Frasier’s wealth in the Frasier series is finally explained by writer and executive producer Joe Keenan. Kelsey Grammer is reprising his most iconic role in the upcoming Frasier reboot on Paramount+, which will mark the character’s fourth act. The new adventure will see him back in Boston — the same city where he was introduced as seen in Cheers. It’s uncertain what Frasier’s new work will be as he resettles in New England, but it shouldn’t really matter, considering how wealthy he has been.
Ahead of the premiere of Paramount+'s Frasier reboot, Keenan talked to Metro UK (before the ongoing strikes) to look back on the character’s time in Seattle. He finally offered an explanation for the character’s wealth in the original show despite being just a local radiotherapist. Apparently, Frasier was already rich before he even moved back to the Pacific Northwest. Read his full answer below:
We think Frasier made a lot of money in private practice in Boston, and he had investments. What we imagined to be the salary of a local radio personality was perhaps a little bit inflated. On the other hand, when you looked at Niles and his house with Maris, this baronial mansion that they lived in, Frasier’s apartment didn’t seem all that… His dining room only seated four people.
Who Is Richer: Niles or Frasier?
As explained in the Frasier’s original pilot, the psychiatrist left Boston because of a bevy of reasons. The list included his separation from Lilith, nightly drinking at Cheers, which he deemed unhealthy, and his private practice going stale. So while the Boston-set sitcom never really fully explored his life beyond the walls of Sam Malone’s pub, this made it clear that he had a stable job. Frasier never said anything about his clinic failing. Instead, he just started to lose interest in his day-to-day routine, so when he moved to Seattle, he opted for a different career path.
Despite his personal wealth, it’s likely that Niles was richer than his older brother. Aside from his own money, it’s also worth noting that he married money in Maris. In fact, there were even suspicions that Niles only chose her because of her wealth — something that was eventually debunked when he opted to separate from her. Assuming that Niles earned similarly in his practice, it means that he likely saved up a significant amount, considering that he never stopped working privately. While a good chunk of that may have been lost during his divorce, chances are that he was eventually able to earn it all back.
The Frasier reboot has some lingering questions that it needs to answer, including what kept Grammer’s character busy in the last two decades. At the end of the show, he was supposed to move to San Francisco for a better job, but he opted to follow Charlotte in Chicago. That was the last official information about him. It’s unclear whether grand romantic gesture did, and what his means of living were in the years that followed.
The real reason is why the characters of Friends also never really had financial hardships. People don’t want to (or at least producers didn’t think they did) watch a bunch of characters trying to survive in an extremely expensive city. So they all were conveniently rich and/or the audience never had to see any of the hardships.
Meanwhile, Always Sunny does it right by having people try to scam unemployment and accidentally getting addicted to crack in the process.
Ok maybe not meanwhile, but man that show is great.
Sunny has Frank as an explanation for why they can all afford apartments and crazy schemes, he’s worth at least 100 million or so and pays all their bills, they scam just for fun.
The real reason for their struggles in always sunny is because “who are they going to vote for to fix things? The democrat who’s going to blast them in the ass? Or the republican who’s going to blast them in the ass? Either way, politics is all one big ass blasting.”
Sunny does the same as the rest, they’re poor when they need them to be and ríg when they need them to be. The bar is dead but supports 4 people’s entire lives? It wouldn’t even cover the gas for Dennis car.
Ah the empty bar is a vessel for story telling. It’s also packed when they need it to be. We couldn’t hear them scheming if it was busy all the time.
Plus they have all that dick-towel money.
I mean friends did a couple narratives about the Joey losing his insurance, and Joey, Rachel and Phoebe not being able to afford the nice meals and other things their other friends enjoyed. But yeah, none were actually struggling to eat, none were under threat of being evicted from their nice apartments, and none were unable to wear nice clothes or get coffees at their Cafe regularly.
I remember they mention that Monica’s apartment is rent controlled and she got it from her grandma, so the rent was probably super low. Same with Joey and Chandler
I wouldn’t say people don’t want to watch that, just that that’s not what these shows were about. Other successful shows deal with that very topic.
Roseanne.
The video “Rosanne of the Conners” underlines how much of that show was radical working-class perspective on the sitcom formula.
Then again it also highlights how Rosanne herself was kind of a nightmare to work for. That makes the heel-turn amidst the reboot less of a shock.
Bottom
Roz borrowed money from Frasier when they were off the air and Bulldog was a pizza delivery guy after he got canned.
That’s all for storyline purposes though. Might make good tv, but they don’t really depict real struggles and how stressful it is
… and the niceness of television homes is more about ease of filming than plausibility. Seinfeld did a decent job compressing the soundstage so it looked cramped from most angles. Friends… not so much. Where the hell do you find a sunken living room in an apartment?
Meanwhile the downstairs in Fresh Prince was probably no larger than the Central Perk set, but it’s given angled walls that imply enormous rooms centered on the cameras. And a fancy staircase leading offscreen. And giant windows onto a hand-waved lawn. Everything is wide and open in a way the camera shows, as opposed to TV apartments, which give actors room to move but look cluttered and tight.
Shameless
Yeah, sitcom families seem to be upper middle class, lower upper class or just straight out rich. Never ever depicting a poor family or regular folk.
Married With Children was pretty close to that, though they were able to own a house and the Dodge with two kids on a single mall employee income and the grandeur of four touchdowns in a single game.
Malcolm in the middle family was pretty darn poor. But I still agree, that’s almost never the case.