of Frasier knew this going in. They
were hyper aware of it. In fact, our core mission
for this deep dive isn't just to recount what
happened in the show. We really need to figure
out how a show that the creators actively tried
not to make. Which is still wild to me. Became
a masterpiece. They were running away from this
concept as fast as they physically could. So
take me back to the actual start of this. Cheers
is ending. Everyone in America knows it's ending.
Kelsey Grammer is a massive star at this point.
Huge. What actually happens in the room? Okay,
so let's set the scene. It's season eight of
Cheers. Kelsey Grammer is looking at his future.
Right. He makes a handshake deal with three producers,
David Angel, Peter Casey, and David Lee. Who
would eventually become Grub Street Productions.
Yes. And the deal is incredibly simple. When
Cheers finally wraps, the four of us are going
to do a new show together. And obviously everyone
assumes that show is the Frasier Crane show.
Paramount certainly assumes that. NBC assumes
that. Because why wouldn't they? But Kelsey Grammer.
He is totally done. He has played Frasier Crane
for eight long years. He is terrified of being
typecast for the rest of his life. And the producers.
The producers are arguably even more terrified
than he is. Because of the spinoff curse we just
mentioned. Partly the curse, but mostly just
the direct comparison. They didn't want to compete
with their own legacy. Exactly. They knew that
if they did Cheers 2 .0, the critics would sharpen
their knives on day one. If the jokes weren't
as fast. Or if the ratings weren't quite as high,
they'd be branded as failures instantly. They
wanted a completely clean break. They wanted
to create something totally original. So they
sit down and they brainstorm. And this is where
I need you to walk me through this Malcolm Forbes
concept. Because I was reading through the source
materials and I'm still not entirely sure if
I'm hallucinating or if this was a real thing.
Oh, I promise you it was very real. It's just
so bizarre. It is one of the great what -ifs
in Hollywood history. The three producers sit
down and they ask themselves, what is the absolute
opposite of Frasier Crane? Okay, so Frasier is
insecure. He's a psychiatrist. He's highly mobile.
He's incredibly neurotic. So what's the opposite?
They pitch a character who is a titan of industry.
A publishing magnate. Model directly on Malcolm
Forbes. Yes. Extremely wealthy. Very powerful.
And here's the kicker. He's a paraplegic. Whoa.
He runs his entire massive publishing empire
from his luxury apartment in Manhattan. Because
he was in a motorcycle accident or something.
Exactly. And the core comedy of this pitched
show was supposed to come from the conflict between
this high -powered, immobilized genius and his
live -in nurse. And the nurse was... In the original
pitch. A quote -unquote street -smart Hispanic
woman. Okay. I am really trying to picture Kelsey
Grammer in this role. I'm just imagining him
rolling around a Manhattan penthouse yelling
at people about magazine deadlines. It's incredibly
jarring, isn't it? Well, it sounds difficult.
Comedy is usually about movement. It's about
kinetic energy. Physicality. Yeah. If you literally
lock your lead actor in a chair, you're taking
away half his toolkit right out of the gate.
Especially Kelsey Grammer, who is actually an
incredibly physical comedian. Right. But that
was exactly the creative challenge they wanted.
They wanted to force themselves to write differently.
They wanted to break their own mold. And there
was also this classic odd couple dynamic they
were chasing. The rich grump and the fiery caretaker.
They genuinely thought it was a fresh angle.
So they take this Malcolm Forbes idea to Paramount.
They go into the boardroom with the suits. How
does that meeting actually go? About as well
as you'd expect it to go. Which is to say, terribly.
You have to understand the studio mindset in
that era. They have this massive asset, Kelsey
Grammer, playing Frasier Crane, that is worth...
conservatively hundreds of millions of dollars
in future syndication potential. Right. It's
a golden goose. And these writers walk into the
room and say, hey, we want to put him in a wheelchair,
change his name entirely and just hope for the
best. The executives probably looked at them
like they were actively setting money on fire
on the conference table. Caramount hated it.
They basically said, absolutely not. The quote
from the studio was essentially. You have Kelsey
Grammer. The audience loves Frasier. Why are
you purposely making this hard for us? Just give
us the Frasier show. They told them to go right
back to the drawing board and come back with
a Frasier spinoff. End of discussion. So it was
a total standoff. Yeah. The creatives want to
do something new and risky. The money wants the
safe, sure thing. And in Hollywood, usually the
money wins that fight. But not entirely this
time. No. In this case, they reached a really
fascinating compromise. What happened? Kelsey
Grammer looked at the whole situation and realized
that Paramount wasn't going to budge on the character.
So he agreed to play Frasier again. But he had
a condition. One absolutely non -negotiable condition.
Geography. Geography. Explain that. He said to
them, I will play Frasier Crane, but I will not
do it in Boston. He wanted to be as far away
from the Cheers set as physically possible while
still staying within the contiguous United States.
Hence. Seattle. Seattle. And this wasn't just
because he liked the rain or the emerging coffee
culture. No, it was a highly strategic defensive
maneuver on Grammar's part. Defensive against
whom? Against the network. Against NBC. How so?
Grammar knew how television executives think.
He knew that if Frazier stayed on the East Coast,
say, if he just moved to New York, the network
executives would be knocking on his dressing
room door every single week. Hey, ratings are
a little soft this week. Exactly. Can we just
have Ted Danson walk into the room? Can we have
Norm sit down at a local bar? The lazy crossover
episode. Hey, Frazier, I just happened to be
in the neighborhood. Right. By moving the character
all the way to Seattle, practically on the other
side of the continent, he made those casual drop
-ins logistically impossible. If Norm is going
to show up, he has to buy a plane ticket and
fly for six hours. It naturally gave the new
show the room it needed to breathe and establish
its own unique identity. That is honestly brilliant.
Yeah. It's using a map to protect the creative
integrity of your show. It was very smart, but
it immediately created a brand new problem for
the writers. Because Frasier Crane in Boston
had a specific purpose. He was a psychiatrist
in private practice. Right. So what is he doing
in Seattle? Exactly. What is his daily life?
The creators were absolutely adamant about avoiding
what they called the Bob Newhart trope. And what's
that for listeners who might not know? It's the
classic static sitcom setup. A psychiatrist sits
in a chair behind a desk. A patient walks in,
says something funny or weird, and leaves. Then
the next wacky patient comes in. Right. It's
visually boring. It locks the main character
into a passive role. They wanted something much
more dynamic for Frasier. So what did they do?
Did they dig into the trash bin of... old ideas
they actually went back to an unused concept
from their cheers days there was a minor subplot
they had pitched but never used about fraser
becoming a radio psychiatrist ah I'm listening.
It was the perfect solution. It allowed Fraser
to do his job, which is giving advice and solving
problems, but in a fast -paced, high -energy
broadcast environment. And it gave him an audience,
which completely feeds his massive ego. Exactly.
But almost immediately, they almost fell into
another classic sitcom trap. What crap? WKRP
in Cincinnati. Oh, the standard workplace comedy?
Right. They started sketching out the KCL radio
station and they started filling it with all
these wacky characters. The crazy station manager,
the weird sound engineer. The eccentric sports
guy. And suddenly they looked at the board and
realized... Wait, we're just making a standard
workplace sitcom. And Cheers was a workplace
sitcom, technically. The bar was the workplace.
Exactly. To truly separate Frasier from Cheers,
they had to invert the entire narrative structure.
How so? Cheers was a show about the work family,
the people you choose to be around. Frasier had
to be about the real family, the people you were
stuck with. Which is really interesting because
in Cheers, Frasier was basically an orphan. narratively
speaking. We barely ever saw his home life. Right.
And this massive pivot, shifting the focus from
the workplace to the home, is what ultimately
saved the show. They decided the core engine
of the comedy wouldn't be the radio station at
all. No, it would be the apartment. And specifically,
the constant friction between a father and a
son. Which brings us to the inciting incident
of the whole series. The thing that essentially
ruins Frasier's swinging bachelor plans. The
father, Martin Crane. So, They have a concept
lockdown. Frazier moves to Seattle, gets a radio
job, and gets stuck living with his injured dad.
Right. But now you have to cast it. And reading
through the casting notes and the sources, I
feel like miracle is the only appropriate word
for what happened. It really was a series of
completely happy accidents. If you change even
one single variable in this cast, the whole equation
collapses. Let's start with Martin, because Martin
is the anchor. He is. If Martin doesn't work,
Frazier just looks like a rich jerk. yelling
at a vulnerable old man. Precisely. Martin has
to be lovable, but he also has to be a stubborn,
immovable pain in the neck. And he was based
on a real person, wasn't he? He was. The character
was actually based on creator Peter Casey's own
father, who had been a San Francisco cop for
34 years. So it was a very personal character
for the writers. Deeply personal. They didn't
want a standard sitcom dad who is just bumbling
and sweet and clueless. They wanted edge. They
wanted a guy who looked like he had actually
walked the beat. seen the dark side of life,
and had absolutely zero tolerance for his son's
pretentious nonsense. And they wrote the pilot
script with one specific actor in mind. John
Mahoney. Did they already know him? Had they
worked together? They just knew his work. He
was a highly respected theater actor in Chicago.
He was part of the Steppenwolf Theater Company,
and he had done some really solid film work,
like in Say Anything. But here is where the traditional
Hollywood power dynamic completely shifts. Oh,
yeah. Usually an actor has to audition. You have
to jump through hoops, test for the network,
basically beg for the role. Right. NBC executives
actually told the producers, if you can get John
Mahoney to say yes, just hire him. Don't even
test him. That is so rare for a pilot. It's practically
unheard of. So the producers flew out to Chicago,
took him to a nice dinner, and pitched him the
show. And he accepted. He said yes before they
even ordered dessert. That's incredible. And
the chemistry with Kelsey Grammer? It was instant.
But there is a layer of real poignancy here that
you don't necessarily see on the screen unless
you know the backstory. What's the backstory?
Kelsey Grammer's real father was actually murdered
when Kelsey was a child. Oh, wow. I didn't know
that. Yeah. He grew up entirely without a dad.
Yeah. And John Mahoney, he was an extremely private
person. He never married and he never had children
of his own. So they filled a void for each other.
Exactly. Off camera, they formed this very real,
very tender bond. Grammer found the father figure
he never had and Mahoney found a surrogate son.
That adds so much emotional weight to those quiet
scenes where they're just sitting in the living
room trying to connect over a beer. It really
does. It makes the comedy sweeter because the
underlying love was very real. Wow. But if Martin
was the anchor of the show, the next piece of
the casting puzzle was a total wild card. The
character who wasn't even supposed to exist?
We're talking about Niles. We are. The brother.
This is the part of the research that just blows
my mind. Frasier Crane was an only child. That
is established canon. He literally said it on
cheer. He was completely explicit about it on
cheers. I am an only child. So the writers had
zero intention of giving him a brother in the
new show. None. Why would they? It muddies the
water. It creates a massive plot hole right out
of the gate. So how does Niles end up happening?
A casting assistant named Sheila Guthrie is just
doing her job one day, digging through huge stacks
of actor headshots. As they do. And she finds
a photo of an actor named David Hyde Pierce.
She stops dead. She holds the photo up to her
colleagues and says, does this guy look exactly
like Kelsey Grammer or am I going crazy? I mean,
if you look at them side by side, especially
back then, it's structural. The jawline, the
prominent forehead, the way the eyes are set.
It's totally uncanny. So she brings the headshot
to the creators. They look at it. They pull up
some tape of David Hyde Pierce. He was doing
a show at the time called The Powers That Be,
and they were just floored by his comedic timing.
So they just decided to break their own universe.
They said, we don't care about the Cheers continuity.
We don't care what Fraser said in Boston. We
have to hire this guy. They retrofitted the entire
concept of the show around David Hyde Pierce's
cheat bones. Pretty much. That is incredibly
risky for a new show. Oh, it gets riskier. Pierce
actually accepted the role before he had even
read a single script. Brave man. But then the
panic set in. He finally got the script, read
it, and started really worrying. He thought,
wait a minute. We dress exactly alike. We talk
exactly alike. We're both snooty psychiatrists.
Am I just a duplicate? That's a very valid fear
for an actor. You don't want to just be mini
-me. You want your own distinct character. Exactly.
He thought, why would the audience need two of
us on screen? But what he didn't realize at first
and what the writers figured out very quickly
is that the duplication was the joke. Right.
If Frazier is a snob, Niles makes him look like
a construction worker by comparison. Precisely.
Niles allowed Frazier to occasionally be the
regular guy. It created a sliding scale of pretension.
Without Niles, Frazier is just an annoying, wealthy
elitist complaining about his dad. With Niles,
Frazier suddenly becomes the relatable older
brother who is just trying to manage his truly
insane sibling. And their shared language, that
incredibly fast -paced overlapping dialogue they
do, became the absolute trademark of the series.
It did. So now we have the men of the Crane household
locked in. But you need an outsider, the person
who can puncture the balloon of their ego. Daphne
Moon. The physical therapist and caregiver. Now,
going back to that Malcolm Forbes idea, originally
this was supposed to be a Hispanic nurse. Right.
They originally wanted that specific American
culture clash. But Warren Littlefield, who was
a top executive at NBC at the time. threw them
a curveball. What did he say? He just said, why
not make her English? Just to mix it up. Or was
there a reason? He thought it would add a totally
different flavor to the household. Maybe he was
thinking about the traditional class dynamics
of British servants, or maybe he just liked the
accent. He strongly suggested they look at Jane
Leaves. And Kelsey Grammer was hesitant about
that. Very hesitant. Why? He was worried about
invoking a show called Nanny and the Professor.
Oh, the old sitcom from the 70s. Right. He didn't
want Fraser to feel like this tired, cliche setup
where the magical British nanny floats in and
fixes everyone's emotional problems with a cup
of tea and a... That makes total sense. You don't
want your smart comedy to suddenly feel cartoony.
Exactly. But then they did a table read. And
Jane Leaves is, well, yeah, she's Jane Leaves.
She's brilliant. She's funny. She's physically
gifted. She's quirky. And she brought this weirdly
psychic element to the character. I'm getting
a vibration. Grammar absolutely loved her. And
funnily enough, remember John Mahoney? The gruff,
all -American dad. Yeah. He was actually born
in Manchester, England. He grew up there until
he was 19 before moving to the States. So he
and Jane Leaves bonded immediately over their
shared British heritage. That's hilarious. They
would actually speak in their native accents
to each other between takes on set. I love that.
The dad is British in real life and the son is
American, but on the show... It's totally reversed
in terms of their cultural attitude. It's a wonderful
irony. Okay, so we have one more crucial piece
of the human ensemble. Roz Doyle, Frasier's producer
at the radio station. Yes. This was the only
main role that actually required a traditional
audition process, right? It was a grueling process
for the creators. They saw something like 300
actresses for the part. And listeners might be
really shocked to know that they actually cast
someone else first. They did. Who was it? Lisa
Kudrow. Wait. Phoebe Buffay. Lisa Kudrow was
Roz. She was officially cast. She had the job.
I am really trying to picture that. Lisa Kudrow
has such a specific, brilliant energy. But it's
very airy. It's whimsical. Roz is, well... Roz
is definitely not that. Exactly. And that's exactly
what went wrong. During the early rehearsals,
prior to actually filming the pilot, the producers
realized the chemistry was just fundamentally
off. How so? Like, she wasn't funny. Oh, she
was very funny. But think about Fraser's character.
He's pompous. He steamrolls people. To balance
him out at the radio station, you need someone
who can punch back hard. Right. You need a strong,
assertive, alpha female who can just look at
him and tell him to shut up and take the next
caller. And Lisa Kudrow. brilliant as she is,
usually plays characters who sort of float above
the conflict rather than diving into it. Right.
She wasn't grounding him. So in what was a very
difficult and painful decision, they let her
go. And they called in their second choice. Perry
Gilpin. And Perry Gilpin has that incredible
voice, that deep rasp. She has the bite. She
could completely deflate Frasier's massive ego
with just one deadpan look through the glass
of the radio booth. It was absolutely the right
call. And frankly, it freed Lisa Kudrow up to
Go do Friends a little later. So literally everyone
won in the end. A rare Hollywood happy ending.
True. And finally, we cannot forget the silent
partner in this entire ensemble, Eddie. Ah, yes.
Played by a dog named Moose. I feel like Eddie
was the secret weapon of the show. Whenever a
scene was getting a little too wordy or a little
too intellectual with the brothers. Debating
wine. They would just cut to the dog staring
blankly at Frasier. It was the perfect grounding
mechanism. It constantly reminded the audience
that despite all of his advanced degrees and
his wealth, Frasier couldn't even outsmart a
simple Jack Russell terrier. Okay, so we have
the cast set. They're in Seattle, but they aren't
really in Seattle, are they? Not even close.
Let's move into part three of our deep dive.
Production design. Because that apartment. I
think for a certain generation of viewers, that
apartment is the ultimate unattainable dream
home. It really is spectacular. The script called
for an eclectic style. And the production designers
really went all out. This wasn't just grabbing
random props from the Paramount warehouse. They
actually bought high -end, genuine furniture.
We're talking about the replica Coco Chanel sofa.
A real Wasley chair. And Eames' lounge chair.
These are basically museum quality pieces. Yes.
And it wasn't just set dressing for the sake
of looking pretty. It was deep character definition.
Right. It showed Frazier's immaculate taste,
his complete obsession with aesthetics, and frankly,
his money. But there's one thing about that famous
apartment that drives actual Seattle locals completely
crazy to this day. The view from the balcony.
Ah, the Space Needle view. It's right there.
It looks like it's practically in his backyard.
I hate to ruin it for you, but it's completely
fake. Don't break my heart. I have to. If you
look at it geographically, no residential building
in Seattle has that specific unobstructed angle
on the Space Needle. If you calculate the geometry
of where his building would have to physically
be to get that view, Frazier's apartment block
would be floating right in the middle of Puget
Sound. Oh. Or it'd be in a neighborhood that
absolutely didn't have high -rise condos at that
time. So it's just pure TV reality. They created
that backdrop specifically so the city's most
famous landmark would be prominent in every wide
shot. It quickly became iconic. And is convincing
enough that it actually influenced real world.
real estate trends, didn't it? Yes. Real estate
agents working in Seattle in the mid -90s actually
reported buyers coming in and explicitly asking
for condos with that cosmopolitan feel. They
literally wanted the Frasier Crane lifestyle.
Developers actually started building new units
that mimicked that open plan split level look
because the show made it look so incredibly desirable.
That is amazing. Life imitating art on a massive
scale. Now let's talk about the other main set
on the show, Cafe Nervosa. The quintessential
hangout spot. This is where they spent half their
time. And reading the notes, the design philosophy
here was essentially anti -Cheers. Yes, very
intentionally. How so? Well, think about Cheers
for a second. It's a bar. It's dark. There's
a lot of heavy wood. And crucially, people sit
on stools side by side facing the bartender.
Right. For Café Nervosa, the designers specifically
omitted all bar stools. No stools at all. None.
They wanted it to look warm, inviting, and traditional.
Not like the modern grab -and -go Seattle coffee
shops that were just emerging at the time. They
wanted a place where characters had to sit and
converse face -to -face across a table. Exactly.
They even added a bookcase in the background
to suggest that patrons could just sit and read
while they drank their coffee. They wanted a
European salon atmosphere. It's very 90s Seattle
coffee culture. but highly polished. It's basically
the idealized television version of Starbucks
before Starbucks took over the world. Perfect
description. Now, diving into the actual production,
there's a secret about Kelsey Grammer's acting
method that I found totally fascinating in the
research. We already established he's a genius
comedic actor, but his method, it sounds terrifying
for literally everyone else on set. Oh, it was
notoriously stressful. It's a technique he called
requisite disrespect. Requisite disrespect? Yeah.
That sounds like the name of a punk rock band.
What does that actually mean in a television
acting context? Basically, Grammer decided he
would not rehearse with the other actors. Wait.
Like at all. Very, very little. How does that
even work? In a typical sitcom week, you rehearse
for days. You block out the scenes. You figure
out exactly where you're standing. You practice
the timing of the jokes so no one steps on anyone's
lines. Grammar found all of that incredibly boring.
He felt that over -rehearsing just drained all
the spontaneous life out of his performance.
So what did he do instead? He would learn his
lines on his own, run through them maybe once
in his head, and then just do it. Often for the
very first time, right before filming, in front
of the live studio audience. You kidding? He
wouldn't give the other actors any real energy
during the technical warm -ups. He'd just sort
of mumble and walk through it. That sounds like
an absolute recipe for disaster on a multi -camera
sitcom. For him, it worked brilliantly. It kept
his performance fresh. It gave him this burst
of spontaneous, in -the -moment energy. It's
a big reason why his reactions on the show look
so genuine, because he's actually reacting for
the very first time. But what about the guest
stars? Oh, God, the guest stars. It must have
been a nightmare for them. Imagine coming onto
the biggest hit show on television. You're already
nervous. You've meticulously memorized your lines.
The main star, the guy with his name on the building,
won't even look you in the eye during the rehearsal.
And then the red light goes on, the cameras roll,
the live audience screams, and suddenly he turns
it on to 100%. It caused absolute panic among
the guest actors. I can imagine. But the producers
realized that panic often translated into a really
useful nervous energy on screen. Because Frasier
is a character who naturally makes people nervous.
Exactly. Kelsey Grammer made actors nervous,
which made them act nervous around Frasier. It
just worked. Speaking of guest stars, we have
to talk about the callers. I'm listening. The
famous gimmick of the celebrity callers on his
radio show. This was such a clever production
trick, really. The people calling into KACL for
psychiatric advice weren't just random voice
actors or extras. They were heavy hitters. Huge
celebrities. There were voiceovers recorded by
A -list talent. We're talking Mel Brooks. Stephen
King. Bill Gates. Helen Mirren. Ben Stiller.
The list is staggering. And the absolute beauty
of it from a production standpoint was these
celebrities didn't have to fly to Los Angeles
and come to the studio. Right. They could record
their lines over a phone line from literally
anywhere in the world. It was the easiest cameo
gig in Hollywood. It took five minutes. And if
you watch the end credits of the season finales,
they would often do a visual reveal, right? Yeah,
they would show the headshots of everyone who
had anonymously called in during that particular
season. It became a real badge of honor in the
industry to be a caller on Frasier. Everyone
wanted to do it. So what does this all mean for
the internal universe of the show? We have this
brilliant new world, a perfect new cast, but
they still have the massive shadow of Cheers
hanging over them. They couldn't escape it entirely.
Let's move to part four, the Cheers connection
and continuity. We already touched on the only
child plot hole with Niles, but there was a much
bigger continuity problem they had to deal with,
wasn't there? It was a massive one. It's known
as the dead father problem. Right. Because on
Cheers, Frazier had explicitly stated that his
father was a research scientist who had died.
Which is obviously very different from a retired
police detective who is very much alive and drinking
cheap beer in your living room. How did the writers
explain that? Did they just hope the audience
forgot what he said in Boston? The funniest part
is the creators of Frasier actually hadn't worked
on that specific season of Cheers where he delivered
that line. So they didn't even know he said it.
They had no idea. They didn't catch the mistake
until the new show was already deep in production.
It was a genuine continuity error. So in season
two of Frasier, in an episode called The Show,
where Sam shows up, they finally had to address
it and retcon it. Retcon, meaning retroactive
continuity, fixing the past. Exactly. Sam alone
comes to visit. And Frazier is forced to admit
to him that he lied to everyone back at the bar
in Boston. What was his excuse? He says he was
just incredibly angry at Martin after a really
bad argument on the phone, so he pretty much
just told everyone his father was dead. That
is so dark. It is incredibly dark. But also,
it is so... perfectly Frasier. It's petty, it's
highly dramatic, and it's completely impulsive.
It fits the character's flaws perfectly. It took
a genuine production error and turned it into
a brilliant character beat that showed the audience
just how toxic and dysfunctional their relationship
used to be before they moved in together. And
despite trying so hard to distance themselves
from Boston in the beginning, they did eventually
bring the Cheers cast back for guest spots. They
did. They established a rule. Surviving main
cast members of Cheers could eventually appear
on the show. And almost everyone did. Right.
Pretty much. Sam, Woody, Diane, Cliff, Norm,
they all made their way to Seattle eventually.
Except for Kirstie Alley. Right. Everyone except
Kirstie Alley. Why didn't she appear? Just scheduling.
No, it was actually for religious reasons. She
was a Scientologist. And since the entire premise
of Frasier revolved around psychiatry and the
mental health profession, which the Church of
Scientology strongly opposes, she officially
declined to ever appear on the show. Ah, that
makes sense given her beliefs. But the absolute
standout guest star from the Cheers universe
has to be Lilith. Baby New Earth. She was phenomenal.
She was the only Cheers character to become a
true recurring character on Frasier, right? Yes.
She appeared in 12 episodes over the run of the
series. Her comedic chemistry with Kelsey Grammer
was simply too good for the writers to lose.
She was literally the only person in the world
who could out -snob Frasier Crane. And completely
terrify him with just a monotone hello. And there
was that one major event episode later on where
they actually went back to Boston. Right. The
episode Cheerful Goodbyes. The whole Seattle
family flies east. They visit Boston and they
reunite with Cliff, Norm, and Carla. It was a
really nice, respectful nod to the past without
letting that past take over the identity of the
current Shure. It felt like a graduation in a
way. Frazier had fully moved on and established
his own life, but he was secure enough to go
back and visit his old haunts. Exactly. It respected
the legacy, but kept moving the characters forward.
Which perfectly brings us to part five. Themes
and dynamics. Because underneath all the door
-slamming farce and the jokes about rare sherry,
this show has some really strong, consistent
themes running through it. It wasn't just empty
jokes. There was a very solid foundation. And
the central theme, the absolute engine of the
entire series, is the class and culture clash.
Frazier and Niles versus Martin. It's the self
-proclaimed intellectuals versus the proud average
Joe. You have the two brothers with their wildly
expensive tastes, the opera, the rare antiques,
the fine wine, the intricate French food. And
then you have Martin with his Ballantine beer,
his sports on TV, and that hideous duct -taped
recliner. That chair was literally a character
in itself. It represented absolutely everything
Frazier hated in the world. It was ugly, it was
worn out, it was comfortable, and it was completely
unpretentious. But what's truly fascinating here,
and you see this if you watch a few episodes
in a row, is that the show didn't just mock the
blue collar guy. In fact, the show almost always
sides with Martin. That's a really great point.
Frasier and Niles are usually the butt of the
joke, not Martin. Exactly. The brothers are very
often portrayed as totally ridiculous. They are
pompous, they are incredibly arrogant, and they
are wildly out of touch with reality. While Martin,
despite being the quote -unquote blue -collar
character, is almost always the one with the
actual wisdom. He's the one who sees right through
the brothers' academic nonsense. He constantly
grounds them. And yet, somehow, Frager remains
sympathetic to the audience. He desperately wants
to be part of the elite. But he actually has
a conscience. He struggles with it. While Niles,
Niles is just the pure, unfiltered distillate
of snobbery. Oh, Niles physically wiping off
his chair with a handkerchief before he sits
down at the coffee shop. He's severely mysophobic.
He has a genuine fear of germs. He's an unapologetic
elitist. He's terrified of anything he considers
common. But functionally... he serves as the
perfect foil to fraser he makes fraser look almost
normal by comparison it's a brilliant writing
trick it allows the audience to still like fraser
because they can say hey he might be a snob but
at least he's not as bad as niles and their relationship
that deeply ingrained sibling rivalry is the
other major engine of the comedy it's so intense
they are fiercely almost pathologically competitive
with each other who has the better more exclusive
wine club membership who bought the rarer more
expensive antique who gets to be the cork master
hail cork mess but underneath all that petty
competition they are incredibly close they are
really the only two people on earth who truly
understand each other they speak a cultural language
that no one else around them speaks they're completely
codependent and the ultimate irony of the show
is that they are both highly trained psychiatrists
literal experts in human behavior who are completely
inept at solving their own emotional problems
That is the central driving irony of the entire
series. The Doctor cannot heal himself. Now we
have to talk about the romantic arcs. Specifically,
Niles and Daphne. The great will -they -or -won't
-they. It's band seasons. This has to be one
of the longest slow burn romances in television
history. It was an absolute masterclass in long
term storytelling. Niles falls madly in love
with her the exact second they meet in the pilot
episode. And she is completely, totally oblivious
to it. And the writers managed to keep that unrequited
tension going for seven years. Seven years. How
did they sustain that for so long without the
audience just getting completely annoyed? By
giving Niles other complex relationships to navigate,
he had Marismith, the famously invisible wife
we never actually see. He had other girlfriends
later on. It wasn't just him sitting in a corner
pining for Daphne every single week. He had his
own life. But the audience always knew the truth.
We were all just waiting for it to finally happen.
And when they finally got together, it was a
massive television event. But meanwhile, Fraser's
love life is just a perpetual disaster zone.
A perpetual, exhausting search for love, completely
complicated by his own massive ego. He practically
sabotages every single relationship he gets into.
He overthinks everything. He always finds one
tiny, insignificant flaw. She breathes too loud,
or she likes the wrong kind of art, or she used
the wrong fork, and he just blows the whole relationship
up. It's tragic, really. He's looking for absolute
perfection, and perfection just... doesn't exist
which is exactly why he ends up alone for most
of the run or at least always searching so we
have this incredible finely tuned machine of
a show great cast deep themes brilliant writing
let's look at the reception and legacy in part
six the show's footprint is massive we mentioned
the awards at the top but critically it was just
universally beloved it was a darling of the critics
they consistently praised the wit the lightning
-fast timing, the ensemble rapport. They actually
coined this specific idea around the show called
high and low humor. What does that mean in this
context? It means you could have a highly complex
joke about the plot of an obscure German opera,
something that practically requires a master's
degree to fully understand, right in the exact
same scene as a dog stealing a muffin or a man
literally slipping and falling on a banana peel.
It perfectly mixed highly sophisticated dialogue.
with low -brow physical farce critics at the
time actually compared it to three's company
but with a phd That is such a great description.
Three's company with a PhD. It respected the
audience enough to be incredibly smart and literate,
but it also knew that, fundamentally, watching
a pompous, well -dressed man fall down is always
going to be funny. But like all long -running,
successful shows, it eventually had a dip in
quality. Yes, the later seasons, especially around
season 10. Even Kelsey Grammer has acknowledged
there was a creative lull, hasn't he? He has
been very open about it. What was the cause?
Was it just the writers getting tired after -
a decade a few things combined first there was
the marriage problem with niles and daphne right
once niles and daphne finally got together and
got married the show permanently lost that specific
driving tension because a happy stable couple
is lovely in real life But it's just fundamentally
less funny on a sitcom than a desperate, pining
man trying to hide his feelings. Exactly. Conflict
is comedy. When you remove the conflict, you
lose the comedy. And what was Grammar's take
on the dip? He felt the show began to, quote,
take itself too seriously. Interesting. He thought
it started focusing way too much on the heavy
drama of the relationships and lost a bit of
that light, farcical edge that made it work so
well early on it became a bit soapy. But it did
bounce back for the finale, didn't it? Oh, absolutely.
The final run of episodes is widely considered
a return to form. The finale is excellent. And
the overall legacy of the show is completely
secure. It definitively proved that a spinoff
could not only succeed, but actually eclipse
its parent show. Winning more Emmys than Cheers
is just a staggering historical achievement.
It's like the sequel being undeniably better
than the original blockbuster movie. It almost
never happens. And recently, the story actually
continued. We had the official revival in 2023
on Paramount+. The third act of Frasier Crane.
Frasier returns to Boston. Talk about coming
full circle. Right. It has a mostly new cast,
featuring Fraser's grown -up son, Freddie, played
by Jack Cutmore Scott, and Nicholas Linhurst
joins the cast as his old Oxford buddy. It's
a very different show with a different rhythm,
but it really just proves the enduring, undeniable
appeal of this specific character. It does. It
seems people just genuinely want to spend time
with Frasier Crane. He's a comfort character
for millions of people. Even with all of his
ridiculous flaws and his arrogance, he's always
trying. He wants to do the right thing. I think
that's why we love him so much. He's deeply flawed,
but he's always trying to be a better person,
even if he fails hilariously most of the time.
So bringing this all together is... we wrap up.
Frasier succeeded because it focused on incredibly
universal themes. Family, ego, the constant search
for love. Right. It wasn't about the politics
of the 90s. It wasn't making jokes about the
news of the day. It was purely about the human
condition. And that's exactly why it found a
massive renaissance on streaming services recently.
A whole new generation discovering it on Netflix
and Paramount+. They flock to it because it's
soothing, highly intelligent comedy. Someone
described it as competence porn mixed with emotional
disaster, which is perfect. That is a perfect
description. So here is my final provocative
thought for you, the listener, to mull over and
for you, my friend. Let's hear it. We talked
earlier about that original bizarre concept,
the paralyzed publishing magnate. That was the
actual script they wanted to write. The Malcolm
Forbes idea. Right. But when you actually sit
down and watch Frasier, the specific voice, the
unique cadence, the physical mannerisms, they
are all so deeply specific to Kelsey Grammer
as an actor. They are completely inseparable
at this point. It really makes you wonder. How
much of the iconic character of Frasier Crane
was actually written on the page by those writers?
And how much was simply the inevitable, unavoidable
result of Kelsey Grammer's specific performance
style? Oh, that is a fascinating question. If
he had agreed to play that publisher in a wheelchair,
would that character have just naturally morphed
into Frasier anyway? The actor often shapes the
role just as much as the writer does, if not
more. Exactly. Would we just be watching 11 seasons
of a publishing tycoon dissecting French wine
lists with his nurse? We probably would be. Grammar's
DNA is just too strong to hide. And with the
new revival returning the character to Boston,
have we simply come full circle? Does it ultimately
prove that Fraser Crane can never truly escape
his own past? He ran all the way to Seattle to
get away from Cheers to completely reinvent himself.
And 30 years later, he's right back exactly where
he started. As Freud might say, we are often
destined to just repeat our psychological patterns
until we finally resolve them. Perhaps Frazier
just hasn't resolved his Boston trauma quite
yet. Or maybe he just really, really missed the
clam chowder. Thanks for joining us for this
deep dive into the world of Frazier. We'll see
you next time. Good night, Seattle.