INDEPTH: FRASIER
Frasier Crane not longest-running character on TV
Dan Brown, CBC News Online | May 13, 2004
Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane while fellow cast members and show staff watch during the filming of the final episode, in this March 23, 2004, file photo. (AP Photo/Reed
Saxon, File)
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Much was made in the run-up to Thursday's farewell episode of Frasier about the length of time Kelsey Grammer has played the popular sitcom's title character. Between Cheers and the now-defunct comedy named after the neurotic radio therapist, bringing Frasier Crane to life has eaten up 20 years of Grammer's life. That's an impressive figure, especially given the current programming climate - it's not unusual these days for a show to be cancelled after only a few weeks on the air. Not many actors get the chance to so thoroughly inhabit a character.
This probably explains the press coverage surrounding the series finale. In story after story, Grammer has been lauded as the acting equivalent of baseball's Cal Ripken Jr., with many journalists pointing out that his two-decade run rivals the 20-year span that James Arness spent playing Marshall Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. No one has come out and said it in these exact words, but at this moment in entertainment history, Grammer is television's pre-eminent iron man.
Ernie Coombs as Mr. Dressup.
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Or is he? Is 20 years really such a big deal?
After all, it seems like some performers have been on TV much longer - forever, in fact. Here in Canada, to name just one well-known example, Ernie Coombs appeared as the kindly Mr. Dressup for an astounding 29 years. And even before Mr. Dressup debuted in 1967, the genial American entertainer was a regular on another show aimed at Canadian children, Butternut Square.
Coombs isn't the only TV personality who could teach Grammer a thing or two about the meaning of longevity. Johnny Carson, Jay Leno's predecessor on The Tonight Show, spent 30 years making jokes and interviewing celebrities. David Letterman, who has been on the air on one show or another since 1982, is racking up the years and will no doubt close in on Carson's late-night record one day.
And in the annals of daytime TV history, two decades of playing the same character is not at all unusual.
"Many, many, many, many, people have longer runs than Kelsey Grammer as Frasier," Michael Logan, the daytime columnist for the American edition of TV Guide, told CBC News Online from Los Angeles.
"Twenty years is no biggie, frankly."
As Logan points out, Grammer has nothing on someone like Susan Lucci, who has played the vampy Erica Kane on All My Children since the soap opera premiered in 1970. Lucci's run does not make her a standout - most big soap stars have 25 or 30 years of daytime service under their belts.
According to Logan, Grammer has had a relatively easy life as the central figure on a prime-time sitcom, making only about 22 episodes in any given season. Soap actors, on the other hand, can appear five days a week in storylines that have the potential to stretch as long as 52 weeks every year.
Helen Wagner (CBS publicity photo)
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In Logan's view, the real iron man of TV is actually an iron woman, Helen Wagner, who has played the same character, Nancy on As The World Turns, since the CBS show's first episode on April 2, 1956. The only original cast member left, Wagner was recognized with a lifetime-achievement Emmy for her endurance - in a couple years, she will celebrate the half-century mark of continuously playing the same person.
"She has the record. And it's basically considered a world record," Logan said, adding that the key to lasting that long in a role is just being able to be likeable. The bond that TV watchers form with a character like Nancy is "beyond family," Logan notes.
Not everyone pooh-poohs Grammer's 20 years, however. Robert Thompson is the director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. "I think for a mainstream, prime-time, network television show it's pretty impressive," he said of Grammer's achievement. "It doesn't happen that frequently."
The cast of NBC's Frasier poses in this undated publicity photo. From left are David Hyde Pierce as Dr. Niles Crane, Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier
Crane, Peri Gilpin as Roz Doyle, John Mahoney as Martin Crane, and Jane Leeves as Daphne Moon. (AP Photo/Paramount, Greg Gorman)
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Thompson says that some characters, like Superman, are evergreen; they have been around in different incarnations since the days of radio. Grammer's finicky shrink endured, he believes, because the character got a new lease on life - as well as another superb supporting cast to make him shine - when Cheers came to a close in 1993. "I think Frasier's character, in the context of Cheers, was pretty much used up," Thompson said. Crane was "reincarnated" when NBC spun off Frasier.
Which only leaves one question: is there another character on TV today who has the potential to become an icon in the same mold as Frasier? Logan thinks Matt LeBlanc's Joey Tribbiani, the only character from the recently departed Friends to get a spinoff, is the one to watch.
"The scary thing is, this could conceivably happen if Joey becomes a big hit," echoes Thompson.
The advantage that Frasier had over Joey, which premiers this fall, is that the lead character stood out from all the other characters on TV. His blend of complex fussiness was unique; Leblanc's alter ego, by contrast, is a dime a dozen - almost every sitcom has a good-looking doofus, which hurts his chances of long-term survival.
Thompson believes that Frasier could have conceivably lived on even longer. And fans of the show have reason to be hopeful: Grammer has said publicly that he would consider taking the character to another network after he has had time for a breather.
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