Frasier Crane - Frasier

According to an April 1–4, 1993, telephone survey of 1,011 people by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center), before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. For a question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted 2 percent to have his own show.

In 1993, after Cheers ended and before Frasier premiered, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) soon divorced, and Frasier's son Frederick is under Lilith's child custody, leaving Frasier childless. In the pilot "The Good Son", as announced in the radio show, Frasier no longer enjoyed his life in Boston, such as frequently visiting the Cheers bar for beer. Therefore, he has moved to Seattle, where his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) lives, to live with his own life comfortably.

Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who flirts with many men and has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin (John Mahoney), a retired cop with a bad hip, ends up living with him, and Frasier becomes more worried about him, especially at his father's current state. (In Cheers, Frasier's father is supposed to be an off-screen dead scientist.) Therefore, Frasier hires housekeeper Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves) (although he wanted someone classier than Daphne, who is psychic). Moreover, Martin brings in his dog Eddie, whom Frasier despises. Throughout the series, while Frasier had several friends in Boston, he is not able to forge many friendships in Seattle. His brother Niles Crane and his producer Roz Doyle are essentially his only friends in Seattle.