I’m Still Listening – Why Frasier remains my… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

I’m Still Lis­ten­ing – Why Frasi­er remains my favourite 90s sitcom

16 Sep 2018

Words by William Carroll

Middle-aged man in beige coat, tie and headphones, smiling while speaking into a microphone at a radio station.
Middle-aged man in beige coat, tie and headphones, smiling while speaking into a microphone at a radio station.
Twen­ty-five years on, the show’s mix of high-brow humour and gen­uine heart is as appeal­ing as ever.

It’s been 25 years since Dr Frasi­er Crane, emi­nent psy­chi­a­trist, Seat­tle socialite and col­lec­tor of African fer­til­i­ty stat­ues, appeared in the pilot episode of Cheers spin-off, Frasi­er. What is it exact­ly about the effete, pompous Doc that result­ed in a record-break­ing 37 Emmy awards? And why does Frasi­er remain the gold-stan­dard of 90s sit­coms, two and half decades on?

For 11 years, you’ve heard me say I’m Lis­ten­ing.’ Well, you were lis­ten­ing too. And for that I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful.” Crane’s clos­ing address to his loy­al radio lis­ten­ers at KACL, where he has dis­pensed bite-size psy­chi­atric advice for over a decade, is per­haps the most touch­ing fourth-wall break in sit­com his­to­ry. Here is a man whose life has been doc­u­ment­ed for 22 years, from his hum­ble begin­nings as an East-coast ther­a­pist and Boston­ian bar-fly, to his res­i­den­cy as Seattle’s most famous doc­tor. We’ve seen him endure two failed mar­riages, innu­mer­able dis­as­trous first dates and, occa­sion­al­ly, some­thing akin to true love. And so it is that Frasi­er Crane – or rather Kelsey Gram­mer – thanks us for watching.

Ini­tial­ly just a rain­drop in the del­uge of 80s and 90s US sit­coms, Frasier’s
suc­cess as a spin-off of all-Amer­i­can favourite Cheers ini­tial­ly seemed unlike­ly. The estab­lished dom­i­nance of shows like Sein­feld, the poster-child of sit­com per­fec­tion, left lit­tle room for com­peti­tors in the mid-’90s – and what more was there to say about a sup­port­ing, albeit pop­u­lar, char­ac­ter from a now fin­ished show? Frasi­er remained obliv­i­ous to these red flags, show­ing up in 1993 with a charm and con­fi­dence that set its gild­ed wheels rolling.

Frasier’s premise has always been cosi­ly straight­for­ward and decid­ed­ly uncon­tro­ver­sial. Return­ing to his home­town of Seat­tle after a brief affair with East Coast life, the unlucky-in-love psy­chi­a­trist finds him­self shar­ing a lux­u­ri­ous apart­ment over­look­ing Puget Sound with his can­tan­ker­ous ex-cop father (John Mahoney) and his live-in health care work­er Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves). Frasi­er finds him­self bal­anc­ing this tense home life with his celebri­ty career as a radio psy­chi­a­trist, as well as nav­i­gat­ing the pit­falls of Seattle’s upper crust with his equal­ly pre­ten­tious yet love­able broth­er, Niles (David Hyde Pierce). That, in a nut­shell, is Frasier’s world. Yet across its 264 episodes, in the hands of cre­ator David Angell, showrun­ner Christo­pher Lloyd and a slate of great writ­ers and per­for­mances, Frasi­er staked its claim as one of the defin­ing sit­coms of its day.

But the show’s suc­cess wasn’t con­fined to boxy, 90s TV sets. The so-called Frasi­er Effect’ hit the Pacif­ic North­west with an unprece­dent­ed wave of tourism and urban migra­tion, with thou­sands of peo­ple pour­ing into Seat­tle and the sur­round­ing res­i­den­tial cen­tres to live the life of the good doc­tor. Sip­ping cham­pagne on bal­conies in the shad­ow of the Space Nee­dle, cav­ernous liv­ing rooms dec­o­rat­ed with bespoke fur­ni­ture, a week­ly sched­ule che­quered with sym­pho­ny vis­its and muse­um open­ings. This was the lifestyle Frasi­er had estab­lished through its sub­tle world build­ing, a whole coun­try apart from the blue-col­lar envi­rons of Sam Malone’s New Eng­land drinkery. Con­do by con­do, Seat­tle has become a lot like Frasi­er,” Kay McFad­den observes in her 2004 Frasi­er obit­u­ary pub­lished in The Seat­tle Times. Frasi­er did so much more than sim­ply enter­tain audi­ences dur­ing its 11-year run – it explored class divi­sions, rife then and now in Amer­i­can soci­ety, priv­i­leged qual­i­ty writ­ing over luke­warm pop-cul­ture quips, and breathed new life into the hum­ble and unas­sum­ing Pacif­ic Northwest.

Two well-dressed individuals, a man in a suit and a woman in a blouse and patterned skirt, standing and facing each other in a professional setting.

So much of Frasier’s appeal lies in the per­for­mances of its cen­tral quin­tet: Frasi­er, Niles, Mar­tin, Daphne and Frasier’s pro­duc­er and con­fi­dante, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin). For every snooty ambi­tion or snide pre­ten­sion har­boured by Frasi­er and Niles, there is always the home­spun, blue-col­lar advice of their fam­i­ly to bring them firm­ly back to ter­ra fir­ma. For every failed rela­tion­ship – and, as is so often the case with sit­com lead­ing men, there are many – there are Roz’s promis­cu­ous sto­ries of a care­free sin­gle life. And then there’s the rela­tion­ship between Mar­tin Crane and his two sons, fre­quent­ly the focus of each episode’s dénoue­ment and which taps into the heart-string tug­ging found so read­i­ly in the 90s sit­com blueprint.

John Mahoney’s per­for­mance as the coarse-but-car­ing father, who seems cut entire­ly from a dif­fer­ent cloth to his fois gras-munch­ing off­spring, is one of the show’s great­est strengths. He is the nec­es­sary ton­ic to Frasi­er and Niles’ expen­sive and dis­as­trous fol­lies, the anti­dote to their often tox­ic desires to be seen and known by Seattle’s elite. With­out him, Frasi­er and Niles have no barom­e­ter by which they can mea­sure their own fool­ish antics. The show’s title and premise might sug­gest a sin­gu­lar focus, but make no mis­take – Frasi­er is first and fore­most a show about family.

It’s hard to pin­point exact­ly where and when Frasi­er stopped being the com­fort­able cig­ar-lounge annex to Cheers’ well-loved bar and became its own pent­house, set­ting the lofty heights to which con­tem­po­rary and future apart­ment-set sit­coms strived. The show’s blend of farce, evo­ca­tion of stage play tra­di­tions and refusal to dilute its eru­dite ref­er­ences all kept it firm­ly in pole posi­tion dur­ing its ini­tial run. Clas­sic episodes such as Ham Radio’, The Match­mak­er’ and My Cof­fee with Niles’ each play around with the tropes and taboos of the sit­com canon, every­thing from sin­gle-set­ting sto­ries, self-reflex­ive stud­ies of Frasier’s unques­tion­ably white demo­graph­ic, to decon­struct­ing homo­sex­u­al stereotypes.

These themes are lit­tered through­out the very best episodes of con­tem­po­rary sit­coms, with Frasier’s sig­na­ture take on them res­onat­ing well into the new cen­tu­ry. Indeed, the show has found new fans through the binge-watch cul­ture of the stream­ing age. There are even ded­i­cat­ed online com­mu­ni­ties that lis­ten to Frasi­er exclu­sive­ly to get to sleep, who jok­ing­ly refer to them­selves Frasi­er Sleep­ers’. Frasi­er has spawned memes, sub­red­dits, cook­books and even aca­d­e­m­ic pub­li­ca­tions. Along with the above­men­tioned episodes, The Innkeep­ers’, Mixed Dou­bles’ and Din­ner Par­ty’ are all regard­ed as clas­sics in their pwn right. But there is arguably no fin­er episode in the show’s his­to­ry than sea­son five’s The Ski Lodge’.

The premise, as usu­al, is dev­il­ish­ly sim­ple. Roz, preg­nant and unable to attend a recent­ly won hol­i­day, bestows Frasi­er with tick­ets for his fam­i­ly to attend a free ski week­end at a moun­tain resort. A lux­u­ry chalet nes­tled in the moun­tains? A hand­some French ski instruc­tor to show them the ropes? Late-night mug­fuls of Martin’s sig­na­ture hot but­tered rum? This is the recipe for arguably the finest episode of farce ever aired. Accom­pa­ny­ing the usu­al cast of Frasi­er, Niles, Mar­tin and Daphne are the latter’s attrac­tive, amorous friend Annie and rugged Olympic ski cham­pi­on, Guy. Although no actu­al ski­ing takes place on this week­end retreat, a slalom of a dif­fer­ent kind soon gets under­way. With each char­ac­ter secret­ly lust­ing after anoth­er in a ver­i­ta­ble Pen­rose-stair­case of pas­sion, and Mar­tin obliv­i­ous­ly dol­ing out his alco­holic lubri­cant, the episode descends into a hor­mon­al haze of bed­room-hop­ping, gen­er­at­ing enough body heat to melt the sur­round­ing slopes.

Yet it’s more than just farce and satire that gave Frasi­er its edge. It had heart, more than any sit­com of its time. That’s because so much of Frasier’s premise is root­ed in fam­i­ly ties and the feel­ing of com­ing home, whether it’s Frasi­er return­ing to Seat­tle after many years away, or sim­ply know­ing that he has an apart­ment filled with fam­i­ly and friends to fall back on when the going gets tough. Thomas Wolfe famous­ly wrote You Can’t Go Home Again’, a nov­el that details the irre­versible dam­age of leav­ing one’s home­town and then expect­ing every­thing to have stayed just so when final­ly return­ing. In sea­son three of Frasi­er, writ­ers Lin­da Mor­ris and Vic Rauseo penned You Can Go Home Again’, in which Frasi­er recounts his rather fraught first encounter with his father upon mov­ing back to Seat­tle. The moral of this episode is sim­ple: Frasi­er was right to come home, even if it at first he felt lost, alone, and, dare he say it, old­er. Home always finds a way to pull us back.

Twen­ty-five years on, Frasi­er remains a home of sorts for so many of us. It’s the show that makes jokes about Le Cor­busier, about Puccini’s operas, about Eames lounge chairs. It nev­er con­de­scend­ed. It nev­er sold out. It nev­er shied away from the fact that com­fort and cosi­ness were two of its biggest draws. It showed us that sit­com humour can be more than cheap gags and anachro­nis­tic gen­der stereo­typ­ing. That it could actu­al­ly have heart, soul, some­thing to say. When he alights, back home, in the Emer­ald City, Frasi­er quick­ly finds that peo­ple and places alter with our absence. Hair gets grey­er, old stomp­ing grounds get board­ed up, rela­tion­ships need renew­ing. But that’s why we come home, time and time again. Because regard­less of how much changes, there is some part of us still eter­nal­ly bound to its ebb and flow. Great TV shows don’t change, though. They’re forever.

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