Ted Danson Downplays His Involvement in the Imperiled ‘Frasier’ Reboot
Rather than launching yet another terrible sitcom with the exact same premise, Kelsey Grammer seems intent on finding a new home for the recently-canceled Frasier reboot. Ideally one that will still pay him $2 million an episode.
While that may sound like a daunting task, Grammer has suggested that he has an ace up his sleeve: Sam “Mayday” Malone.
When Grammer and Ted Danson reunited for an episode of Danson’s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, the host revealed that he didn’t make many guest appearances on Frasier because it “scared the shit out” of him. “We may chat about that again. I think you’d be really safe (on the new Frasier),” Grammer replied.
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“We will. I would love that,” Danson stressed.
While this interaction was seemingly edited out of the audio podcast, it was included in the episode’s YouTube video.
Last month, Grammer made it sound as though this idea wasn’t just idle podcast chit-chat, stating that he and Danson were, in fact, making plans to collaborate on a new project, and possibly the revival of the Frasier revival. “Ted and I might visit, actually, something together,” Grammer told The New York Post. “We’ve been talking about a couple ideas. Maybe on Frasier. We don’t know.”
He also implied that Danson could be a significant part of a hypothetical third season of Frasier 2.0, saying of Frasier and Sam’s friendship, “there’s certainly still some fields to be mined there, in terms of that relationship,” adding, “(Sam) and Frasier got along pretty well, discovered some things together about life, and they could still do that… because Frasier’s back in Boston.”
But this seems to be news to Ted Danson. The former Becker star recently guested on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, and fielded questions about his role in Frasier’s possible return. At first, Danson assumed that Mandel was asking about his involvement in the original Frasier series.
“(Grammer) asked me several times over the years to be part of it, and I didn’t,” Danson explained. “Not because I was angry at Kelsey or anything, mostly because I didn’t know how the fuck you play Sam Malone in his 60s, or now 70s. It’s amusing to play an aging adolescent when you’re in your 30s and 40s, but not when you’re in your 70s.”
This would explain why Sam Malone showed up briefly in Season Two of Frasier, but was bizarrely absent during the Cheers reunion episode in Season Nine.
When Mandel specified that he was talking about the new and not-so-improved Frasier, Danson recalled that he had softened his position on revisiting the Cheers-verse. “Sorry, that was over the years, and then recently in the last year, I did say, ‘Absolutely. Ask me, and I will come do it,’” Danson clarified. “Because I felt like I not only owed it to (Grammer), but I wanted to.”
When Mandel brought up the recent reports that Frasier could return with Sam Malone in a prominent role, Danson admitted that he wasn’t even aware of this idea. “I don’t know that,” he responded. “If (Frasier) came back and (Grammer) asked me to do an episode or something, yeah I would.” But Danson confirmed that he wouldn’t return for anything more than a brief guest spot, owing to his anxiety around the three-camera sitcom format.
If Grammer did embellish Danson’s potential involvement in Frasier, at least it’s not the worst thing he’s done so far this year.
