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From the first etching of the Seattle skyline to the final fade-out inside a Chicago-bound airplane, Frasier celebrated the intelligence of its audience with sharp, accessible humor. For 11 seasons, from 1993 to 2004, NBC’s hugely successful Cheers spin-off walked a fine line between extreme theatricality and heightened reality. It played with our emotions, shifting easily from major to minor keys and balancing goofy farce with tales of heartbreak and woe.
The show’s creators, David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee, followed a simple mantra: no stupid jokes, no stupid characters. Deliver smart, heartfelt content framed within awkward situations. And never take the easy way out.
In front of the camera, Frasier’s cast elevated even the best material; behind it they connected as family, becoming godparents to each other’s children and siblings at heart. The fact that Kelsey Grammer (Frasier Crane) and David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane) still lovingly refer to the late John Mahoney (who played their father, Martin) as “dad” tells you everything you need to know.
Frasier is beloved enough that the mere mention of a potential reboot can spin social media into a frenzy. And while the radio psychiatrist’s future remains unwritten, the pioneering series—which won a record-breaking 37 Emmys from 108 nominations, the most for any comedy or drama until Game of Thrones took the title in 2017—serves as a testament to creative excellence and intelligent comedy. On the 25th anniversary of the show’s premiere in September 1993, it’s time to look back behind the scenes of one of television’s best series ever. We’re listening.
Paramount TV made a deal with Grammer to create his own show if and when Cheers ended. Grammer enlisted writer-producers Angell, Casey, and Lee, who had helped form Frasier’s character on Cheers, to develop an idea for an all-new series as Cheers began its final season in 1992.
Peter Casey (series co-creator): We created this high-brow, eccentric multi-millionaire publisher, a Malcolm Forbes–type, who gets into a motorcycle accident that paralyzes him from the waist down and forces him to run his empire from his Manhattan penthouse bedroom with the help of a Rosie Perez–type live-in nurse.
Kelsey Grammer (Frasier Crane): John Pike, Paramount TV’s president, read the script and invited me to dinner. After our first cocktail, he looked at me and said, “Kelsey, I think a sitcom should be funny.”
Kelsey and Shelley in a scene together during the 4th season of Cheers in 1986.
From ©Paramount/Everett Collection.Rather than re-inventing the wheel, Pike told Grammer that he should simply keep playing Frasier—whose larger-than-life personality lent itself well to leading a show.
Joe Keenan (writer-producer): Frasier has so many flaws: he’s vain, pompous, condescending. He’s an insecure snob, always trying to ascend to some new social pinnacle. But underneath that, there’s this incredibly decent guy who truly wants to help people.
Christopher Lloyd (writer-producer): The vanity and self-importance always helped us lead Frasier into comic situations. . . . It’s not funny to see a guy step into a manhole and get hurt. But if he somehow has done something preposterous to bring that pain upon himself, then you feel freer to laugh.
Once Grammer re-committed to the Frasier character, the producers had to figure out how to reposition him from a satellite performer on Cheers to the maypole in a spin-off series.
David Lee (series co-creator): We had to get far away from Boston, so the show could have its own brand. We settled in Denver, but then Colorado passed this egregious anti-gay amendment. We couldn’t in good conscience base the show there. We thought Seattle seemed up-and-coming.
Casey: We’d previously knocked around an idea for Cheers that never came to fruition, where Frasier was a guest host on a Boston radio therapist’s show. It was an interesting arena, with the radio aspect making it different than The Bob Newhart Show.