Now I am a huge fan of the two American sitcoms Cheers and its spin off Frasier. I think both shows are really the cream of the crop of American sitcoms. Even today series like The Big Bang Theory still follow the same basic template that Cheers laid down all those decades ago with Penny and Leonard being this generations Sam and Diane, the odd romance made up of two people who could not be more incompatible.

However one thing I and many other people have noticed about the two series is how different the character of Frasier is across both series. Whilst many of these differences can be explained by Frasier simply being older in the second series, others are flat out contradictions, and so I thought just for fun (and because I am incredibly bored LOL) to draw up a list of the various discrepancies and changes in his character between the two series.

Note: I am not saying that this makes the two series inferior, but I just find it quite interesting how much they ultimately had to change the character when giving him his own series.

Cheers Version of Frasier

In Cheers Frasier enjoys watching Sports all the time and even gets into a heated argument followed by a race to see who gets to go to a sports game first.

In Cheers Frasier also loves playing practical jokes. He is the victim of one in season 3 with the Snipe hunt, but he enjoys it and takes it in good humor saying being pranked makes him feel like he was one of the guys, and later pranks the rest of the gang. Many see this as the moment that Frasier really became friends with the Cheers gang. He also plays many other pranks on people throughout the series including Sam, Cliff, Carla (whom he pranks when she believes her deceased husband is trying to contact her) and on one occasion the entire gang when he helps Cliff play a prank about a frozen head.

In Cheers Frasier enjoys drinking beer all of the time.

In Cheers he is able to make new friends very quickly and is also able to be friends with people who are completely different to him like Norm, Cliff, Paul, Woody, Sam Malone and even Carla.

In Cheers Frasier loves science fiction and horror movies. He offers an incredibly deep analysis (like the type you’d read on any fansite or magazine) of classics such as ET, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Forbidden Planet. He also even enjoys watching schlocky horror movies such as the low budget one Rebecca’s sister stars in. He is also a fan of Star Wars and considers it on a par with Citizen Kane and Murder on the Orient Express.

His attitude towards the women in his life is very intense. He tends to fall very hard for one woman and devotes his entire existence too her to the point where if she leaves him he loses his mind. When Diane leaves him he suffers a complete mental breakdown, becomes a raging alcoholic for a whole year, gives up his profession and ends up working as a janitor in Cheers and even pulls a gun on Sam. When Lilith leaves him he fakes a heart attack, calls her a slut and threatens to kill himself in public to try and stop her from leaving. He is only seen in two very long term relationships as a result of this throughout the series.

It is implied that he came from a very wealthy background. Mentioning his family fortune at one point and his fathers pet Owl that he used to go hunting with.

Other than her affair, Lilith and Frasier are shown to have a happy marriage, though she is the dominant of the two of them, their relationship is still very close.

His father it is mentioned in one episode is a research scientist and dead. He says that originally he wanted to be an actor, but his father insisted that he join psychiatry. Frasier refused at first, but it was only after his father died that he realized it was his true passion which led to feelings of regret over his relationship with his father.

His mother is portrayed as a cold, possibly unstable woman.

He gets into fights with people at Hockey matches in one episode and overpowers Sam a professional athlete in another and ties him up.

After Diane leaves him he makes it known regularly how much he hates her. He frequently gets into arguments with her at Cheers, makes fun of her, joins in Carla’s verbal insults of her and at various points even comes close to attacking her physically.

He regularly breaks his ethics and shares some of patients most intense secrets with the gang for laughs.

He loves dogs and owns one as a pet in season 3.

His apartment is a very plain and barely decorated abode.

Frasier in Frasier

In Frasier he hates sports to the point where he can’t even sit through one Basketball game in order to bond with his father.

He hates beer and can’t drink it.

He can’t stand practical jokes. He considers them beneath him and regularly falls for them and can’t take them and can rarely carry them out properly. His father attempts to tell him being pranked makes him one of the guys, but he never sees it that way and just sees them as being mean.

He is often unable to make friends who don’t share his interests. Though he does have a few ordinary friends such as Roz, most of the time his only friend is his brother Niles.

His father is alive and a retired cop. This is actually explained in the show where Sam shows up and Sam mentions this to Martin after which Frasier says he had had a fight and Martin hung up and called him a stuffed shirt and that’s why he told people Martin was dead. “what did he say about me the old man the cop.” “He told me you were dead Martin”. “You’re a cop, you told me he was a research scientist” “you were dead what did it matter.”.

His desire to become a psychiatrist came from his mother who was a psychiatrist rather than his father.

At no point is it mentioned that he ever wanted to be an actor, though he is known to have had an interest in the theatre.

His mother is regularly described as a sweet, loving woman who always found something to like about someone.

He is afraid of any physical confrontation with anyone, though there are two occasions where he attacks two people who provoke him. One who sits in his chair and another who corrects his French prounciation.

His devotion to his ethics is so strong that when he violates them he feels sick to the point of nearly vommitting.

His attitude towards the women in his life is very different. He is never able to make it work with one woman. He will often deliberately ruin a relationship with a woman who is potentially perfect for him by picking out a minor flaw in her and being driven mad by it. Thus as a result of this he is never in a relationship that lasts longer than 3 weeks in his own series.

He comes from a working class background with his father being a blue collar cop.

He loathes science fiction and horror movies and looks down on them greatly, considering it a tragedy that one of his favorite Shakespearian actors is forced to star in a science fiction series.

He despises dogs and even has dreams where he murders his fathers dog Eddie and takes any opportunity he can to get rid of him.

In Frasier his marriage to Lilith is frequently said to have been unhappy and miserable. “Niles you forget I lived with Lilith I can live with anything”.

In Frasier it is said that he never let it be known to Diane how much pain she made him feel when she left him at the Altar, to the point where when Diane writes a play based on her experiences at Cheers, her Frasier character is civil to her and says he holds no ill will towards her. The last time Diane met Frasier in Cheers he grabbed her intensley to the point where he hurt her, and when she said he was hurting her he screamed in her face “AND YOU NEVER HURT ME!”

His apartment in Frasier is lavishly decorated to the point where leaves Daphne a diagram when she cleans it to make sure that she doesn’t mess up his decorating style. “Askew Daphne ASKEW!”

As you can see the Frasier in Frasier is in some ways almost the complete opposite from his Cheers incarnation. Again however some of these discrepancies can be explained. For instance the reason he can never make it work with a woman in Frasier could be seen as a result of his negative experiences in Cheers. Also his inability to make new friends in Frasier is addressed many times in Frasier. There are episodes that show him revert to his Cheers persona. The most notable example of this is in season 5 in the episode “Where Every Bloke Knows Your Name” where he starts attending a bar and is shown to become friends with ordinary people like his friends back in Boston and even starts drinking beer and indulging in activities like playing darts that he would normally look down upon with Niles.

Others however like his attitude towards Diane and his dislike of dogs are just flat out contradictions, but hey in the history of a character who lasted 20 years there are bound to be continuity errors.