We were a Frasier family growing up. I watched a lot of television and, while we all had own our personal tastes, the unifying thread from grandparent to sibling, was that we all loved Frasier.
My parents loved it because it was their show. TV hadn’t expanded into the overwhelming hellish empire that it is now, but the sitcom as a genre was defined enough for showrunners to begin putting new twists on the format. It also helped that the series aired when my sister and I were still young enough to be in bed before showtime. It hit my parents just right.
Fast forward a decade or so: my sister and I are now watching endless re-runs of old sitcoms on TBS. Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Seinfeld were in heavy rotation in our diets at that point, but the notable absence of their favorite show led to my parents ordering a season on DVD. Yes, this was pre-Netflix. It’s worth mentioning this not just to show how the times have a-changed, but also because owning a piece of media like this marked the first time I’d watch every episode of a show, in order, in its entirety. That was a novelty in and of itself.
And so a ritual was born. My family would watch two or three episodes a night. At the end of the month, we’d order a new season, and we’d rinse and repeat until we had the entire series. My parents watched these episodes with us every night, a refresher on their favorite series of the 90's, but my sister and I, having never seen them, would pop in the discs every day for even more repeat viewing. I’d reckon that I’ve seen the entire series through at least three times, maybe more.
The DVDs didn’t stop with us, though. We lent them to my aunt. To our grandparents. To friends. If a Memorial Day cookout was rained out, we’d eventually pop in a season and watch our favorite episodes as a group. We were a Frasier family.
After watching a cast of characters for eleven seasons, though, they become more than characters. They were people to us. We knew Martin’s favorite brand of beer (Ballantine). We knew Frasier’s alma mater (Harvard, then Oxford). We knew Niles's allergies (nutmeg) and even caught the continuity errors when Niles would order a latte with nutmeg at his favorite coffee chop (Café Nervosa). To this day, I can shout a quote at a family holiday and get the appropriate response from each and every relative. We know these folks inside and out. Even the characters who are never on screen, like Niles’s estranged wife Maris, are fully fleshed out. I have a strong understanding of the type of woman Hester Crane was, despite her death occurring before the show’s first episode. The Cranes are seared into my brain.
The affect that Frasier had on my sense of humor is palpable. I remember reading on Wikipedia how David Hyde Pierce would bite the insides of his cheeks when telling a joke to prevent himself from smiling during what should be a deadpan delivery. As an impressionable 13 year old, I did the same thing, something I wouldn’t recommend to anyone with braces. Hell, on my 21st birthday I made a point to buy a bottle of sherry because, hey, I had to know what made this drink so darn fancy!
Frasier is like home to me. It’s the place I was raised. It was an influential part of my life. But eventually, you have to leave home.
As the years went on, I stopped re-watching the same episodes over and over. As a result, I found myself gravitating (and eventually preferring) some of the more offbeat and subversive entries I’d come across. Seinfeld, Arrested Development, and 30 Rock eventually became my go-to shows, as they managed to tickle my brain in all the right ways. I was now going out of my way to watch things for the first time, and so, Frasier fell by the wayside. You can only binge so much new content, of course. The Office? Done. Parks and Recreation? Check. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? The Good Place? The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Veni vidi vici. I was running out of shows!
But hold up. Frasier is a spin-off.
And thus, I began a journey to that place where everybody knows your name. Eleven seasons worth of classic television that NBC has yet to yank from Netflix. Luckily, I knew going in that my old friend Frasier Crane wouldn’t show up until the third season, but that was no problem. I had two seasons to get to know Sam, Diane, and all the folks in the fine city of Boston.
If you haven’t watched Cheers in a while, it’s an interesting experience. Obviously since it’s older than many of the sitcoms I’ve watched, it doesn’t subvert any of the tropes I’d grown used to. That probably because, you know, it invented them. Most the jokes still hold up, as all the Norm-isms are still slick and Coach’s simple nature never ceases to please. Some of the jokes, though, haven’t aged quite so well…after all, is Diane really such a stick in the mud for thinking gay people should be allowed into the bar? Yeesh.
Eventually season three rolls around and in walks Dr. Frasier Crane, fiancé to Diane Chambers. While the Frasier I knew wasn’t much of a beer-drinking barfly, his personality was otherwise in sync with the Dr. Frasier Crane of a decade later. Watching episodes of Cheers now was like watching long-lost episode of Frasier. It was a blast! I was having a lot of fun…until Season 3, Episode 8. Its title: Diane Meets Mom.
In walks Diane. In walks Frasier. And right behind him walks a woman. A woman who I’d never seen, but knew very well. A woman who was all spoken of with nothing but love and longing. A woman who, like many of my great-grandparents, I’d heard so much about but never had the opportunity to meet.
In walks Frasier’s mother, Hester Crane.
The color drained from my face. A chill ran down my spine. Here is a woman that was mythologized for eleven years of formative television watching. I had just seen a ghost.
And then the ghost spoke! And she would continue to speak throughout the rest of the episode! Everyone would listen to what the ghost had to say, everyone would respond to the ghost's questions, and everyone would go about their lives because the whole situation wasn’t weird to anyone except me.
Here’s the thing: I know, in the logical part of my brain, what’s going on here. I understand that this episode takes place before all of Frasier, and that Hester was, essentially, a throwaway character that the writers never would have imagined would go on to play such a big part in the lore of the Frasier-verse. I get that this woman was paid a few dollars to guest star as a character who exists to mine comedy out of Diane Chambers. I get that.
But it’s still very weird. And this weirdness is wholly unique.
My great-grandfather, Frank Coria, died before my first birthday. I guess I’ve technically met him, but I’ve never really met him. All I have to go on is old pictures, a few home movies, and an abundance of stories. I knew Frank the same way I knew Hester, both very well and not at all. But whenever he popped up in a home movie, it was never strange. Home movies, after all, are all in the past. You lived it the first time around. Now, you are merely watching what happened.
When you watch a TV show, however, you’re watching what’s happening. It’s in the present. Yes, Cheers takes place in the 80's, but the story is unfolding right now, in the present, before your very eyes. Unless it’s a flashback, with de-saturated colors and a foggy, dreamy hazy about the frame, then the scene you’re watching is extremely in the moment. That’s how fiction works, after all. “Here is what’s going on! What happens next?” No matter how many times you watch an episode of your favorite show, it’s always transpiring here and now.
Frank Coria is dead in my present, but was alive in my past. Hester Crane is dead in my present, but is also alive right now.
Characters are always alive when you see them alive. You know Mufasa is going to die, but he's alive every time you start watching The Lion King. So when Hester Crane shows up, she's alive all over again. The difference, though, is that Hester never used to be alive. She was always dead. I had never known her to exist any other way. To see her now is to see a ghost.
It’s a testament to the rock-solid writing of both Cheers and Frasier. After all, I wouldn’t have felt this way had it not been for deep connection I feel to the Crane family, fictional though they may be. That’s what most writers strive for, right? To have their characters feel real, no matter how comedic the situation?
And this situation is comedic in its own right. After all, how many people can say they’ve an experience wherein they consumed and internalized a fictional family so much that, when they then watch a story out of order, it makes them feel like they’ve just seen a long-lost relative come back to life? So to the writers of Frasier, I offer a congratulations. I’ve felt many emotions over the years, but nothing quite like this. This is something unique, and it’s all due to your fantastic character work.
I’m sure my praise means just as much as your thirty-seven Emmys.
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