Why Frasier wasn't influential like Seinfeld and Friends?

I prefer SEINFELD, too, but FRIENDS is way bigger now. There's FRIENDS merchandise in stores and the target audience is not the middle-aged women who watched it the first time.

A middle-aged friend married an Israeli. She surprised us by answering a FRIENDS question at a trivia contest and she told us the show is huge in Israel.

 

Maybe just one: "I'm listening."

I never thought Friends was funny - I didn't know anyone anything like the characters the actors portrayed. My wife who is five years younger then myself, loves it, so maybe it's an age thing? The first few seasons of Frasier were pretty good, I thought - same with the first couple seasons of Cheers - and the same for just about every sitcom I've ever enjoyed. I can still watch the occassional episode of Seinfeld, and laugh out loud.

 

I never thought 'Friends' was funny, either. And rolled my eyes when anyone brought it up, and was disappointed if I met someone I liked who watched that show. Flash forward twenty years, I now have a kid, who grows up into a teenage daughter, who watches every single episode multiple times, and me, wanting to spend time with her, sits with her for hours and hours of it. By the time it was over, I was impressed with the writing, the performances, the spirit and consistency of the show and now consider myself a fan. The 90s were different - I was different - and when Friends and Seinfeld were both on the air, I identified with the Seinfeld people and held a cynical, dismissive view of Friends watchers - it was almost tribal. One of the few bright spots of aging is that so much of that baggage is gone. Full disclosure - other than The Mary Tyler Moore Show - Seinfeld is still my all-time favourite comedy. I didn't watch Frasier because it didn't seem to have anything to do with my life, though I watched Cheers and always appreciated the character. Frasier didn't seem to be part of any zeitgeist, any cultural moment - it was just there. Just last week I rewatched the pilot and then two more episodes, and thought it was fantastic, so I can only assume (once again) that my indifference was more about me, than the show.

 

I never found any of the characters very likeable on Friends. I love Frasier and have really begun to enjoy Seinfeld and it's quirky humor. Friends, though, just leaves me flat.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

I can't stand Friends and I've never got the appeal of Seinfeld, but I love Frasier, and it doesn't hurt that it had ex-Benny Hill Show alumni Jane Leeves

 

Other than the father the "Frasier" characters were annoying Never could get into the show. Same with "Friends" although I'll make allowances for Aniston. Seinfeld all the way for me.

 

It's a pop culture myth that Seinfeld was "a show about nothing." That was a just catchphrase used by George in The Pilot when he and Jerry were trying to sell a show about Jerry's life to NBC -- it was never an accurate description of the actual show.

In fact nearly all of the episodes had plenty of story, though often it got very weird and unbelievable. There were a few exceptions like The Parking Garage and The Chinese Restaurant but if you look at a summary of the episodes, it's pretty clear that most of those shows had a lot going on, with plenty of twists and turns.

 

I always felt that the humor on Frazier was on a higher level than the other shows. Also more deadpan comedy moments. Particularly enjoyed the Niles character. In that vein I liked it more than the others.

 

I'm totally spitballing here, as I didn't watch the entire run of the show, and forget more than I remember about what I did see.

I'm betting Niles and Daphne eventually hooked up and maybe even got married. Fan service, at the expense of what was interesting about those two characters.

Jerry never married Elaine (I don't even think they hooked up again).
Jerry never hooked up with Newman.
Jerry never moved in with Kramer.
George never hooked up with Elaine
...
The show never lost sight of what made it funny (except for that last episode).

Somehow Friends defied the rules, as I think everyone hooked up with everyone over the run of that show.

 

Jerry and Elaine hook up in one episode after Elaine says she faked all her orgasms with Jerry.

 

The last laugh: behind the multimillion-dollar deals to buy old sitcoms
An interesting article on why shows such as Friends and Seinfeld are so successful.

 

That show never made me laugh...even once. Now Jen, she’s quite the hottie....

 

Of the three shows here, Frasier is my favorite. Friends had a few years of a wheelhouse when they weren't Ross & Rachel focused and the characters were better established...Also, when 'Chandler' was no longer suffering addiction issues. Seinfeld was great once it expanded its characters beyond the core, and really, it was George and Elaine's worlds expanding that made that possible. The Ross's, and Elaine's work life made that possible.

But to Frasier...I liked that show a lot, for many of the reasons already shared here (and in other threads). Personally, my favorite episode is the one where they plan a dinner party. The entire episode is based on the planning phase, until they realize they're viewed as kooks, so they scrap it. The entire episode is shot in the apartment, and it really stands out as one of their best. It even includes a reference to the 'Collyer Brothers' (Google it).

The one blinding weakspot to Frasier was it carried the actress, Per Gilpin (Roz Doyle). I always found her to be a subpar actress, but around the cast they assembled? She stuck out. It's one thing to hide her talent at KACL where she's shouting down Bob Bulldog Briscoe, etc, but there are some really forgettably bad episodes where she is the focus. The one where she breaks Bulldog's heart, the one where she's worried about her child not understanding her hamster's passing, and the worst of it was where she clashes with Frasier over the attention of Julia Wilcox. That's not gripping TV. It's bad acting. Ouch.

 

I don't really know Friends, but Seinfeld was hugely influential. I'll link to a pretty good Vox.com piece below, but my own feeling is that it introduced a kind of humor - familiar to those of us living in urban centers - to the country (and world) at large. It changed the weather, so to speak.

Seinfeld is 30 years old. Here are 5 ways it changed television.

 

I beg to differ-there were other comedies that were created using elements of each shows template.

 

Frasier would be a great reboot. Netflix / Hulu whatever. He ditches the radio gig and starts back up with a private practice. 50% him, 50% his patients.

Rated R.

 

Reportedly Kelsey Grammer wants to do a continuation. I don’t know where it’s at. ‘Frasier” was the more traditional of the three comedies but it was also more character driven.

 

I always remember this one:

oh what fresh hell is this?

 

Paramount+ has ordered a Frasier reboot, to tentatively premiere next year.

 

Not for me. Courtney Cox the whole way.

 

Never got into Friends or Frasier, never laughed at either show. But Seinfeld was just the best. It got so that anything in life could be expressed on Seinfeld and I could easily relate to it. I credit Larry David with that universal appeal and multilayered humor that could make you laugh years after watching. Ditto with Curb.

 

Niles Crane is one of my favourite sitcom character creations. Up there with Murray Hewitt from Flight of the Conchords and Alan Partridge and Fathers Ted and Dougal.

 

Because it wasn't very good? I couldn't stand the show. Never got through a full episode. Of course I've watched even less of Friends than that. I never liked the premise of Frasier, and it's such a terrible premise, I can't imagine it being copied by anyone else whether they liked the show or not. There is zero relatable about a middle-aged psychiatrist who hosts a radio show, sees his brother and father every day, and has a British nanny or whatever she was. The group of friends in the city premise, or giving a stand-up comedian his own show premise, are much more copiable.

That's not what he meant by being about nothing though. Being about nothing was about there being no message, moral, lesson or point to the stories. No one ever learned anything. So I think it's very accurate to say Seinfeld was about nothing. Seinfeld was the great show about nothing and Pulp Fiction was the great movie about nothing. It doesn't mean nothing happened in them. It means they completely lacked the "character arcs" we were told had to be part of any show. It's why Tarantino was on the Rogan show this year praising movies where the characters don't change (he praised Chevy Chase's movies for having his character be the same at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning). Both Seinfeld and Tarantino embraced this idea that their characters are flawed and will never learn how to be better people. That's why the Seinfeld finale episode is brilliant, as it takes the show's underlying premise to its ultimate and most extreme conclusion, in order to lay it bare.

 

I liked Frazier but never became a real fan or felt compelled to watch it much. I just didn’t find the Crane brothers appealing characters. Niles being attracted to any girl seemed unbelievable, and Frasier was just too pompous for my taste (and just over the top).

 

Hmmm, she never struck me as being subpar, but she never struck me as being exceptional either. I would agree that she probably wasn't that great in longer scenes where she had to be more serious (of which there were not that many), as opposed to her usual shtick of being sassy and throwing out one-liners, but overall I think she was more of a credit to the show than a detriment. She was attractive enough and had enough self confidence on the surface (although we did see her vulnerability at times) in the role to pull off the "aggressive about hooking up with men all the time" role, but never overdid it to where it seemed unrealistic.

Agreed. I wasn't a big fan of the Seinfeld finale, as it felt like too much window dressing, and it was one of the rare episodes that really wasn't that funny, but I did like that they didn't try to change the characters or give them unrealistic growth for the sake of it. The four main characters were all deeply flawed, and they were still that way at the end of the series.