S2 E1 “Slow Tango in South Seattle”

Pompous Frasier Crane, a successful psychiatrist with a Seattle radio show, returns for another hilarious round of comedy that has him ice fishing with Marty and Niles and taking a girlfriend on an ill-fated trip to Bora Bora. Also this season, Frasier and Niles open a restaurant, and Frasier plays matchmaker for Daphne -- while the unhappily married Niles begins to lust after her. –Netflix description of Frasier season two.

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Imagine for a second there was a book about your first sexual experience. This book described in overwrought detail your lovemaking prowess, your naked body, your sexual tics and unique appetite. How would your family respond to the existence of such a book? In my Catholic household I’m sure the topic would go forever unmentioned, the book avoided like a leper. Even if your family were less reserved than mine, I would assume they would politely decline the opportunity to read of your sexual exploits as a teenager.

The Cranes are not like your family or mine. Niles and The Dad, Frasier’s fucking dad, are both really excited to read a vivid account of Frasier’s first time making it Crane in the bed as an 18 year old. They are so excited that they clamor and crawl over one another to be the first to read the book revolving around KGramms sexual adventures.

This is totally fucking disgusting. It is even more disgusting when you put yourself in the place of The Dad or Niles, try to imagine being insanely excited about reading about your brother or sister fucking. So excited that you debase yourself to the level of a six year old lusting after another’s toy, clawing at your dad’s face and turning over a chair in a mad dash to read a description of your family member’s penis.

This book exists because at some point during Frasier’s stay in Boston, unseen by Cheers’ cameras, the good doctor helped J. Peterman overcome writer’s block over a few beers at the bar. He did this by telling him in minute detail, about his first love affair with his piano teacher, even explaining that as an 18 year old he called his chest hair a love rug. This seems a bizarre way to help someone overcome writer’s block, but who am I to judge Fras’s expertise? I have been in a bit of a rut lately, does anyone have any perfectly remembered spring-autumn relationships they could recount to me while we get drunk? I will pay for the beer.



Many years after Frasier told Peterman about his deflowering, the dastardly scribe wrote it down in a book that is now the talk of Seattle! And he didn’t even mention Frasier in his acknowledgments! Frasier is pissed and confronts the scam artist at the radio station and makes him cry. My friends at www.frasieronline.co.uk were not pleased with this plot, Norm Jr. complains that the ep “takes a few too many liberties. The first involves "Cheers" back story issues with this alleged cleansing of the soul with some random writer at the bar, followed by said writer ending up at Frasier's radio station years later.”

What is it like to be a Frasier fanatic (Franatic) and hate plot contrivances? This is the same Norm Jr. who fucking loved it when Frasier’s son showed up in a different episode. Norm just watches every episode of Frasier, cursing the ludicrous plot twists and unbelievable hi-jinks while waiting with bated breath for an appearance by young Freddie, screaming out, “worth it! All worth it!” when he finally appears, like a 13-year-old boy watching an Ashley Judd movie on HBO at 1:30 in the morning. “The rating screen said there was nudity!”

I’m going to give this 73% out of 100, just like Norm Jr.



A few episode highlights: After Frasier gets the writer to cry, his dad is just disgusted that he isn’t happier about it. “You get exactly what you want and you still aren’t happy.” What a weird thing to say. You humiliated this man until he was brought to tears WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

Also, there is an incredibly long zoom on Frasier while he is reading from Peterman’s book and it is awesome. Apparently Doc is very expressive while he is reading, nodding and frowning and laughing. I am not any good at any sort of computer stuff, so if you will indulge me, please click this link to a short video of him reading and watch it on mute. I think its worth it, I’ve watched it about 10 times and it keeps getting funnier.

S1 E19 "Give him the Chair"

As Niles and Frasier walk sullenly around a furniture store:
Niles: Dear God Frasier, we've stumbled across Hell's waiting room.

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The Dad is a terrible roommate. He seems to spend all of his time in the living room watching tv (which is awful), he has a dog, he is loud, he is nosy and he frequently asks Frasier to stay out of his own apartment so he can have sex (I was trying to come up with a funny way to say this but it all just sounded so lame). But mostly, he is a self-righteous piece of shit.



The first season of Frasier was being computed by an earlier model of the Frasier-bot, one perfectly designed to win emmys, but with its drama, conflict and emotion levels too high and its hi-jinks and absurdity levels dangerously low. So season one is filled with episodes like "Give Him the Chair," with Frasier and The Dad having serious fights and then contemplating the history of their relationship. I cannot imagine coming home from a long day at work, plopping down and tuning in and dropping out to this. Why is NBC broadcasting an amateur theater version of Death of a Salesman? This is supposed to be funny dammit, not sad and terrible.



These episodes always feature one middle act when all the tensions boils up and Frasier and The Dad have a screaming match that lasts way too long and then the dad whips out his fucking sad dad card and lays it on the table and Frasier feels awful. But fuck that. All of the tension in the first season is based on the strain in their father-son relationship and Frasier's guilt over not connecting with his dad. But why does Frasier feel guilty? The Dad was the dad, Frasier and Niles were just prissy little kids and The Dad was too busy being a fucking jack-off cop to try and spend any time with the little pussies. Whose fucking fault is that? I picture young Frasier coming home from school all excited, his face aglow from a wonderful day of learning at St. Francis of Assissi Elementary School, "Dad, dad we got to listen to Beethoven today during reading hour!" "What do you think you're better than me? I was too busy being a fucking HERO cop to listen to Beethoven or read you faggot. I wish you liked sitting in a stupid chair and drinking off-brand beer and watching TV on mute all the time, THEN I'd have a real boy for a son and not some pussy-whipped smart ass. How come you never ask me to play catch with you Frasier?"

If I had a kid who was smart and into reading and high culture I'd be stoked, and I'd play catch with him and hang out with him a little bit so he grew into a well-rounded adult. But if he was some no-reading buffoon who only liked Nascar and spitting I would shun him, not try to make any impression on him at all and then show up in his life 40 years later, blame him for the way he was raised and then plop myself down in his living room and ruin his whole life. And if he ever asked me to make any concessions to his lifestyle I would just thump my dick down on the table and cry and scream about how he wasn't exactly the same as me as a child and so I justifiably ignored him and now he needs to make things right by catering to my every old man whim!



"Chair" centers around The Dad's famous old chair, an impossibly ugly green and gray recliner covered in duct tape. Frasier doesn't like the chair because its ugly and his apartment is nice, so he goes to a furniture store and buys a leather recliner with a vibrating massage option for his dad. Everyone loves it and it almost brings Daphne to orgasm (yes, seriously because women usually get off by having someone jiggle their asses).



Guess what? The Dad hates it! Even though the chair is a nice new recliner, and its massage option delighted even Niles and Frasier, The Dad demands that Frasier bring his old chair back. Frasier resists, and then The Dad launches into one of the most groan-inducing monologues ever on television. He doesn't want a nice new chair he wants the chair he was sitting in when he saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, when Frasier called him to tell him he had a grandson, when his wife kissed him on the cheek, etc. You can just watch John Mahoney working all of his biggest STAGE ACTOR muscles while he delivers this claptrap. This logic is exactly the reason I have been wearing the same pair of underwear since 1999, why I still have a racecar bed and why my TV sucks (I want to watch the same TV I watched Sesame Street on!).

I guess the Frasier brothers and their loftiness are the butt of the joke on Frasier, but it's the depiction of the working class through The Dad as our surrogate that is truly insulting. Us every-Joes don't like orchestras or art, we can't be bothered with all that high-minded bullshit, we don't even want to do necessary physical therapy, all we want to do is sit in an ugly chair that for some reason holds a spiritual significance, like a Catholic relic, watch TV and drink beer all the time. GARH GARH GARH baseball and beer and manly stuff like poker.



As it always does, this pandering bullshit works on Frasier, and he goes off on a chase for the chair. He finds it at a high school drama club that features a fat (and alive) Brittany Murphy, RIP, and that is staging "10 Little Indians*" that night! Frasier asks for the chair back and the drama teacher tells him he has to wait two weeks. Obviously this will not stand, since The Dad is a big self-righteous baby (a nickname I've suffered before too!) he could never wait two whole weeks to have the chair that he was sitting in the first time he jerked off while sticking his badge up his ass. The lead actor gets food poisoning, and the drama teacher strikes a deal with Frasier that if he will play the lead in the play he can have the chair back that night. I'm sure that was really weird for the parents going to see the play "Oh I thought Chereth was playing the lead in the play, but apparently its some old man, oh well." My favorite part of this scene is when Frasier introduces himself to the drama teacher and she doesn't know who he is, which MAKES TOTAL SENSE. Why does everyone know who Frasier Crane is? Oh yeah of course I know you, you're that guy on AM radio in the middle of the day. How could I not immediately recognize you, everyone in Seattle listens to AM radio aaaalll the time.

Talk radio makes me want to cut my ears off.

As the credits roll we get one last peak into Frasier's life as he delicately sets up a wonderful looking place on the couch to have some sherry and read his book. But then The Dad comes in and turns on the TV and Eddie runs in and ruins everything. What a fucking dick.

7.4 out of 10-As I said, the original Frasier-bot model was designed to win emmys and emmys alone, and obviously something like: beloved character dealing with REAL ISSUES and having emotional turmoil, is the same sort of catnip to Emmy voters that British accents and funny dresses is to Academy voters. But a 22 minute sitcom is the absolute worst place to try to deal with real issues or explore complex emotional issues. The whole thing is just overwrought and amateurish.



Roz is a slut: In a past review I touched upon the genesis of the Roz is a slut joke, but this was the first one that really took the gag into a whole new stratosphere of ridiculousness. Before this episode the jokes were pretty simple, oh yeah you sleep around stuff, boring and offensive but nothing too important. In "Chair" we get a story about Roz coming home in the morning from a night of wild sex and for some reason stopping to talk with a minister who tells her her shirt is on inside out and then propositions her, and of course she is totally into it! Within the story we learn that Roz thinks a church service is called a "show."

I still do not understand why this show is on Lifetime, it absolutely detests women. Every ex-wife/wife is a stuck-up cunt and the women are all retarded.

*When I was a little kid I loved Agatha Christie novels. Are they still awesome? Does anyone know?

S6 E 14 "Three Valentines"

Frasier: Roz, I'm in Cassandra's hotel room but I'm not sure what that means.
Roz: What it means is that even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.

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Late-night television for women is a strange place. I still don't understand why Frasier reruns are shown on Lifetime, the show's only two female characters are a mystical servant and a slutty drunk, but watching these syndicated masterpieces on the channel for women has opened me up to a whole new world of advertising. Years of drunkenly watching sports highlights and the Fox News Channel (no that isn't a joke, and I think this peculiar habit is a large source of my inner rage and misanthropy)has made me well-versed in the ads aimed at the particular sort of man watching TV in the early morning hours, so I hardly even smirk at the male enhancement ads and phone sex hotlines. But apparently the women watching Lifetime at 12 am Central Time are a very insecure and disgusting group. Most of the ads had something to do with physical ailments not typically discussed in mixed company, like colons (thats right, having a colon is an ailment, you girls are not supposed to poop)and stretch marks and body itching. I'm still confused by the Head and Shoulders ad that ran constantly during this hour long block, in which a lady is on a date with a really boring looking dude and she is fucking freaking out about scratching her head. "If I scratch my head it will turn him off" her inner monologue says. What the fuck are you talking about commercial? Unless this girl is going to go all meth-head Fergie and scratch her scalp until it bleeds who gives a shit? "Oh no, I better not react to physical sensations or he'll hate me!" This is weird. Plus the guy in the commercial is kinda busted, why are you so worried about the opinion of a dude who looks like a withered Michael Phelps and whose turn offs apparently include head scratching?

Thankfully she solves the problem by knocking her knife on the floor and then scratching her head below the table. You know what I like better than girls who scratch their heads? Girls who purposefully knock their silverware on the ground and then scratch themselves while they're picking it up like some sort of obsessive compulsive toddler. I bet old man Phelps took her home and gave her her the time of her life after that hot move! I just hope she didn't do anything that might resemble the actions of a natural human being, that would be fucking disgusting. Don't you dare scratch your head brown haired sex robot!

Also, Suzette, if you're reading this. TUESD-AD dude, please.

I was interrupted in the middle of this episode, so I don't have much to say about it, partly because I didn't finish it, but mostly because I sort of enjoyed it. I would rather spend 400 words reviewing a Head and Shoulders advertisement than talk too much about me legitimately enjoying an episode of Beast goes to Seattle. The premise is three Valentine's Day vignettes in which things go horribly awry for our beloved characters. Virginia Madsen is in the second one and the gags were funny.

Anyway...There is a part in this episode in which Frasier says that Roz called one of her boyfriends "The Cricket" because he drones on and on, and Roz corrected him saying that she called him The Cricket because he furiously rubbed his hands together during sex. WHAT? Imagine how insanely creepy that would be. Some dude pounding Peri Gilpin while rubbing his hands together really fast like a preying mantis? How would that even be possible? Also when did the hand rubbing start, at the point of insertion or during foreplay too? Did he give her nipples Indian burns?

I am going to call this move the Mr. Burns, which is when you sleep with a girl and you have such horrible intentions, to never speak to her again or steal from her as you leave or whatever, that you can't help but rub your hands together and twiddle your fingers menacingly while you're boning.
"That chick you went home with last night was kinda hit man."
"I know, I was fucking Mr. Burnsing while I was doing her from behind. She passed out and I snuck out around 4 and stole her blender."

Also, near the end of the second episode of the Lifetime double-header Niles says that Daphne's perfume is called "cherry bark and almonds," and swoons at the thought. Eww. What the hell? Is Daphne a 13-year-old white chick? Who could ever get all amped up on a chick who smelled like a scratch and sniff sticker? Oh you smell heavenly, I feel like I'm in the checkout line at Claire's! My god this is even better than your candy-apple jolly rancher lip gloss!

This is yet more proof that no matter how hard it tries, Frasier-bot will never be able to accurately depict class. Here's a hint Frasier-bot, it cannot be bought with money.

7.9/10 -In my defense both Frasier Online and the Tivo Forum called this the best episode of Frasier ever, so its not THAT awful that I kinda enjoyed it, is it? Also, I only watched 10 minutes of this which is sure to make any viewing of Frasier seem more fun: "that Frasier episode flew by! It only felt like half of an eternity!"

Obama is a Muslim

And certainly, Beast is arguably from outside the mainstream. But he's trying to mainstream his lifestyle. He's tried to come together as an equal, like Martin Luther King said. The content of his character is what defines him.
-Kelsey Grammer on Hannity and Colmes

They just took 2 million dollars of your hard earned money to manipulate school children into picking fruits and vegetables over cookies and french fries...I don't know about you but I don't want the federal government in my schools-in my kid's lunch bag.
-Glenn Back

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Hey, remember when fake America elected a black guy for president? Well, that reminded me how upset I am about the national debt or taxes or something. So, even though I spent 8 years cumming on the American flag while a real American president increased the national debt and expanded the government and the government's ability to spy on us and jail us without cause, I am now, suddenly, mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore.

Paying teachers a living wage and requiring food companies to tell us what they put in our food and encouraging kids to stop getting so fucking fat and trying to provide health care to people is too much BIG GOVERNMENT. Whereas actively spying on me, looking in my mail, monitoring my phone calls and invading countries is responsible government! So, I've come up with a solution. Since it was two wars, constant corporate hand outs, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and a relaxing of regulation on the banking industry that led to our horrific debt problem and the collapse of our financial system, it is only logical that we solve the problem by slashing any social programs that make this country livable, doing away with pensions that government workers have been paying into from their own salaries, cutting education to the point where inner-city schools will have 60-plus kids in a classroom and generally eliminating anything positive the government could ever do for anyone. Because, to me, a real American, the only things that are at all important is that the government continue buying a shit ton of missiles, continue to devote precious resources to killing Arabs, not raise taxes on people who are obscenely wealthy and continue spying on me. These are the real values of real Americans.

It is also incredibly important to me that the people who rape me from Washington DC are Christian and do not support a woman's right to choose or the right of faggots to marry. I don't care if you do not do anything but look after your own self interests and constantly make decisions that actively harm me, so long as you pretend to worship the same sky-God as me and try to prevent other people from being happy or making their own decisions about their bodies. Oh yeah, that's right, it is totally ok for you to not let a woman decide what to do with her uterus, but it IS NOT ok for you to tell me I should stop giving my 2-year-old Mountain Dew Code Red and a bag of Doritos for breakfast. Stay out of my life government! Unless you're in my life to spy on me and confirm I am not a Muslim, then, come on in!

Couldn't the money spent on bullshit like Medicaid be used for something more useful? Is Medicaid the one for poor people or old people? The one for old people should stay, because real Americans get old, but they are never poor. Or if they are poor they are poor in a folksy way and would much rather mortgage Uncle Segregation's farm to pay for an operation than accept any handouts from Chairman Obama and Nancy "Mouthy Bitch Cunt Vagina Pussy Woman" Pelosi. All of our nation's bootstraps will go dangerously un-pulled-upon if we keep doling out money that is the rightful property of rich people and corporations. That money should be used to make our country more attractive to the companies that are going to keep outsourcing our jobs no matter what. We wouldn't even have outsourcing if it weren't for fucking unions, who have made it impossible to do business here by forcing those poor companies to pay fair wages to their employees. Those entitled union workers, who think a full time job should pay them enough to live. Fuck you. I don't have benefits and I don't want them, I just want to make sure no one else has them either. Whose side am I on? No hesitation buddy, I'm on the side of the people who are actively trying to fuck me over.

S1 E16 "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back"

Dr. Lilith Sternin: I'm here for a convention and I happened to hear your voice on the radio. I kept hoping that you'd introduce Pearl Jam's latest hit, but to my chagrin, you were doling out worthless little advice pellets from your psychiatric Pez dispenser.

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It happened to your dad and its happening to me.

Four episodes in a row of this 37-prime-time emmy winner and my standards have started to wear down. "By the end of this season this show had gotten a lot better," I exclaimed thoughtlessly to Mr. Hunky, A.A. Dowd during this episode. But the show is still only bumping into mediocrity, dulling my senses with its laugh track and forced whimsy. In Frasier-land quality is entirely a matter of comparison. Compared to episode one of Frasier, episode 16 is a masterpiece. Compared to Mad About You, the second season of 3rd Rock from the Sun is like the fourth season of Caroline in the City.


As my standards have ebbed it seems I'm growing more bitter in my prose. What a wasted life, what a sad state of affairs. Week after week millions kept an appointment with Beast and Co. In 1999, 20 million viewers a week watched Frasier hide in closets and make faux high-brow allusions. A housewife supports a ridiculous lifestyle and spoils three children based on the vacant stares of Americans. Across the sea a UK web site is devoted to celebrating this highlight of American mediocrity. The popularity of this Seattle story compels stewardesses to bed married hairy actors. Here in Chicago I've spent the entire Sabbath watching and commenting upon it. I find myself only being able to ask why.

Not of my own wasted day, because I don't think this has been a waste. For the atheistic among us today is set aside for hangovers and relaxing, I am not hung over but I am full and relaxed, there is nothing more restful than the soothing repetition of a Frasier episode. Had I watched this asleep it would hardly matter. Lilith is here, Frasier is naked, Frasier has an invisible son, family rift is humorous, psychiatrists are pointless, Christ is risen, Lilith mentioned Pearl Jam, Roz belongs to a union, Eddie is funny/adorable/likely dead now.


I do not judge the working stiffs who dulled themselves on Frasier's hardened repetition. I am just confused at our, my, aptitude for self-defeating. Surely time could be better spent after a taxing day then to tune in and drop out as Must See TV loudly suggested we do. And yet I feel myself pulled, like so many others, when I am taxed and numbed by a day at a desk to go deeper into the k-hole. To numb myself from my own lack of feeling.

9.5/10-For a Frasier episode, this is pretty good.

"I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back - up the hill - to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute? (she sighs) I'm ready to go back. I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people."

S1 E16: "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back"

This is actually one of the better "Frasier" episodes I've seen, one of the few that makes me half-way understand why Emmy voters and dads kept this unholy beast alive for 11 fucking years. I say this through gritted teeth, begrdugingly. "Frasier" is best enjoyed as a novelty. It's probably fair to say I watch it "ironically," though that couches my appreciation for its genuine weirdness in a wink-wink way I'm not entirely comfortable with. We started watching this show as a case study in the mediocrity of American television. Several years, many hours and not enough blog posts later, and I'm ready to confess that it's a supremely bizarre approximation of human interaction. Simply put: people do not behave this way. Not even on TV. If those super-intelligent future androids from A.I. were to dig up the complete series of "Frasier" as some artifact of 2oth century living, they'd be subject to some serious misunderstandings on how our species operates.

Unless they watched this episode or a select few like it. Now, don't get me wrong. Quality or humor or recognizable human behavior are relative distinctions when talking about the FrasierVerse. This ain't exactly a profound study on the modern man. The Brit still acts all loony. Niles preens and minces like he's shouldering the burden of laughter in a "serious" episode. And Lilith, who appears on the show for the first time, enters the ep like a bull in a china shop. (Being this openly bitchy to a person you haven't seen in years is vintage "Frasier".)

But the way the ep characterizes Frasier as basically a selfish horndog--and then calls him on it!--is unusually candid for the series. There aren't a lot of laughs here, intentional or otherwise. It's a "serious" episode that reads as rather believably serious. The closest I came to even derisive laughter was a dated mention of Pearl Jam. (I kinda wonder not only if Frasier knows who they are, but if Kelsey Grammar does either.)

Solid episode--but if they were all this passably decent, this blog wouldn't exist.

7 Stars.