TV Watch: Two great things about having the "Frasier" DVDs

FRASIER [over opening shot of control-panel audio meters registering his speaking voice]: You're listening to KACL, 780 on your AM dial. This is Dr. Frasier Crane. All our lines are open, so please, give us a call. [Pause]
I'm just sitting here waiting. [Pause]
Hey, Seattle, I know you're out there. Hey, look, I realize it's a sunny day, but on all those rainy days I was here for you. [Pause]
Well, all right, then, if that's the way you want it, you leave me no recourse.
[Pause -- then bouncing as he sings --]
"When the moon hits your eye
like a big pizza" --
[Breaks off as he sees his control panel lighting up.]
That seems to have gottten you going there! Okay! All right there! I knew you were out there! Okay, Roz, who do we have?
ROZ [from engineering booth]: We have Gary from Issaquah on line two. He and his wife had a big fight.
FRASIER [to GARY]: Sorry to hear that, Gar'. Uh, I'm listening.
GARY [in a determinedly working-class voice, with at times a hint of a whine]: Well, you see, Dr. Crane, my wife's hell-bent on going to Italy this year --
FRASIER [interrupting, in rapture]: Ah, Italia! The rolling hills of Toscana! The art of Firenze! The passion that is Venezia!
GARY: Yeah, well, anyway, I like taking a vacation as much as the next guy, but I say if we dip into our savings, the first thing we should buy is a new sump pump for the basement. [FRASIER and ROZ are each shown grimacing.] At least with that --
FRASIER [interrupting]: Now listen, Gary, let me just stop you right there. I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with your wife on this one.
GARY: The trip to Italy costs 1800 bucks [these are 1993 bucks, remember -- Ed.], and that doesn't include the "Spendors of the Vatican" package.
FRASIER: Gary, there is more to life than [articulating slowly] sump pumps. Um, what ever happened to feeding our souls? Look, for example, I recently purchased a painting by one of this country's premier artists. Oh, it's not important who, well, it's Seattle's own Martha Paxton. Practical? No. But ever since acquiring that painting, I look at it every day and there's not a moment when I do that I'm not optimistic by its beauty. [ROZ from control booth gives "speed up" signal.] So Gary, go to Italy! Bring back a suitcaseful of memories. Will you do that?
GARY: I still think I should get the sump pump.
FRASIER [snarling disgustedly]: Well then, yes, Gary, you, you should get the sump pump. [Contemptuously punches the call off.]

by Ken

There are four things I can think of which you can't tell from my transcript of the opening of Season 1, Episode 6, "The Crucible," of Frasier (written by supervising producers Sy Dukane and Denise Moss):

(1) The laughter, all utterly believable, all through the scene, notably in those pauses. Not only was the show filmed in front of a studio audience, but the audience seems to have been "sweetened" very little, if at all. It sounds like actual humans.

(2) One thing Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) doesn't know, as we find out in the ensuing conversation with Roz, his producer (Peri Gilpin): what a sump pump is. (She assures him that when he needs one, he'll find out.)

(3) Another thing Frasier doesn't know, as he finds out later at a dinner party he arranges hastily after extending an invitation to same to "Seattle's own Martha Paxton," who turns out to have been listening to this exchange: The painting is a fake.

(4) The voice of Gary was provided by the great comedian-actor Robert Klein.

And speaking of those celebrity call-in voices --

"THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN" DEPT.

As I've mentioned, among the great programs I've attended at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria was one featuring an appearance by the wonderful sad-sackish actor Griffin Dunne, sandwiched between screenings of his new film, The Discoverers (with writer-director Justin Schwarz also present), and the classic 1985 Martin Scorsese film After Hours. As I've mentioned, when it comes to the audience-question portion of a program, MoMI audiences are notable for asking great questions, which elicit fascinating answers. How I wish I had known at the time, as I've just learned from the audio commentary over the pilot of Frasier provided by two of the show's three creators/executive producers, David Lee and Peter Casey, the very first celebrity-voiced radio caller was none other than Griffin Dunne, who was a friend of the other creator-exec producer, David Angell. Very quickly, as Lee and Casey point out, doing those call-in voices became a big thing. It was like every actor in Hollywood wanted in.

If I had known, I could have asked, "How does it feel to have been the first celebrity call-in voice on Frasier? Of course I probably wouldn't have, because it would have been an idiotic question. What could he have said? Unless, that is, he had a story connected with it, in which case it would have looked like a brilliant question. Sometimes it's a fine line.

Through the run of Frasier when I was able to catch the end credits identifying the celebrity voices responsible for the episode's radio callers, I remember almost always being startled and wishing I could go back and rehear the call(s) knowing who the voice(s) belonged to.

Now I can! And that's one great thing about having the Frasier DVDs.

For example, there's the saga of Marco, a rare repeat caller, who first calls (in Episode 7, "Call Me Irresponsible") to discuss his problem with a girlfriend he really doesn't have much interest in (basically he's waiting for "someone better" to come along), and is advised by the doctor to break it off, but then calls back when he decides he wants Catherine (played by Amanda Donohoe) back, having discovered -- by stalking her, apparently -- that she's seeing someone else. (We know that the someone else is none other than Dr. Crane.) It's just some how different once you know that Marco's voice is supplied by Bruno Kirby.

Sometimes the actors seem to have tried to make their voices less immediately recognizable. But I've been surprised, when I've gone back and relistened to a phone call, how recognizable the voice should have been. Like Roger, the caller in Episode 9, "Selling Out," when Roger shares his problem: that after he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars (1993 dollars remember) on a dream cabin cruiser, his wife wants to name it Lulubelle and he wants to name it The Intrepid. Prompting this response from the doctor (which I didn't transcribe; I cribbed it from the British "Frasier Online" website:

Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the tunneling electron microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building blocks of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now... I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem. Thank you for your call.

After finding out who the caller was, I listened again, and of course it was Carl Reiner! Maybe it was having Carl Reiner in mind that I caused me to actually recognize Mel Brooks among the sequence of depressed or depressing Christmas callers (as little Tom, who tells the doctor that the puppy Santa brought him for Christmas isn't waking up), which also includes Eric Stoltz, Ben Stiller, Rosemary Clooney, and later Dominick Dunne -- in the Season 1 Christmas episode, "Miracle on 3rd or 4th Street" (Episode 12).

At least so far on the Season 1 DVDs, as a special feature each disc has a a reprise of some of the callers heard on that disc's episodes. Great!

AND THE OTHER GREAT REASON FOR HAVING THE FRASIER DVDs?

For a show whose entire run I watched, I'm still surprised returning to Season 1 to see just how good it was. I thought that this would be the subject of this post, but I would just wind up mouthing off about how a show of this level of artistic ambition would be all but unimaginable today. (As much as I like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, I'm not sure they qualify. The last show I can think of in this class was 30 Rock.) I've thought about writing much the same thing when I started rewatching Mad About You, and then Taxi. But I realize nobody wants to read about that now. So I'll just wait to see whether this response carries through all 11 seasons of Frasier.

As a matter of fact, I remember pretty vividly how badly Mad About You and Taxi plummeted by their final seasons. That still left a lot of glorious TV, though. (And 30 Rock was never better than in it wonderfully weird final season.)

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