Family
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin may have conflicts about living up to and uncomfortable about each other's standards: Frasier's taste of sophistication, intellect, and use of complex words, and Martin's enthusiasm toward things that suits an average man, such as sports and words that no "sophisticated, educated" person may understand. Moreover, Frasier has common interests with Niles and adventures (or misadventures) with him, while he shares none with Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a steakhouse, where health-conscious boys Frasier and Niles mock the food and then the place. Martin becomes embarrassed and motivated into leaving and then remarks that their mother Hester would feel ashamed about the boys' behavior, leaving the boys feel bad about themselves there. Therefore, with Martin gone, the boys end up slowly eating and struggling to finish the whole meal, especially after closing time, even when the whole staff shun them. (Earlier in Cheers episode "I Kid You Not", Frasier scolds Carla and her son Ludlow for mocking the upper-class, expensive restaurant.)
In "Chess Pains", Martin does not know chess but eventually wins chess games against Frasier, which motives Frasier into questioning and becoming obsessed his own intellect. After several games, including one that Frasier won, Martin has had enough about Frasier's obsession with chess and does not want to play chess with Frasier anymore.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin uses a clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, for the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys discover, the clock relates to their ancestors and royalty, is worth a fortune, and then brings up their expectations of royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock, the boys realize from the antique consulate that the clock belonged to and was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother is discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and another of Frasier's ancestors is discovered to have been a prostitute. Therefore, the boys are left without a fortune, a clock, and a royal dream come true. Much to their chagrin, Martin buys an RV, Winnebago, with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Read more about this topic: Frasier Crane, Frasier
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being “better,” and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“The life-fate of the modern individual depends not only upon the family into which he was born or which he enters by marriage, but increasingly upon the corporation in which he spends the most alert hours of his best years.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)