Why Frasier wasn't influential like Seinfeld and Friends?

I think Everybody Loves Raymond was a more consistent show from beginning to end. The highs weren't that high and the lows weren't that low.

 

I like everybody loves raymond, but I am more of a casual viewer.

 

A lot of Frasier was quite Oscar Wilde, or other playwrights of the time I did at high school (Charlie's Aunt, e.g.). Someone rushing in one door, while someone goes out the other. Mistaken identity. Frenetic comedy that quickly goes off, a little like "the minister" episode on Fawlty Towers.

Niles was redundant. The brothers were basically identical. Not saying he needed to be a redneck lumberjack, but the two almost canceled each other out. Marty Crane was the best. Roz needed more airtime.

 

Because Frasier was a pompous ass. I don't like people like that, probably because I'm a pompous ass too.

 

Disagree on needing more Roz. At least with Peri Gilpin anyway. Her terse style of acting made for some pretty awkward moments. Come to think of it, maybe if she was say, Niles' patient where she could go on one of her rants? That's the glaring hole in the story: the lack of doctor / patient relationship. They could've shuttled through a few dozen actors and actresses throughout the years. John Lithgow as a patient? Good grief.

 

Yes. Her hair was definitely "a thing" back then. Many, many women wanted THAT hairstyle. Maybe that's the influence the show had on Pop culture.

 

Niles was critical to developing Frasier as a leading character, and giving him different things to do than what he had done on Cheers. On Cheers Frasier was Fish Out Of Water (out of place) who made comments about people he considered beneath him, and also had a romantic history, ultimately getting dumped by two peer type women.

Niles was there to put Frasier in the advantage, to take away the fish out of water, to make Frasier the norm, the lead, to sympathize us to his point of view. Frasier always had an effective ally against any of the other characters, who could not align themselves easily against Frasier and Niles and their world view. Martin was the fish out of water on Frasier, the situation turned on its head, the intellects with the numerical advantage, plus he was disabled to boot, past his prime.

Niles was also able to turn Frasier's romantic history on its head. Frasier was already well established as a romantic character, further developments there risked being less satisfying that what we'd seen. So Frasier romances were put on the back burner, while Niles was allowed to be the aggressor pursuing a woman different in type from what Frasier favored.

The weaknesses of Frasier is Niles/Daphne dominated other story lines and ultimately proved unsatisfying in its execution and resolution. Frasier was more typical of an average show here. Significant here is the unseen character of Maris, Niles' wife and Frasier's sister in law. Unlike Vera on Cheers, who's unseen for reasons congruent with the environment (Norm seldom spends time with her), Maris is a more critical character to this world and harder to justify in absence. Ultimately Maris is not seen because any actress would have made the character more sympathetic than the descriptions of her. Maris had to remain unseen in order to quasi justify Niles' pursuit of Daphne. It's a neat parlor trick, but nothing more.

Frasier's world was always going to end up with Niles and Daphne together and nothing else much upsetting it. Hence the reliance on farce. I think Frasier was a clever answer as to how to develop a show around Frasier Crane. Its world was clever, but ultimately less robust than that of Cheers or even Gilligan's Island. Frasier's a good example of how to develop a spinoff show, but I wouldn't develop an elemental, free standing show on its model.

 

Niles is my favorite character. As a Brit i find I am always trying to reconcile myself to Daphne’s presence in the show. I can just about manage it, but when her brothers started appearing that was tough to watch. The show was on the skids by then I think. But Niles’ infatuation with Daphne in the early series is really funny.

 

Frasier isn't funny is the simple answer. I didn't watch it much, but saw enough that I know I never laughed or even chuckled. Pretty boring. Not nearly the level of writing and characters as on Seinfeld, which is the best sitcom ever. Friends wasn't that funny either, tried to be a "younger hip" Seinfeld and failed miserably. Just turned into a merry go round of who is doing who every week. Silly and inane.

I can't think of any memorable lines in Frasier or Friends that permeated pop culture. Whereas Seinfeld lines in the hundreds are quoted continously in everything from sports broadcasts to entertainment shows to late night talk shows etc. Seinfeld created almost a whole unique language. "They're real and they're spectacular". "Not that anything's wrong with that." Yada Yada. She's a low talker, a high talker, a close talker etc. Sponge worthy. Man hands. Regifter. Bubble boy. Dr Pimple Popper (now an actual show). And on and on.....

 

Frasier is hilarious. I don't care whether it was influential or not.

 

Cheers at its peak was better than all three, but went on a little too long.

 

Niles was not redundant at all,. Having 2 very similar smug, would be upper class, arty guys meant lots of very funny competitive situations added to the goings on with the down to earth dad who was their polar opposite. Pretty much genius actually. An incredibly well written and hilariously funny show.

 

I love Frasier, but it’s not as broadly appealing as Friends or Seinfeld. It’s made for a narrower slice of the audience. I’m surprised, honestly, that it got the ratings (a frequent top 10 performer) that it did during its original run.

 

Cheers was ok for awhile, but then turned into the interminable "will Sam and Diane do each other" mode and it became irritating. Not nearly as good as Seinfeld.

 

Seinfeld suffers without Larry David and without director Tom Cherones.

I didn't mind the "will they or won't they" as long as it's well-done. In fact, I consider "The Deal" to be the best Seinfeld episode---and it shatters the myth that Jerry can't act. The couch scene at the beginning (very long for sitcom) is a masterpiece.
In the latter years the shows became a little too goofy---don't hold up all that well.

 

Seasons 4 and 5 of Cheers are better than anything Seinfeld did (though admittedly Seinfeld came close). Those two seasons are in the pantheon of the best of the best.

I noted you didn’t bother to pay much attention to Frasier, but are confident in your opinion that Frasier just wasn’t funny. That’s a tell. It’s a very funny show. It’s just highbrow.

 

The genius of Seinfeld was they intentionally and specifically chose NOT TO make it a "relationship" show. The Deal episode was toying with the audience, who already wanted to see the Cheers "will they or won't they" hookup btw Jerry and Elaine. They did that episode to get rid of the expected hookup motifs and put it to "bed", and instead truly made Elaine "one of the guys" so to speak on equal footing.

That freed them up to hilariously introduce girlfriend after girlfriend for Jerry with a wide variety of funny storylines, and the same with Elaine's boyfriends from Puddy to Kieth Hernandez. None of them lasted of course, and the one steady relationship that was formed, George and Susan, they had the fiance killed off from licking envelopes! Their purposeful avoidance of the feel good relationship storylines is what separates Seinfeld from just about every other TV sitcom (especially Cheers and Friends). They were then free to do slapstick, satire, parody (think of all the movie parodies and news event parodies etc). They purposely were "bad people" who did the wrong thing much of the time.

And the greatest stroke of genius was parodying and poking fun at the very existence of their own show, the whole "show about nothing" storyline, in the process mocking and satirizing the very NBC network and executives that allowed them to go forward with the show. In that sense it was more like Monty Python or SCTV, with healthy doses of Green Acres, Get Smart and Letterman like wisecrack motifs thrown in. The writers on Seinfeld were against the grain geniuses.

 

Phffffffftttt, highbrow my azzz. It's a tell all right--I could tell right away the show was boring and not funny. The very fact that it tried so hard to be "highbrow" is what made it uniquely NOT FUNNY. It was smarmy and pretentious fluff, and quite boring every time I happened to stumble across it. Kelsey Grammar is not a funny guy. He was the least funny character on Cheers, and I was stunned they chose to give him, of all people, to do a spin off. The fact that you think it's "highbrow" humor that I was too dumb to "get" is hilarious. The Marx Bros, Laurel and Hardy, SCTV, Monty Python etc were not highbrow and were hilarious. In fact Python specialized in spoofing people like you who THOUGHT they were "highbrow" and fancied themselves as superior and above the common rabble and riff raff. So thank you for providing me with your unintentional elitist world view and in the process giving me a few hearty guffaws and chortles---AT you, not with you Mr Jester!

 

Wow.

 

All true, but i still think The Deal is the best episode. I'm thinking more in terms of execution.

 

Because people in Frasier's demographic already acted like that (it was based on them), and people not in that demographic wouldn't' readily admit to aping Frasier, one wouldn't think.

 

Too bad they didn't do cross-over episodes. On Friends, Niles and Fraser could have been in NYC for a convention and walk into Central Perk for a cup. They would have been fascinated by the gang. Monica, smitten with Fraser, would go out with him for dinner, and he wakes up at her place. Niles, amused by Joey's Dr Drake character, convinces his brother to have him on the show.

On Fraser, The gang flies into Seattle for it. Fraser adopts Joey's How You Doing line for a call in segment. Rozz falls madly for Ross, and Phoebe writes a song about Eddie. Chandler and Martin bond when they realize that he arrested Chandler's dad. Monica and Daphne have a wild girl's night out and have to be bailed out. Martin calls in a favor and has all charges dropped.

 

I would surmise the demographic of Frasier viewers closely resembled the demographic of Murder She Wrote and The Golden Girls viewers.

 

No likable characters?

 

Martin? Daphne? Niles? Frasier?