Crowdsourced ‘Frasier’ Reboot Looks Way Cooler Than Real One
As we inch towards the ominously awaited return of Frasier with Paramount+’s revival series slated to arrive on October 12, hundreds of artists are collaborating to find every possible way to toss a salad and scramble some eggs.
Frankly, there are a lot of reasons why so many die-hard Frasier fans are dreading their favorite show’s return — chief among them the fact that, of the original show’s cast and creative team, Kelsey Grammar is basically the only one returning, and he’s promised that Frasier’s return will be a form of “ministry” with subtle faithful messaging scattered throughout. Add to that the fact that the original Frasier run absolutely stuck the landing in its finale and sent the cast off into the ether with all the grace and wisdom of the show’s ten seasons put together, and you get the feeling that most Seattle psychiatrists are going to be booked solid on October 13. It’s a big risk to bring back Frasier, and it’s hard to imagine much of a reward for longtime fans.
One such longtime fan had the idea that, one day before Paramount+ unleashes their take on the series, artists from across the Frasier fandom could put their own spin on the sitcom, and more than 100 of them assisted in creating, “Our Frasier Remake” a shot-by-shot recreation of the Season One finale “My Coffee With Niles” with a different animated art style for each frame. It’s easier to answer Niles’ query of “are you happy?” knowing that this exists in the world.
“Frasier's first season finale asks the question, ‘Are you happy?’ The subtext: Was it worth it to make a Cheers spin-off?” the “About” section of ourfrasierremake.com reads. “Almost exactly three decades later, Our Frasier Remake is asking, ‘Is it worth it to reboot the show?’ It's both a celebration of the original show and a challenge to the idea of endlessly remaking IP.”
The project split “My Coffee With Niles” into 185 separate batches of footage, each between six and nine seconds long, and invited any artists interested in signing up to recreate their assigned mini-scene frame-by-frame in any art style they desired. The submission styles range from animation to stop-motion to puppetry and beyond as creative Frasier fans jumped at the chance to put their painstaking spin on one of the series’ most poignant episodes.
“My Coffee With Niles” revolves around the either complicated or profoundly uncomplex question posed by the younger psychiatrist to his older brother as their ordinary coffee appointment is constantly interrupted by colleagues, family and a repeatedly sent-back coffee order by Frasier himself. After all his friends and family leave the episode, Frasier sits alone with his finally properly made cup of joe and comments that, in a general sense, yes, he is happy. With that, the first season of one of TV’s finest shows wrapped.
We won’t know if the new show can pull off those moments of poignance until it premieres on October 12th, but, one day prior, we’ll be able to celebrate the impact Frasier had on so many different people and rediscover the magic that made us fall in love in the first place.
