Benjamin Zephaniah died, Norman Lear died, and yet the thing that made me stand still for a moment this week was the news that Kelsey Grammer supports Trump.<\/p>\n
It’s not like I thought Grammer really was Dr Frasier Crane. I would bow toward Glen and Les Charles, who created “Cheers” where the character of Frasier first appeared, and I would bow to David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee, the creators of “Frasier”. I have read their scripts, I have ceaselessly admired their work, but surely I cannot really have thought that an actor was the character he played.<\/p>\n
I think it’s interesting that this came out in a BBC Radio interview that was then cut short not by Grammer, not by the BBC, but by the PR people from Paramount+. They must have known that cutting the interview short would be a problem, but they presumably calculated — as far as anyone could in the moment — that the best they could do was damage limitation. <\/p>\n
I don’t think it worked. I also don’t think that I am being fair — I didn’t hear the interview, I am commenting on something I don’t know. In just about every way I think important, I am wrong to be judging something I have no direct knowledge of, I am wrong to be disappointed in someone without giving him any opportunity to speak. I imagine that being unable to talk to me is keeping Kelsey Grammer up at nights but, hey, it’s not like I’m a Trump supporter.<\/p>\n
I keep wondering whether Grammer watches Trump’s rallies. I can understand being Republican, I can understand disliking the Democrats, but I can’t grasp how someone can watch a Trump performance and think that the man is for anything but himself. <\/p>\n
Honestly, I’m just staring at you now, perplexed. I also somehow resent how much time I’ve spent thinking about why I’ve already wandered away from the 2023 revival of “Frasier”. The short version is that this sitcom is just ordinary, where the original “Cheers” and “Frasier” were extraordinary. <\/p>\n
That’s taken me weeks.<\/p>\n
Hour for hour, I may even have thought more about that than about Grammer backing Trump.<\/p>\n
I cannot have believed Kelsey Grammer is Frasier Crane, I cannot have even believed that he need be anything like the character he played. <\/p>\n
And yet, the only thing stopping me from admitting to myself that I must have thought he was like Frasier, is that he also played the evil Sideshow Bob in “The Simpsons” and I don’t think Kelsey Grammer is psychotic.<\/p>\n
Well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Benjamin Zephaniah died, Norman Lear died, and yet the thing that made me stand still for a moment this week … Continue reading