Not available to order
Publication date:
07 August 2017Length of book:
252 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442277977
After America’s most pompous barhound left the Cheer’s gang in Boston, he returned to Seattle and found himself surrounded by an equally colorful cast of friends and family alike. For eleven seasons, radio psychiatrist Frasier Crane contended with his blue-collar ex-cop father Martin, English caretaker Daphne, coworker Roz, and his younger brother Niles. Looking at the world through Frasier’s aristocratic, witty lens, the show explored themes of love, loss, friendship, and what it might mean to live a full life. Both fans and critics loved Frasier, and the show’s 37 primetime Emmy wins are the most ever for a comedy series.
In Frasier: A Cultural History, Joseph J. Darowski and Kate Darowski offer an engaging analysis of the long-running, award-winning show, offering insights into both the onscreen stories as well as the efforts behind the scenes to shape this modern classic. This volume examines the series as a whole, but also focuses on the show’s key characters, including Eddie, the canine. Close looks at set design, class issues, and gender roles are also provided, along with opinionated reviews of all 264 episodes, highlighting the peaks and dips in quality across more than a decade of television.
Despite the show’s focus on an elitist intellectual—and his equally snooty brother—Frasier often embraced farce on a level previously unseen in American sitcoms, a mix of comedic elements that endeared it to viewers around the world. Frasier: A Cultural History will appeal to the show’s many fans as well as to scholar of media, television, and popular culture.
In Frasier: A Cultural History, Joseph J. Darowski and Kate Darowski offer an engaging analysis of the long-running, award-winning show, offering insights into both the onscreen stories as well as the efforts behind the scenes to shape this modern classic. This volume examines the series as a whole, but also focuses on the show’s key characters, including Eddie, the canine. Close looks at set design, class issues, and gender roles are also provided, along with opinionated reviews of all 264 episodes, highlighting the peaks and dips in quality across more than a decade of television.
Despite the show’s focus on an elitist intellectual—and his equally snooty brother—Frasier often embraced farce on a level previously unseen in American sitcoms, a mix of comedic elements that endeared it to viewers around the world. Frasier: A Cultural History will appeal to the show’s many fans as well as to scholar of media, television, and popular culture.
Frasier, the story of a Boston-psychiatrist-turned-Seattle-radio-show host, aired on prime-time television for 11 seasons, received 27 Golden Globes, and garnered a record 37 prime-time Emmys. A spin-off of the long-running bar-room comedy Cheers, Frasier stepped out of the typical trajectory of many Hollywood spin-offs and found a way to become its own show. Based on family relationships, Frasier portrayed interactions between elitist intellectuals (Frasier Crane and his brother, Niles) and a colorful cast composed of their father, Martin Crane (a blue-collar ex-cop who had been shot while on duty), Roz Doyle (Frasier’s sassy producer), Daphne Moon (Frasier’s live-in housekeeper and Martin’s physical therapist), and Eddie, the Jack Russell terrier really named Moose. The book discusses all elements of the program—character development, class issues, set design, gender roles, and even Martin’s favorite Eames lounge chair and ottoman. For those less familiar with Frasier, the authors included synopses of all 264 episodes. Siblings Joseph J. Darowski and Kate Darowski have written an engaging, enjoyable analysis of this long-running, award-winning show. This easy-to-read cultural history is ideal for the general reading public, as well as undergraduate and graduate students.
Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.
Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.