Frasier/Trivia

• Actor Allusion: Niles mentions filling Frasier's floppy red shoes which could be a reference to his character Sideshow Bob. Guess who voices Bob's brother in several episodes? Yep—it's a mirrored Actor Allusion.
  • The first episode to feature "Sideshow" Cecil Terwilliger was aptly named "Brother From Another Series". In one bit, Bart has covered Cecil's eyes to surprise him, and pulls the standard "Guess who?" gag, to which Cecil replies, "Maris?" The Simpsons blandly lampshades this with a Frasier-esque title card reading "Frasier is a Hit Show on the NBC Network." Made even better when John Mahoney plays Sideshow Bob's father.
  • Dr. Nora's mother is played by Piper Laurie, aka Carrie's mother.

Mrs. Mulherne: YOU LITTLE WHORE!

• • This could also be an allusion to an episode of Cheers where Frasier suited up as a clown to entertain for a kid's birthday party Rebecca was in charge of putting together.
• Actor Shared Background: One episode Daphne mentioned that as a child she dreamed of being a ballerina. Jane Leeves pursed acting after an ankle injury ended her career as a ballerina.
• Directed by Cast Member: Kelsey Grammer and Dan Butler.
  • Grammer in particular became one of the series' main directors, helming thirty-seven episodes, many of them consecutively. He began in Season 3 with the famous "Moon Dance" (which focused on Niles and Daphne more to give him more time behind the camera) and directed with increasing frequency over the course of the rest of the series.
• Fake American: John Mahoney was born and raised in Britain. He became a US citizen in 1959, but sometimes his old accent pops up.
• Fake Brit:
  • Daphne's least favorite brother, Simon (played by Australian Anthony LaPaglia) has a terribly unconvincing accent. Mostly played for laughs, though.
  • See also any guest actor (not-British) playing Daphne's random boyfriends in earlier series. See British Accents above.
  • Jane Leeves is British but cannot do a Manchester accent for toffee. God help the woman if she ever needed directions to the Trafford Centre. Word of God is that they wanted Daphne's accent to be working class and understandable to Americans so Jane Leeves adopted that particular accent.
  • Gil Chesterton is played by an American-born English actor and displays many symptoms of I Am Very British. In one of the first episodes, Frasier comments on his "phony accent".
• Harpo Does Something Funny/Throw It In: Kelsey Grammer didn't memorize his lines or rehearse with the cast, coming in on filming days and ad-libbing his lines to fit the gist of the storyline. He said that after playing Frasier for so long, he knew how the character would act and react than anyone else.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: It was not uncommon for celebrities to make cameos as callers to Frasier's show.
  • The final episode of many (but not all) seasons replace the usual end of episode gag with a "thanks for calling" montage listing the cameos made that season.
• The Other Darrin: Frederick Crane was played by two different child actors on this show (not counting the twins who took turns playing him on Cheers).
  • Not to mention Frasier's first wife, Nanny G, played by Laurie Metcalf in an episode of this show after having been played by Emma Thompson in a Cheers episode.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Kelsey Grammer has said that his favorite episode was "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (the plot of which was Diane Chambers of Cheers and Frasier Crane's eventual reconciliation), because it gave him the opportunity to finally reconcile with Shelley Long, the actress who portrayed Diane. Also-

 Frasier: You have a wonderful career.
Nanny G: But nothing ever changes! Do you have any idea what it's like to play the same character for twenty years?

Humor heightened by the fact that Nanny G had appeared three times, once on Cheers, twice on this show, each time played by a different actress.

• • And the episode with Sir Derek Jacobi, who essentially plays Patrick Stewart playing Data doing Shakespeare. Frasier is upset over the man he idolized being a Classically-Trained Extra (which Jacobi actually is, and he won a Guest Actor Emmy for the episode), but it turns out he really is a terrible actor. And to top that off, take into account Kelsey Grammar's guest stint on TNG. And now that Jacobi himself has played The Master... let's just say this episode lives on Reality Subtext.
  • Niles and Daphne have a son named David in the series finale, named after producer David Angell who died in the 9/11 attacks.
• Real Life Relative: Kelsey Grammer's then-wife Camille (whom Kelsey divorced in February 2011) makes a cameo as a party-goer dressed as Eve in "Halloween". Frasier hits on her, but she leaves with another man... dressed as Satan no less.
• Recycled Set: Using Frasier's apartment to represent the apartment of his new boss Todd Peterson (Alan Tudyk), whom he mentors in the matters of style and sophistication during "The Great Crane Robbery".
• Star-Making Role: Hey, It's That Guy! from Cheers...and he has his own show!
• Stunt Casting: Parodied. The people who call in to Frasier's radio show are usually famous celebrities, but you'd never know unless you tune in to the closing credits.