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Frasier
The celebrities who play the callers on Frasier's radio show, instead of coming in to record a voice-over, often just phone in their lines.
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Kelsey Grammer has been Emmy-nominated for playing the same character on three different shows: "Cheers" (1982), "Frasier" (1993) and a guest appearance on "Wings" (1990).
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Friends star Lisa Kudrow was originally cast as Roz but was replaced before production began.
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Niles' wife Maris is never seen (at least her face) or heard from in the entire series. The same thing is mentioned about Vera, the wife of Norm Petersen in "Cheers".
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Frasier is the only television show to date that has won five consecutive "Outstanding Comedy Series" EMMY awards.
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The show was originally written with Frasier as an only child, but one of the producers saw a headshot of David Hyde Pierce and commented that he looked exactly like Kelsey Grammer did when he first started to appear on "Cheers”.
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Kelsey Grammer has said that "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" is one of his favourite episodes. On "Cheers", actress Shelley Long didn't like the Frasier character and lobbied hard to get Grammer removed from the show. The producers disagreed, noting that the audience liked him. When Long's character of "Diane Chambers" appeared on this show, Grammer said the episode was an opportunity for he and Long to make peace with each other.
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The season four episode "Head Game" only featured Frasier for the first few minutes, and the rest of the episode is entirely based around Niles. This role should have been written for Frasier, but Kelsey Grammer wasn't available as he was being treated for his addiction problems, so it was re-written for Niles instead. This is also the reason why the plot involves Niles filling in for Frasier on his radio show, because the show is integral to the plot.
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Frasier's apartment set occupies the same soundstage at Paramount Studios that housed the set of "Cheers" for so many years.
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British comedy actress Lisa Maxwell was originally cast as Daphne, but severe disagreements with the producers led to her being replaced.
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Frasier's radio producer Roz Doyle is named after Roz Doyle, a producer of NBC's "Wings", a Cheers-like show which shares show creators with Frasier.
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Series Executive Producer David Angell and his wife were tragically on board one of the airplanes that hit the World Trade Center in New York City during the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.
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David Hyde Pierce has said that, prior to this series, he had no strong interest in either wine or opera. Ironically, he was introduced to both by John Mahoney, whose Martin Crane character hates anything cultured.
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In 2004, Kelsey Grammer reached a milestone, having the character of Frasier Crane for 20 consecutive years. Fellow record holders include James Arness of 50’s western series "Gunsmoke", who also played Marshall Dillon for 20 years straight.
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In the 11th season, guest star Laurie Metcalf, playing a children's entertainer, asked Frasier, "Do you know what it's like to play the same character for twenty years?" Toi get the in-joke, check out the above fact.
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Every regular character from "Cheers" - with the exception of Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) and Coach (the late Nicholas Colasanto) - has appeared in at least one episode.
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The glass sculpture to the right of Frasier's fireplace is a piece made by Dale Chihuly, a well-known glass sculptor whose studio is based in Tacoma, Washington, which is just south of Seattle.
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The sculpture above Frasier's fireplace is by Laddie John Dill, a sculptor based in Los Angeles.
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In an episode of "Cheers", Frasier tells the gang that his father was a research scientist and has passed away. When Ted Danson guest-starred on the show in 1995 as his Cheers character Sam Malone, the continuity error was explained away by having Frasier admit that he made up the story because "We'd had a fight and I was mad at him."
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Bebe Neuwirth was offered a regular role on this series as Lilith but she turned it down so she could return to the Broadway stage. She appears only as a guest star.
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The deliveryman (Cleto Augusto) who drops off Martin Crane's easy chair in the first episode is the same deliveryman who took it away in the final episode. Aside from the regular cast, he is also the only person to appear in both episodes.
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In the series finale, three of Daphne's brothers visit from England, however, none of the actors playing them are English. They were Anthony LaPaglia from Australia, Richard E. Grant, born in Swaziland and Scot Robbie Coltrane.
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As the series progresses, we learn that Frasier and Niles were named after two lab mice their mother was using in an experiment when she was pregnant with Frasier. Frasier the mouse had already died when Frasier the human was born.
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The producers made sure there were no stools in the coffee shop to purposefully distance it visually from the "Cheers" bar.
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Niles's graduated from Yale, as did David Hyde Pierce in real life.
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Whenever Frasier violates his code of ethics, his stomach turns. When Niles violates his code of ethics, his nose bleeds.
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During season 8, Jane Leeves's pregnancy was disguised by a storyline involving a severe over-eating disorder, and later her pregnancy leave was accounted for by having Daphne go to a health spa to cope with her weight problem.
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When playing their younger selves in "Crock Tales", the cast had to use various hairpieces and dyes to resemble their younger selves in flashback sequences. David Hyde Pierce also wore a hairpiece for the same reason in "The Return of Martin Crane".
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In a final-season interview, John Mahoney said the first offer he received to play Martin Crane consisted of a phone call from Kelsey Grammer in which Grammer asked, "Will you be my Dad?"
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To make sure the viewers do not view Frasier as a family deserter, the writers made sure that Frasier reiterated that he missed his son Frederick in the pilot episode.
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In order to persuade Moose to lick John Mahoney's face when required for a scene, Mahoney's face first had to be discreetly smeared with liver pate
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In one episode, after a night at the opera watching "Rigoletto" by Verdi, Frasier remarks to his date that the finest soprano to sing the role of "Gilda" was "The great Mathilde DeCagney". Mathilde DeCagney is the animal trainer who owns Moose, the dog who plays Eddie.
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Frasier attended Harvard and Oxford, while Niles attended Yale and Cambridge.
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Although playing his father, John Mahoney is only 15 years older than Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey was asked to shave the beard he had had during the final season of Cheers because the producers felt he wouldn't look young enough to be John Mahoney's son.
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Kelsey Grammer’s personal life has been filled with tragedy. In 1968, when Grammer was thirteen, his father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was murdered on the front lawn of his home. In 1975, his sister was murdered after being abducted outside a Red Lobster restaurant in Colorado Springs. In 1980, his younger half-brothers were killed by a shark in a SCUBA diving accident.
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Each season of the show can be distinguished by the colour of "Frasier" in the opening title frame. In order: blue, pink, green, purple, yellow/white, brown, yellow/orange, bright neon green, orange, silver, gold.
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Frasier's radio station, KACL 780 AM, is named after the three executive producers (David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee). The K is a prefix for all radio stations west of the Mississippi River.
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In "Flour Child", the number on Arlene's taxicab, 804, is the same number used by Alex – played by Judd Hirsch in "Taxi", a show also directed by James Burrows, who directed the episode.
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In the pilot episode, Frasier and Martin have a fight over Frasier just wanting to hear "thank you" from Martin for allowing him to move in. Before John Mahoney hugs Kelsey Grammer goodbye in the finale, his line is "Thank you, Frasier."
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