I got this book at the (now closed down) Waldenbooks at Lincoln Mall sometime around its year of publication, which was 1996. My interest in sitcoms began in the first decade of my existence, which is to say the 1980s, when I became a fan of such shows as FAMILY MATTERS (a show I still adore) and PERFECT STRANGERS. However, this interest really expanded in the 1990s, which I now think of as the golden decade of the sitcom, the likes of which we shall probably never see again. My brothers and I especially loved FRASIER, SEINFELD and FRIENDS, and it still kind of boggles my mind that there was a time that NBC was broadcasting all three of those shows at once... we had no idea how good we had it. Which is not to say that I totally lost interest in the format after the 90s: HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, while flawed in some aspects, was still an entertaining show in its own way, and recently I've become fixated on the American version of THE OFFICE (of which I've currently seen the first five seasons). But in some ways, culturally speaking, the American sitcom just doesn't seem super-relevant anymore, unlike the 90s, where they were much talked about and "must see TV." It seems a shame, but comedy is hard (especially in today's climate), and for every one successful sitcom, it seems there are 99 failures. Trying to capture that almost magical mix of just the right cast, just the write sets, just the best writers... it's a hard alchemy to master, and few shows do.
Of the aforementioned Big Three, for awhile FRASIER seemed like the odd man out, and maybe it still is. SEINFELD's popularity has never really dimmed, and FRIENDS went on to be embraced by an entirely new generation, some of whom hadn't even been alive when the show first aired. Yet FRASIER never seemed to have gotten that same level of posthumous pop cultural impact, for whatever reason, despite getting good ratings in its original run and being something of an awards darling: perhaps because the show lacked the "hip" factor of some of the other shows from that same era (it is perhaps telling that these days it's best known as a show that some people like to use to fall asleep to). Last year a new spinoff show began, somewhat unoriginally called FRASIER, and I still haven't seen one episode of it.
Jefferson Graham's book is an official product, which meant he had a lot of access to the show and the people involved, which is always a blessing. This companion book features, among other things, the story of how the show FRASIER was conceived and developed, a list of the radio caller guest voices, profiles of all the main characters and interesting interviews with the actors who play them, a chapter on Moose (the dog who played Eddie), a chapter on the elusive and never-seen Maris Crane, a week in the life of the production of a FRASIER episode (specifically, the episode "You Can Go Home Again," the Season 3 finale episode), an episode guide (covering the first three seasons of the show), the full script for "The Good Son" (the show's pilot episode), and a trivia quiz. Also, and fittingly enough for a show known for its witty banter, many quotes from the episodes are liberally sprinkled throughout the text. My only real issue with the book is that I wish they had waited a few more seasons before its release: the first three seasons of FRASIER are very good, and even include a number of classic episodes, but for my money the show's peak era was seasons 4 through 7 (while on the subject, season 8 began showing signs of weakness, and 9 and 10 were pretty dire, though the show generally got its mojo back for its 11th and final season).
No comments:
Post a Comment