The modern day classic television series Frasier premiered on September 16, 1993, as a spin-off from another American television comedy classic Cheers. Frasier ran for eleven season on the NBC television network with its last new episode airing May 13, 2004.

After deciding to leave the little Boston bar where everybody knew his name, the show follows the many adventures of Dr. Frasier Crane, a psychiatrist played by Kelsey Grammer, back to his home state of Seattle.

At the time the show featured a group of actors with little or no notoriety. Even Kelsey Grammer, although his character role as Frasier on Cheers was well liked, he really wasn’t truly considered a star or a household name at the time.

Yet he and David Hyde Pierce,  John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin (who also appeared in at least one episode of Cheers), Jane Leeves, and Moose, a Jack Russell Terrier comprised the upstart cast of what eventually became one of the most successful comedy series in the history of television.

Over the span of its eleven seasons, Frasier became one of the most critically acclaimed shows of all time and it won a record 37 Emmy Awards. Dr. Crane and his equally aristocratic brother Niles were perhaps two of the most pompous “bunglers” in television history. Quick to turn up their nose to the common man in one gesture while in the next totally going to the extreme to be the most honest and compassionate snobs you’ve ever seen … and it made for great humor.

When you have two grown men who are so intellectually gifted that they can graduate at the top of their class from a Ivy League College such as Yale, yet be so physical inept that they could never master the simple skill of riding a bicycle, it literally sums up the wide range of canvas the writers of Frasier had to work with to develop some of the most outrageous comedic scenes in history. The show was actually credited with the emergence of a more cultured, urban lifestyle during the 1990s in Seattle.

I personally never watched Frasier during its heyday. I guess I was still sulking from Cheers going off the air. Yet through syndication, I was able to discover the years of laughter I almost missed out on.  I’ve watched every episode at least a dozen times now and though belated, I agree Frasier is one of the best shows ever.