1.18 "And the whimper is..."
It's time for the nominations for the annual Seabee awards, radio's equivalent of the Oscars, at least in Seattle, and though Frasier pretends an aloof indifference he is desperate that their show be nominated. He is therefore delighted when BB brings him the news that he has in fact got the nomination. He is however less pleased when he sees that a rival for the nomination has taken out a full-page ad in one of the radio magazines, hoping to tip the balance. Responding to this, Frasier decides to go one better and send gifts to the committee responsible for the awards, but Martin draws the line here, telling him it's bribery.
It doesn't stop Frasier and Roz though, who really want the award. And it seems to be working, when they get to the ceremony. All the judges are coming up to them thanking them for the gift. Roz has not been so lucky. Hunky Brad McNamara, whom Roz was all excited over having her first date with, is unable to attend and so at the last minute the only date she could secure was Noel. Yeah, Noel. Frasier is approached by Fletcher Gray, and old broadcaster who has been nominated for the award eleven times, but never won. He introduces them to his mother, who has flown in for the event. As she has for the last eleven years. Frasier begins to feel a little uncomfortable. He even floats the idea of not accepting the award, as this is to be Gray's last year; he is retiring .
Roz is not amused, but they needn't have worried, as they don't win the award, and neither does Gray.
QUOTES
Niles: “And then she said she was seeing someone else. She couldn't keep living a lie. I was dumbfounded. I mean, what about everything we'd been through together? Didn't that mean anything?”
Frasier: “Niles, a patient has a right to change her therapist.”
BB: “I bet you two had wicked little hairpulling fights when you were tots!”
(The odd thing is, she says it sarcastically, given the childish sniping between the Crane brothers that we've all come to know, but both Niles and Frasier self-consciously run their fingers through their hair!)
Frasier (reading the ad): “Well this is nothing short of shameful self-promotion!”
Roz: “I know. What are we going to put in our ad?”
Frasier (when he learns the fabled Brad McNamara is not after all going to be escorting Roz): “I thought you were bringing Brad McNamara?”
Roz: “I was. He got called out on a story at the last minute. Some hospital went up in flames. Do you know
anyone who has worse luck than I do?”
Frasier: “Niles, where's Maris?”
Niles: “Well, we were just leaving the house when she caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror...”
Frasier: “Niles, at the end of this story am I going to roll my eyes?”
Niles:
“I did.”
Frasier: “Then just skip it.”
BB: “If I were twenty years younger they couldn't keep me away from you!”
Martin: “That's why I keep this cane!”
Roz (after Frasier has floated the idea of not accepting the award if they win it, and letting Fletcher Gray have it instead): “Listen Frasier! I have waited ten years to get this award, and if I have to crawl over Fletcher Gray's mother to do it, I will!”
Frasier: “If we win this thing they're gonna lynch us!”
Roz: “So what? At least everyone will see my dress!”
EGGHEAD
Anxious to prove he knows everything about wines and champagnes, and to demonstrate his breeding, Frasier holds the champagne bottle and tells Martin and Daphne that there is a “proper way to open a bottle of champagne, especially a fine French one, at $200 a bottle!” Apparently you're supposed not to pull the cork out but hold the cork and give the bottle three twists. Unfortunately, as he counts “one!” the cork flies out, ricocheting around the room as champagne corks do, and causing the expensive wine to spurt everywhere. Eddie is happy though, as he gets to lick some off the table!
THE DRY WIT OF ROZ
Having secured for her date to the awards the escort of one of the most desirable men in broadcasting, apparently, Brad McNamara, Roz is delighted when Daphne congratulates her at the door of Frasier's apartment:
“Thanks”, she says. “Brad McNamara!” Frasier intervenes, saying that he thinks Daphne is offering her congratulations because of their nomination, but Daphne says no, it's for bagging Brad! Shortly afterwards Daphne makes an empowering speech, but Roz rather spoils the moment when she reverts to type:
Daphne: “Well I must say it's great to see a woman succeeding in a male dominated business like broadcasting. Well done Roz. You're a credit to our gender.”
Roz: “Thanks. Oh that reminds me: do you have a push-up bra I could borrow?”
1.19 “Give him the chair”
Fed up with the eyesore of Martin's split-pea-green recliner ruining the effect of his sumptuous apartment, Frasier decides to get rid of it and buy his father a new chair. Martin of course does not play ball and so Frasier resignedly asks for his original chair, which he had requested be stored in his storage space (wherever that is), be returned. But there's a problem. Leo, the removal guy, is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and he has in fact taken it to the dumpster, where someone, as he so charmingly says, snagged it. Aghast, Martin glares at his son and Frasier must begin a chair hunt to track down the offensive item of furniture.
Luckily enough, Roz takes a call after Frasier's on-air appeal for anyone who might know its whereabouts, but unluckily for him its whereabouts happen to be in a school, who are at that moment rehearsing for the opening night of their amateur play. The schoolteacher will not allow him to take the chair as it is part of her props, but Frasier is able to strike a bargain with her when her star takes sick. As he played the part when he was younger, he will stand in and in return she will allow him to take the chair when the play is over.
QUOTES
Dr. Bruga: “You will give Roz my number?”
Frasier (archly): “Oh, I think Roz has your number!”
Frasier: “Niles. Whatever are you doing here?”
Niles: “I bought an emerald necklace for Maris and I needed somewhere to hide it.”
Frasier: “Emeralds? May I see?”
Niles: “Not at the moment, no.”
Frasier: “Why?”
Daphne: “It's down me blouse.”
Frasier: “Well, I'm sure Maris will never think of looking for it there!”
Martin: “I just need a comfortable place to rest my fanny.”
Frasier (under his breath): “How about Florida?”
Niles (in the vibrating massage recliner): “I never knew a chair could be this satisfying. I never knew
anything could! I want it!”
Frasier: “Right Niles: I'm sure it will fit in perfectly with all of Maris's eighteenth century antiques!”
Niles: “Well then, I'll just rent it an apartment and visit it on the side!”
Frasier (annoyed at Eddie's barking): “What's the matter with him?”
Daphne: “He sees your father's chair is gone and he's afraid he's gone too. I think he suspects foul play!”
Frasier (to Eddie): “Oh stop it! If I had stuck my father's feet in a bucket of cement and thrown him into the Puget Sound, you'd be the tiny little splash that followed him!”
Martin: “I'll tell you the chair I want. I want the chair I was sitting in when I watched Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon, and when the US hockey team beat the Russians in the '80 Olympics. I want the chair I was sitting in the night you called me to tell me I had a grandson. I want the chair I was in all those nights when your mother used to wake me up with a kiss all those nights I used to fall asleep in front of the television. You know, I still fall asleep in it. And every once in a while, when I wake up I still expect your mother to be there when I wake up, to lead me off to bed. “
Frasier (when Roz locates the chair): “Oh thank God! By tonight my father will be back in his beer-stained, flea-ridden, duct-taped armchair, adjusting his shorts with one hand and cheering on Jean-Claude Van Damme with the other. Yeah, it's quite the little piece of Heaven I've carved out for myself, isn't it?”
EGGHEAD
Frasier is less than impressed when, having unburdened himself to the schoolteacher in an effort to appeal to her heart and allow him to take the errant chair, he is accused of overacting and hamming it up, especially when the sentence is phrased in such a way as to make it seem like she was about to praise him and recommend her children follow his example. He's been taken down a peg. A whole peg!
FAMILY
MARTIN
Martin makes an impassioned speech about his chair, trying to explain to his son why he treasures it so. It's very effective, and apart from opening Frasier's eyes to a new side to his father, it also serves to remind the doctor that his father lives with him at his sufferance (and sometimes with a lot of emphasis on the “suffer”!) and that anything that makes him feel at home in Frasier's apartment should really be borne with good grace. It can't be easy, moving in with your son because you can't be trusted on your own, especially for an ex-cop.
THANKS FOR CALLING
Dr. Bruga, the frisky caller in the opening sequence, is played by Malcolm McDowell.
AND ISN'T THAT...?
The late Brittany Murphy is mentioned in the credits as “Olsen”. I can only assume she was one of the schoolchildren, as I can see no Olsen anywhere else and there is a blonde girl, who looks a little like her, but she has no speaking role.
1.20 “Fortysomething”
Frasier is beginning to forget little things, as we all do when we reach that certain age --- shut up! --- and starts to worry. Like most of us in this situation --- not me, I'm just boring and poor --- he tries to recapture his youth. Martin shows him how he did it: buying a motorbike and dying his hair. But for Frasier, when a young shop assistant takes an interest in him, it's all he needs to convince himself he still has it, that he is not after all middle-aged. Martin however talks sense into him, pointing out that the girl is young enough to be his daughter.
Frasier's resolve is tested further though when Cary appears at the station, delivering the trousers he has bought and then asks him out. He manages to turn her down but later while talking to Niles he's reminded that if he goes out with Cary for the right reasons it should not matter about the age gap. Having been set straight he decides to take the bull by the horns and heads down to the mall the next day to talk to the girl. She however has had an epiphany of her own, and has decided that she should not go out with Frasier.
THE DRY WIT OF ROZ
Gaslighting Frasier, Roz pretends it's her birthday.
Roz: “So, are you going to say it, or are you going to make me wait till the end of the day?”
Frasier: “Say what?”
Roz: “Happy Birthday.”
Frasier: “Oh it is
not your birthday!” (Roz looks downcast) “Oh Roz! I'm sorry! Oh God! Let me take you out to lunch or something after work...”
Roz (grinning and jumping about): “You are so
easy!”
After Bulldog has departed, in hot pursuit of Cary: “How pathetic!” Frasier agrees, then she says “I meant you!” He goes on to explain about the age gap and asks “If you see a beautiful young woman walking down the street with an old man, what do you think?” She grins and says “I think he must be rich.” Then adds, “Then I try to make eye contact!”
QUOTES
Daphne: “I'm meeting the girls for darts and a couple of pints. Best to do it in that order: ask Blind Willie the bartender!”
Daphne: “I learned long ago there are three questions you never answer honestly: do you like me hair, do I look good in this and was it good for you too? Coming, Doctor Crane?”
Niles: “I'm sorry, I was somewhere else. It was a warm and friendly place...”
Bulldog (to Cary): “You look familiar. Didn't I let you pour a flaming tequila shooter down my throat at Sloppy Nick's at last year's Indy 500?”
Cary: “Um, no...”
Bulldog: “So what are you doing next Memorial Day?”
Frasier: “Bulldog, as certain as I am that any young lady in the world would like to set your face on fire, I believe Cary is here to see me.”
Bulldog: “She wanted to go out with you! You didn't have to chase her, you didn't have to harass her. You didn't have to
pay her!”
Frasier: “I'm sorry, I just don't think it would have been appropriate.”
Bulldog: “So you're not going to go out with her? Maybe I can catch her at the elevator. I bet she's never gone out with a professional hockey player before.”
Frasier: “Oh you never played professional hockey!”
Bulldog: “It's like we're from different planets!”
Frasier: “By the way, you were absolutely right.”
Niles: “Ooh! I love to hear you say that!”
Frasier: “You see, the other day I was asked out by this twenty-two year old girl I met in a mall...”
Niles: “That
is alarming.”
Frasier: “Well, I turned her down...”
Niles: “No no. I meant that you were in a
mall. Did anyone see you?”
EGGHEAD
Despite his usual self-congratulatory manner and his belief that he is better than most other people, Frasier does at least admit, when he goes to see Cary, that although she has ascribed to him virtues he has not got --- she believed he was aware of her daddy issues and was just allowing her to come to her own realisation of same --- he disabuses her of this notion by admitting, rather matter-of-factly, “Actually, I'm full of crap.” He is dismayed to realise that he, a trained and very good psychiatrist, was unable to pick up on Cary's issues and had to be told about them. But it's a point for him, as he didn't allow her just to think he was all-seeing and all-knowing, and it's a rare humbling of the man that he for once realises he doesn't have all the answers, and is just after all a mere mortal like the rest of us.
FAMILY
MARTIN
When he sees that his son is thinking about chasing a 22-year old, Martin remembers his own midlife crisis and counsels his son against such attempts to regain his fading youth. He doesn't want Frasier making the same mistakes he did, and as he says himself, “You think being middle-aged is bad? Think about me: I have a
son who's middle-aged!”
We also find --- though we may have wished we hadn't --- that as well as being a “ordinary Joe” when it comes to coffee and beer, Frasier's father is a man who does not suffer fancy underpants. When Daphne goes to choose some for him at the mall, he gives her strict instructions: “I want 'em white, I want 'em plain and I want boxers”, he tells her, and is horrified when he sees her checking out some with a striped pattern, moving quickly to intercept her and steer her away from the offending articles.
THANKS FOR CALLING
Rachel, the caller in the opening scene, is played by country superstar Reba McEntire.