Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character who is both a supporting character on the American television sitcom Cheers and the titular protagonist of its spin-off Frasier and the latter's 2023 sequel. In all three series, he is portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance in the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and increase his prominence.

Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series, Frasier, through which the span of his overall television appearances totals twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace, Seattle, after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly created family: his estranged father, Martin, and brother, Niles. In February 2021, ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new series on Paramount+.

Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character on these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance on Wings. For his portrayal on Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win in that category. For portraying the character on Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).

Creation and casting

thumb|upright=.75|[[Kelsey Grammer, portrayer of Frasier Crane since 1984]]

The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."

John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down because he felt that television at the time would down his dignity. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to appear only on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a viewer approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.

Role in Cheers

Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers.

As Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they reenact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage.

In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.

In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man, Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and—in the following episode, "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out of the room and heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic, among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to the police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.

Role in Frasier

Spin-off development

When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused primarily on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembled an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati, too much. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and younger brother Niles.

Moving to Seattle

After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce off-screen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son, Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and younger brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.

Frasier works for the radio station KACL as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier had said that his father was dead and had been a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found the chemistry between Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing into the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son, Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), and then quit his eponymous television talk show in Chicago, and his relationship with Charlotte has ended as well. He tries to reconnect with his son Frederick (now Jack Cutmore-Scott), nicknamed Freddy, who has dropped out of Harvard and then become a firefighter. Frasier becomes recruited by Harvard's psychology department as a psychology professor, especially to prove himself as a serious psychiatrist rather than a mere showman.

Other appearances

Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.

  • Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
  • Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
  • The Earth Day Special (1990)
  • Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
  • The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
  • Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)

An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.

Characterization and analysis

Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure"; he may have solutions to such problems as a psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.

Reception

Reception on the character

At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat." In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs.

Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or desperation to elicit more laughter. but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.

Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found the series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringes Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not consider the comparison when Frasier was introduced in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)

Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performances as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In a note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses."

Reception on Frasier and Lilith

Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she uses comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together.

Accolades

For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier in 2000.

Bibliography

  • Another edition
  • Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle