Hello all and a Merry Christmas!
You may not know this, but one of my favourite, and possibly my actual favourite, television shows is the sitcom Frasier. Combine razor-sharp writing with tremendous acting performances (occasional dodgy accents aside) and you’ve usually got a recipe for one of my favourite shows. It’s enduring popularity does not surprise me, and I even enjoy the revival, albeit with caveats.
The show is essentially a comfort blanket – I’ve seen every episode hundreds of times, and yet it still brings a laugh at all the right times in all the right places. One of my Christmas traditions is to watch the Frasier Christmas episodes, so today, I thought I’d share that tradition with you, and my thoughts on each.
Let’s get started.
The Episodes
We’ll be taking the following episodes into consideration today:
Original Series
1:12 Miracle on Third or Fourth Street
3:9 Frasier Grinch
5:9 Perspectives on Christmas
6:10 Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz
7:11 The Fight Before Christmas
8:8 Mary Christmas
10:10 We Two Kings
11:11 High Holidays
Revival
1:10 Reindeer Games
2:10 Father Christmas
Miracle On Third Or Fourth Street (Season 1, Episode 12)
OK, that pun hurts me to start off with, chiefly because I hate the movie it’s based on.
This really isn’t an episode I love at all. I think Season 1 of Frasier is absolutely razor-sharp and one of the best debut seasons of any television show in history (think how other modern classics like Parks and Recreation or The Office struggled to find their way in their early seasons). But this….eesh.
It starts off pretty well, actually; there’s some good repartee at KACL, and Roz, Bulldog and Frasier all kind of shine. Back at the condo, the NIles/Daphne interactions are still in their slapstick/for fun era (and boy, won’t we be wishing for that in a few episodes time!) and it’s all good fun.
Where it goes off the rails is from here on, really – Frasier and Martin argue, and Frasier decides to stay in Seattle after Frederick decides not to visit him (he’s going on a Sound Of Music expedition, it seems). After that, this all becomes really, really dark for me. As they were still doing the ‘Frasier and Martin don’t entirely get along’ arc this early it’s not unreasonable that they’d fight, but there’s something deeply sad about the scene of him working at KACL on Christmas Day, Roz crying, the overall dark and somber tone of the studio, etc etc. It’s terribly bleak for me for a sitcom Christmas episode, and even their attempts to lighten it with the ‘funny’ upset callers doesn’t really hit for me,. That said, Frasier’s closing line about where he’s going to eat having a liquor license is another example of excellent writing.
Act 3 then tries manfully to pull it back round, as Frasier eats a PLATTER! surrounded by what seem to be broke and homeless people. There’s some good back and forths here – “I’m not sure this isn’t last year’s” is a good sarcastic Frasier line, while the callback to the robbed sneakers joke gets the deserved laughs and applause from the studio audience.
Again, though, it can’t quite sustain this – I think the meal being paid for by the other patrons in the restaurant was supposed to be heartwarming and It’s A Wonderful Life esque, and it is pretty funny (“Hey, we’re not buying you dessert!”) but it just misses the mark for me. It feels too much like one of Frasier’s parables to be funny, and although we know he’s likely to call his family at the end, we never really see the redemption arc that seems to be promised.
It’s not bad – and oh boy, will we get some worse ones – but it just never really gets off the ground for me.
Highlight: The ‘found sneakers’ callback. Even the audience seems relieved to have something to laugh at.
5/10 – Soggy roast potatoes.
Frasier Grinch (Season 3, episode 9)
OK, this one works a little better. It’s a simple plot, as most of the best Frasier episodes are: Frasier’s son Frederick is flying in for Christmas, Frasier’s excited, and gets delivered the wrong presents. This leads to one of the best lines in the entire show from Niles, who is fantastic throughout this episode:
I don’t know, everything just seems to work in this episode somehow. From Niles’s money troubles (“I’m calling her now to demand the restoration of my credit cards…and my bank account…and my phone service!), the KACL call with the caller torn about a flight to home or to vacation (“Mele Kaliki Maka, Bob”), Frasier’s parable being interrupted by a stripper (“YIKES!”….”One dark *pfff* windy night….”), Martin’s light decorating touch (“Shut up, I’ll hurt his feelings”) and so on, this is a homage to the best of Frasier’s writing. It’s sharp, it’s witty, it brings in all sorts of characters and conceit from Frasier himself, and compared to our first episode, it just has a warmer, comfortable feel that I more closely identify with the show as a whole. I suppose by this point the characters are bedded in, and this episode really benefits from that.
Even the heartwarming bit hits this time – after Frasier hilariously scams a hustler at the toy shop (“Niles, write the man a cheque”), and a heart-to-heart over Frasier’s habit of buying gifts people should want against what they do want, Martin saves the day by getting Freddy what he really wants – The Outlaw Laser Robo-Geek. It’s a lovely closer and a great example of how the writers developed the Martin-Frasier relationship from it’s difficult beginnings.
I don’t want to hand out awards too early, but looking at what’s still on the docket, I think there’s only one, maybe two, Frasier Christmas episodes better than this. It’s a great watch and a classic example of just how synergised the early seasons were, writing wise.
Highlight: “Yes, the Cranes, of Maine, have got your living brain” – absolutely perfect sitcom writing. Bravo.
9/10 – Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets, proper roast potatoes – just fantastic all round.
Perspectives On Christmas (Season 5, episode 9)
This episode is actually a nice inversion of the classic sitcom misunderstandings, as we get the same story told from multiple perspectives. Frasier, Niles, Daphne, Martin and Roz all have slightly different recollections of how the days leading up to Christmas have gone, leading to things like Daphne thinking Martin is dying, Frasier accidentally telling Roz’s mother that she’s pregnant, NIles having a fight with an elevator, and Marty trying manfully to learn ‘O Night’ for a Christmas pageant.
There are some wonderful classic Frasier moments here – anything involving the singing practice is fantastic, particularly Niles and Frasier’s opposing scales, while I can’t hear O Night any more without singing ‘DIVIIIIIIIIINE’ in a very obvious way. It actually has the feel of a sketch show with scenes stitched together at times, particularly with the zaniness of Niles’s story, but it’s a credit to the writers that they stitch it together well, culminating in Frasier’s ‘cheap’ Christmas present and the arrival of a masseuse to work out everyone’s tension.
Frasier usually shines the most when everyone gets a turn on the humour wheel (think ‘Ham Radio’ or ‘Look Before You Leap’) and that’s true here as well – there’s little Roz, for instance, but she nails her scenes (“Cmere, I’ll kiss ya…I’ll kiss ya GOOOOOD!”), while the big four are all on song – David Hyde Pierce excels, as usual, at physical comedy, while Daphne’s innocence paired with Marty’s delivery of Daphne’s misunderstood lines stands out too. Incidentally, the more Frasier I watch, the more convinced I am that John Mahoney was the best one in the cast, but that’s another article for another day.
Anyway. this is very very fun. I don’t think it reaches the heights of Frasier Grinch, but it’s a really good episode and shows just how on fire the show was through it’s middle seasons, a trend that continues for a while yet. Again, it’s a wonderfully warm episode and really captures the essence of what the show’s all about.
Highlight: “Oh night….”
8/10 – Sage and Onion stuffing. Not the best component, but a great one that would be missed.
Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz (Season 6, episode 10)
This is one of my crown jewels when it comes to Frasier episodes – everything connects together to create a wonderful farce, something Frasier does better than any sitcom this side of Fawlty Towers. A quick run-through – Frederick’s absence (again) at Christmas leads to Frasier taking a date with Faye (fabulous, forever Faye), a Jewish woman with an overbearing mother. After a successful blind date (despite two escape calls), Faye (and said mother, who got her the date) visits the Crane house at Christmas, where Martin and Frasier are having their usual fight over Christmas decorations.
One problem: Faye thinks Frasier’s Jewish and has told her mother so.
What follows is a brilliant Frasier farce: Frasier pretending to be Jewish and throwing out every Jewish word he can think of (including that his Bat Mitzvah was attended by the one who performed his circumcision…’no hard feelings’ indeed…a great piece of writing), Marty unwittingly performing the role of Jewish parent, then being coached by Niles into continuing (what, I have to give you an example?!), and Niles relishing his role as the irritant, throwing out some ridiculous Yiddish idioms and mostly just winding Frasier up to hell (Ooh, ham).
Where it eventually shines is in the denouement – a seemingly innocuous, although funny, mention of a Christmas play by Daphne spirals into Niles playing Jesus and re-entering the Crane apartment in full costume – which inevitably gives up the ruse when he’s caught sniffing a nasal spray in the toilet next to a Christmas tree (it’s a long story – honestly, just watch it) and leads to some fantastic lines.
There’s a slightly stereotypical laboured bit over a Jewish parent/child argument that plays out to resolve the Martin/Frasier conflict that I don’t exactly love, but it fits in with the lunacy of the episode. All in all, though, it’s a minor complaint, because the episode is comfortably in the top 10 Frasier episodes, and would have a decent shot at claiming it all.
Highlight: GET OOOOOOOOOUT!…..of that coat already! or JESUS! – Sometimes Kelsey Grammar overacts, but he’s pitched perfectly in this one.
10/10 – Perfectly cooked turkey.
The Fight Before Christmas (Season 7, episode 11)
We’re firmly in the ‘meh’ territory now unfortunately, as this uses Christmas as a backdrop to play out the continuing Niles/Daphne drama (my god, did they ever drag this out – it’s not resolved for another THIRTEEN episodes), as Niles meets with Maris(!) while with Mel to commemorate the death of their former gardener Yoshi. Predictably, misunderstanding ensues, as Frasier is more preoccupied with ‘Crane Party 1901’ going on at his apartment that evening. Mel is therefore angry at Niles, Niles is desperately trying to resolve it, meanwhile Daphne (newly aware of Niles’s feelings) is panicking about what Niles might do at the party…zzz.
Sorry, I just really don’t like this one. Mel is written to be odious and largely is, although her delivery of ‘What’s the little whore’s name?’ is up there as one of the best line deliveries in the show. Daphne meanwhile starts her decline pretty much from this point – she’s utterly pathetic at dealing with her feelings here, but it’s not even in an amusing way as Dark Side Of The Moon would make it A FULL ELEVEN EPISODES LATER. Sorry, I hate the length of this arc.
Frasier’s plot almost pulls the Christmas baubles out of the fire, thanks largely to his usual pomposity (SAVOURY LAAAAAAAAMB TENDERS!) and his desire to hide his party from his KACL workmates, but it doesn’t really ever come together in a meaningful way. This episode is way too drama-heavy for me and honestly not very memorable. Pretty much the only thing I ever end up recalling from this one is Daphne’s mocking of Roz (“Oh, not tonight, not while Donny’s here(!)”), which isn’t saying a lot. Meh, meh, meh.
Highlight: ‘So what’s the little whore’s name?’ – Frasier goes unexpectedly PG-13 and draws an uproarious laugh from me every time.
5/10 – The family argument drama around the dining table.
Mary Christmas (Season 8, Episode 8)
I mean, at least this is actually an attempted comedy episode.
Frasier tries to charm his way into hosting the Seattle Christmas Parade by making the lead anchor, Kelly Kirkland, a ‘hobo casserole’ (later hilariously deadpanned as a ‘hilbilly buffet’ by Frasier when he looks to have lost out on the job), and succeeds. Unfortunately for him, and the viewer, Kelly Kirkland pulls out with food poisoning, leading to him sharing the hosting duties with an old colleague instead: former KACL DJ ‘Dr’ Mary.
Yep, that’s where it goes off the rails.
It’s not that this episode is super terrible or anything, it definitely has it’s charm, and the fact it farcically ends with Frasier basically assaulting Santa Claus is quite funny, but it’s pretty slapstick, and lacks the sharpness and charm of earlier episodes. To be fair, this is firmly in the show’s weaker years, so it’s not a surprise, but Mary is basically a caricature at this point and it doesn’t really add anything to have her back here. If anything, Frasier’s interactions with Kelly Kirkland, Roz, and Kenny were the high point of the A plot, which doesn’t say much.
The B plot is somewhat humorous as Martin, Niles and Daphne end up opening pretty much all the presents while Frasier’s presenting, but honestly, it’s just a bit weak and a waste of their talent. It’s pretty clear that it was all meant to be Frasier-centric, but ah, it’s so so poor. It’s at least got some moments that raise a smile, so it’s above the prior episode, but it’s clear the show’s losing its way a bit at this point.
Highlight: Kelsey’s delivery of ‘hilbilly buffet’ or him assaulting Santa. Whatever you can say about Kelsey Grammar, he tries manfully to turn the bad episodes around.
5/10 – Overcooked turkey.
We Two Kings (Season 10, episode 10)
Firmly in Frasier’s nadir seasons of Season 9 (which didn’t even have a Christmas episode, that’s how uselessly bleak it was) and 10 (what the hell happened to this show?) comes We Two Kings, which is…fine I guess.
The central conceit is that the brothers, Niles and Frasier, can’t agree on where to spend Christmas, and they push it to Marty to answer. There’s some funny stuff in here, particularly Frasier’s bleating about ordering ‘an ‘Ungarian goose!’ which is Kelsey Grammar once again trying to elevate pretty average material. After days of one-upmanship and dirty tricks, Marty gets fed up and announces no one’s having Christmas, he’s working. While it’s quite funny watching the brothers bicker, I lose interest when it becomes clear Marty’s as sick of it as I am at this point. Perhaps it was the echo of Miracle On Third Or Fourth Street that put me off this episode, but I dislike any where the family conflict gets this bad.
Meanwhile, Roz is an elf and loves Santa. Less said the better. Save one ‘low elf-esteem’ crack from Frasier, this plot produces nothing of value, and Daphne’s extended puns are laboured at best. Meh. Thankfully, it’s binned with a decent payoff as Roz doesn’t like him out of his suit. Oh, Roz and her weird kinks.
Anyway, the boys end up scheming to surprise Marty at Christmas (including a very amusing Niles impression of his dad), but thanks to their Benny Hill like moving of the presents, everything ends up in the wrong place, and worse yet, Marty also tries to pull a surprise (by not actually working after all) and the presents end up under lock and key at Marty’s workplace.
There’s a nice ending to a conflict filled episode, where Martin forgives the boys, but it’s short on laughs for me, much like the first one we covered.
Highlight: “AN ‘UNGARIAN GOOOOOOOSE?!” – Good or bad material, Kelsey gives it his all.
6/10- Boxing Day leftovers.
High Holidays (Season 11, Episode 11)
Okay, now we’re back to something good. This is one of, possibly the best, late episodes of Frasier, and it all revolves around two very simple plot strands eventually tying together: Niles discovers he’s never rebelled against his parents, while Frasier is looking to record a Seattle tourism video. This episode doesn’t end up being about Frasier at all though – the starring roles go to Niles and Martin. Niles attempts to get stoned off a pot brownie (with associated, hilarious, drug lingo) with help from Roz, only for a dieting Marty to steal the brownie and eat it, thinking it’s a normal festive treat.
What follows is virtuoso work from both Hyde Pierce and Mahoney as each acts stoned – although only one actually is. Hyde Pierce in particular plays the ‘square wanting to be cool’ bit to perfection, and the ‘chilean seabass with an aggressive zinfandel’ line has gone down in meme history. Mahoney, meanwhile, steals the show as an unwitting stoner, his earnest delivery of ‘DOG ARMY’ and ‘THEY SHOULD LET EVERYBODY BE A GIANT FOR A DAY!’ adding perfectly to the madness. Couple this with a disappointment for Frasier as Eddie takes his voiceover role in the tourism video (utterly perplexing Marty, who now thinks Eddie can talk) and the hilarity just keeps on coming.
I could wax lyrical for paragraphs about just how funny they made this episode, but given some of the shlock in seasons 9 and 10, this is probably one of the best examples of how Frasier got it’s mojo back in its final season, helped along by the return of some of it’s original writers like Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan. The farce is set up perfectly, executed perfectly in script, and acted perfectly by the ensemble cast. It harkens back well enough to Moskowitz from earlier to be at least as good, if not better.
It’s also a great episode to choose when highlighting just how good the Frasier ensemble really was, as Frasier barely appears here, only really playing a setup role, while it’s his two supporting cast members who steal the show.
It’s hard to choose between this and Moskowitz…so I’m not going to. It’s a tie, and for the last Christmas episode of the original run, it’s a great way to go out.
Highlight: Anything Marty says stoned. FRIDGE PANTS!
10/10 – The best Christmas ever.
Revival Episodes
Reindeer Games (Season 1, Episode 10)
Look, the revival is not original Frasier. I get that. But what it is is a comfort show that provides fairly frequent laughs. By the end of season 1, it had really hit its stride, bedding in the new characters expertly and finding its own blend of humour.
Reindeer Games is a wonderful example of this – it’s gentle, but has some good lines in there still (‘The forest for the trees’ is extremely clever), and true to its characters. Nicholas Lyndhurst’s Alan Cornwall shines through constantly, for example, while Freddy progressively improves through the series and probably hits his Season 1 high point here. Like some of the original series episodes, it borders on parable, but unlike the original series, it seems much more comfortable in its comedy-drama footing, and therefore is able to hit that mark much more easily.
There’s good lines, humour and pathos, but obviously the highlight comes when an unexpected character makes a reappearance, as good old Roz shows up to turn Frasier’s Christmas around. I didn’t laugh out loud constantly through this, unlike High Holidays or Moskowitz, but what I did do was smile warmly through the whole thing and feel quite emotionally fulfilled. It’s Christmas TV without the pressure of wanting to be laugh a minute – it is comfortable in its own skin and all the better for it.
Highlight: Roz’s appearance and the subsequent audience meltdown.
7/10 – Good, solid, christmas cake.
Father Christmas (Season 2, episode 10)
In a similar vein to what I just wrote, Father Christmas isn’t a laugh a minute episode – the comedy’s gentle, and there’s some good lines, but it doesn’t reach the uproarious level of the best of Frasier. What it does do, though, is pack an obvious storyline with a ton of emotional heft.
In essence, Frasier, interfering as ever, tries to reunite Alan with his estranged daughter. And as you’d expect from the festive season, it happens, but as you’d also expect, Frasier’s meddling isn’t the reason why.
I can’t honestly say there’s a ton of comedy here, although Freddy does produce pretty well and they’ve somehow even made David a useful character – but the key is the end result, which mixes everything good about any iteration of Frasier into itself – its’s humorous, smart, and all those nice things, but more than anything, it just leaves you feeling warm and happy. Again, it does something that ‘old Frasier’ often failed to do, especially at Christmas: work it’s message and good feeling into something that works not just as humour but as drama too. I don’t know whether the new series will continue, and I know it, at best, divides fan opinion, but I can only say I absolutely loved this and feel that the show’s finding itself more and more as time goes on.
Highlight: Alan finally meets his granddaughter. It could’ve been schmaltzy and awful, but it worked tremendously well. Both he and Kelsey Grammar have acted their arses off in the revival and are starting to see the fruit of their labours.
8/10 – A warm Christmas pudding.
Final Scores and Summations
Merry Christmas Mrs Moskowitz (10/10)
High Holidays (10/10)
Frasier Grinch (9/10)
Perspectives On Christmas (8/10)
Father Christmas Revival Episode (8/10)
Reindeer Games Revival Episode (7/10)
We Two Kings (6/10)
Miracle On Third Or Fourth Street (5/10)
Mary Christmas (5/10)
The Fight Before Christmas (5/10)
Final thoughts – the top two are two of the best Frasier episodes full stop, so it’s only natural that they’re up top here. I side with Moskowitz by a hair over High Holidays just because I think it’s a touch smarter, but I could easily be swayed. Frasier Grinch is another episode that’s just purely great and it’s connection to Christmas is arbitrary, in terms of why it’s good. After that, the Christmas setting props up most episodes – Perspectives On Christmas is a great Christmas episode, but not near the top of the best Frasier episodes. Ditto for the two revival episodes – both lean heavily into the Christmas setting for its emotional heft and pathos, so while good, they would naturally score less than the episodes above them.
After that…well, it all gets a bit much of a muchness. We Two Kings tops the poor four because it’s actually attempting to be funny – the writing is laboured unlike the earlier seasons, and it just doesn’t really sparkle, but it’s still better than The Fight Before Christmas, because it’s still actually a comedy episode. Miracle suffers from the show not quite knowing or finding its tone yet, while Mary Christmas is everything wrong with mid-to-late Frasier – laboured, poor writing, and inexplicable use of unlikeable characters. It’s still better than Fight, though, because it’s actually a comedy episode. Not another chapter in a drama that will run for THIRTEEN MORE EPISODES.
Goddamn it.
Anyway, that’s all – hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. I love Frasier, and the holidays wouldn’t be the same without it.
Merry Christmas one and all, and see you soon. x