Transcript for Episode 1: Frasier’s Boss Is Gay
This is the transcript for the first episode of the show, which was about the Frasier episode ”The Matchmaker” and which went live March 8, 2018. If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.
Niles: I had a little chat with Tom in the kitchen, and he told me he's interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, but the object of his affections is not Daphne.
Frasier: Damn! That Roz!
[audience laughs]
Niles: No, no—it's you.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Me?
Niles: Mm-hmm.
Frasier: Well, that's impossible. Tom's not gay.
Niles: He seems to be under that impression.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: What on earth could have made him think that I was interested in him? All I did was ask him if he was attached, and then we talked about the theater and men's fashions—oh, my god.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Niles, do you realize what this means?
Niles: Yes. You're dating your boss.
[audience laughs]
[Frasier theme music plays]
Drew: Hi, everybody. Welcome to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast where we talk about episodes of classic TV shows that deal with LGBT themes. I'm Drew Mackie.
Glen: I'm Glen Lakin.
Drew: And in case that opening bit didn't tip you off, this first episode is going to be about Frasier. Frasier is the NBC sitcom that ran from 1993 to 2004.
Glen: It was a spinoff of Cheers.
Drew: The episode in particular we're going to be talking about is titled “The Matchmaker.” It was the third episode of Season Two. It aired on October 4th, 1994, and unless I'm mistaken, it's the first time in Frasier Crane's three TV-show existence—if you count Wings—I count Wings.
Glen: I don't know if I count Wings, but okay.
Drew: He was on Wings.
Glen: He belonged to the Wings universe and was on an episode of Wings, but I wouldn't call it a "Frasier Crane TV show."
Drew: This is off to a terrible start. It is the first instance of Frasier Crane's existence that deals with the fact that he kind of comes off as gay, right?
Glen: Yeah. I would say that's true.
Drew: The entire existence of his character on Cheers, that's what we're supposed to think, but I just can't think of even Carla mentioning outright that, like, "Oh, you seem like you're gay or something," right?
Glen: Well, my thought is that he—I'm going to say gayer acting, whatever you want that to mean. However offensive that is, I am sorry. But he was definitely more—quote/unquote—straight acting on Cheers. I think on Cheers he came off as a pompous intellectual.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: And they didn't have to address the gay issue until he had his own show.
Drew: Oh. Interesting.
Glen: Also, he was married on Cheers. First, he was in love with Diane, then engaged to Diane, and then dating and then married to Lilith. So, he had a wife, and you weren't as prone to say, "There is a gay man talking down to me." It was just like, "Here's a straight, intellectual, pompous jerk."
Drew: Ah, that's interesting. I didn't think about that. Yeah. He's hopelessly single for most of the run of Frasier. So, yeah. They probably would have had to figure out a way to do that.
Glen: Yep.
Drew: We are going to talk about—there's a lot of reasons that Frasier speaks to a gay experience, at least Glen and I think so, and we will talk about that. But before we get into it, I just want to give a little TV context for what was going on on network TV when this episode aired. It was five months before the episode of Roseanne where she gets kissed by Mariel Hemingway and about three years before Ellen's "Puppy episode." However, that August ABC premiered My So-Called Life, which was the first show to feature an openly gay actor playing an openly gay character, that being Wilson Cruz's character. Do you remember it?
Glen: I didn't really watch it. Don't yell at me—
Drew: It ran on a loop on MTV throughout all of high school. It's the only reason most people my age ended up actually watching it.
Glen: I mean, I knew it exists.
Drew: Wilson Cruz dresses interestingly and is a well-played character. More non-gay context, a TV show called Friends was two weeks old when this show aired for the first time, which is so weird to think about. And because I only remember things in context of The Simpsons, The Simpsons episode that aired the previous Sunday was "Itchy and Scratchy Land."
Glen: Oh. Classic.
Drew: Also, this episode of Frasier did really well in the ratings. It came in eighth for the week with a rating of 15.9 but was completely outmatched by the show that was in its competing slot on ABC, Home Improvement, which got a 20.7 rating for whatever crappy episode it aired. But I think importantly, we're here to talk about Frasier, and that's the last time we're ever going to mention Home Improvement on this show because they never did a gay episode.
Glen: Eh—well, we'll see.
Drew: Oh. Okay.
Glen: I have stories.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: Okay, I don't really have stories.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: But I actually feel like eighth is kind of trash. Like, weren't there only eight TV shows on?
Drew: No. It did, actually, pretty well.
Glen: All right.
Drew: Yeah. Don't bash it. Don't bash it, especially because this episode happens to be directed by a gay man and written by a gay man. The director David Lee—who is also a co-creator for the show—won a DGA Award for it, and Joe Keenan—the man who wrote it—won an Emmy for the script. It was also given a GLAAD Award for the interesting way it deals with stereotypes about gay men.
Glen: I would agree with all of that.
Drew: Yeah. Before we jump into the actual episode, Frasier's really gay, right?
Glen: No. I mean, yes. Yes, he is very gay.
Drew: Like, the show. Frasier italicized is really gay even though Frasier the person is ostensibly heterosexual.
Glen: Yeah. It is a show about refined taste in an era where that sort of coded for "gay."
Drew: Especially if the number one show on TV is Home Improvement.
Glen: I mean, yeah. Frasier was not grunting like an ape—
Drew: No.
Glen: —and his children were not running around like animals.
Drew: Right. Right. Although—what is her name? Patricia Richardson? Is that the mom on Home Improvement?
Glen: Heaton.
Drew: No, not Heaton. Heaton's Everyone Loves Raymond.
Glen: Oh, that's right. That's right.
Drew: Patricia Whoever-It-Was did have to deal with just being exhausted by men all the time, which is a fate shared by Daphne and Roz, so there's one thing they have in common.
Glen: That's a fate shared by every—
Drew: All women.
Glen: —sitcom wife, almost ever, is they are all exhausted by men. That is their number one trait.
Drew: That's true. Maybe just women in general.
Glen: I mean, sure.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Glen: I also apologize to Patricia from Home Improvement for confusing her with the woman who wanted Terri Schiavo to be kept alive.
Drew: [gasps] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Patricia Richardson never became an arch-Catholic conservative. So Frasier is a show about the differences between the character Frasier and his dad Martin, played by the now late John Mahoney—John Mahoney, RIP—and John Mahoney is a very blue-collar, low-brow taste—not a fancy guy at all. And because of the conflict between these two characters that have to share a house together, they might remind a lot of gay men about having difficulty relating to maybe their own father or other men in their family. Would you say?
Glen: Yeah. Now I'm just in a loop, replaying my own relationship with my father.
Drew: Well, don't do that. That's—
Glen: You've trapped me.
Drew: No, no, no. Think about Frasier. Think about funny little Niles who they invented on the show to make—obviously, that was a good character they added to the show, and David Hyde Pierce is great in the role, but he's an even faggier version of Frasier.
Glen: Well, he is the Cordelia Chase to Frasier's Buffy.
Drew: Yes. That is a very apt comparison.
Glen: Well, Cordelia was added to Buffy specifically to make Buffy Summers look like less of a bitch.
Drew: Hmm.
Glen: And so I feel like they get away with Frasier's mannerisms and taste and general attitude because they added Niles to the show to make him seem grounded by comparison, which makes it even more egregious that he's just not a gay character.
Drew: Right, right. He spends three-fourths of the show making puppy eyes at Daphne, and I guess no one in America was like, "Hey, it's weird that the gay guy likes the British woman. That's a weird thing." Everyone just kind of bought it.
Glen: Well, it's weird to me because I think it was a template for a lot of my, I would say, crushes towards women. I was very invested in the Niles/Daphne relationship, and I didn't actually realize until much later that I was like, "Oh. No, he's basically kind of stalking her and obsessed with her."
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: It's very performative. He has a very performative crush on Daphne, which is pretty much where all of my crushes in high school were.
Drew: Oh. That's super interesting. Okay. Daphne never seems to realize it, but it's something that's very apparent to Martin and Frasier and eventually Roz figures it out, too, and everyone is just watching this thing happen, and Daphne is oblivious to it.
Glen: Yeah. The girls I had a crush on maybe weren't oblivious.
Drew: What did you do?
Glen: I may have written my college essay about stalking this one girl in high school, which I feel bad about now.
Drew: I thought you said you wrote your college essay about Sailor Moon.
Glen: I wrote my college essay to Stanford about Sailor Moon, and that was the one school I did not get into. The stalking essay got me into a lot of schools, which maybe says a lot about our country.
Drew: Yeah. How—that's—yeah. Hmm. Well—well. I'm sorry Niles Crane was your role model because that shouldn't have been. But it was made all the stranger when David Hyde Pierce eventually came out, long after the show ended. And it so happens that most of the men on the show are played by gay actors playing straight men, and this includes Bulldog Briscoe, played by Dan Butler, who was the only—I think the only one who was openly gay. He talked about being gay in interviews, like on Regis and Kathie Lee back in the day.
Glen: Even my dad knew that Bulldog was gay and brought it up a lot as a funny thing. I love my father. He has no problem with gay men. I don't know why it's coming off that I have a complicated relationship with my father.
Drew: I mean—so, Glen and I are roommates, so we know a lot about each other's family lives. Yeah, you have a complicated relationship with your family, but not about the gay thing.
Glen: No, not about the gay thing.
Drew: Just other stuff.
Glen: Oh, sure.
Drew: Yeah. Okay. And then there's Gil Chesterton who is the food critic that works at the radio station where Frasier also works, and it's as if they decided, "Well now, if Niles is straight, we need someone who's even gayer," and they invent this character who's basically flamingly gay but closeted, and there's even times where characters talk about how he's very obviously gay.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: I feel bad for his fictional wife that we don't see.
Drew: The mechanic?
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: Which I wonder if that is why Maris, Niles's wife, is never pictured. I know it's a gag carried over from Cheers where we never saw Vera.
Drew: Right.
Glen: But I wonder if you saw Maris if you would just feel bad for her.
Drew: Because she's supposed to be hideous or—
Glen: No. You'd feel bad because she has this—well, in the context of the show, you'd feel bad because her husband is constantly mentally cheating on her.
Drew: Right. Right, which comes up in this episode a lot, which I have in my notes. It's an awkward thing to look at as an adult, being like, "Oh. He wants to commit adultery with the hired help."
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Way to go, Niles.
Glen: Well, you mentioned that this is the third episode of Season Two, and I was saying that I think that's important because I wonder if there was a lot of blowback from the first season—a lot of notes being like, "Well, these two are kind of gay," Frasier and Niles. And there's a thing in screenwriting where you just want to wave away the obvious pushback, the obvious questions you get to concede. Or, if someone in a movie has a stupid plan and everyone involved knows it's a stupid plan, if you mention that it's a stupid plan—if a character in the script mentions it's a stupid plan, and someone explains away, "No, it's fine," then the audience is on board. And I think that the placement of this episode early in Season Two was very intentional to bring up the gay issue and then wave it away.
Drew: Ah. Interesting. Okay. So, is that what they call "hanging a lantern on it"?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Okay. I learned that from somewhere.
Glen: Not me. I've never said it before, but it sounds right.
Drew: Right. Okay. So, this episode—the only other thing that I think you have to know going into this is that it's Season Two Frasier hair, which means that he still kind of looks like Mr. Largo from The Simpsons. He has a lot of growth in back, which they eventually would tame down, and it really helps Frasier a lot because he looks less weird.
Glen: I describe it as "liberal professor hair."
Drew: Yes. Yeah. So the episode opens with the smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night, and I'm going to hesitate to make a fire alarm flame—that's dumb. No. We're not going to—
Glen: Yeah. I was also going to make a cigarette/faggot joke, but there's nothing there.
Drew: No, it's not. But Daphne is secretly smoking in her room, which is a major fucking no-no. You wouldn't—Frasier has a no smoking rule, and she's trying to—you would be able to tell she was smoking in her—anyway. She's smoking. She sets off the fire alarm. I like her line reading of "With all the noise the bloody thing makes—"
Daphne: The noise the bloody thing makes—it would be less upsetting to just wake up on fire.
[audience laughs]
Glen: Mm-hmm.
Drew: That's a good line. And she's sad because she's single and doesn't have any prospects, and she talks to Frasier about this and quickly makes him sad as well.
Glen: Yes. But I, for one, enjoyed the mention of Diane and then Lilith when Frasier bemoaned his love life.
Frasier: I know how bleak these times can be, but believe me, they come to an end sooner or later. You know, I remember a time back in Boston. I was going through exactly what you're going through now. Just a week later, I met a lovely barmaid—sophisticated, if a bit loquacious.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: We fell madly in love. We got engaged. Of course, she left me standing at the altar, but [scoffs]—the point is I didn't give up. I took my poor, battered heart, and offered it to Lilith.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Put it in her little Cuisinart and hit the puree button.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Does Diane show up this season?
Glen: No. She doesn't—
Drew: No?
Glen: I don't believe she shows up second season.
Drew: Okay. But it's not that far off before we finally get to see Shelly Long again.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah, which I maybe wanted to on this show, but the gayest thing about that is Shelly Long, so it doesn't really work. Do you want to move on to the next part? Is there anything more—
Glen: Yeah. There wasn't anything really gay about this opening, but the cut to the next scene had the title card "Manhunt," which delighted me, and I thought about all those gay dating websites and dating apps that could be pulled just from Frasier title cards.
Drew: Oh, true. Oh, my gosh. So, it's a manhunt because Frasier is in the café he's always in, and Roz is like, "I knew I'd find you here," and he has forgotten that he was supposed to wake up early and meet the new station manager, who we have not met yet. And then it quickly slips into a conversation about how Daphne is man hungry.
Glen: And Frasier, in timely fashion, slut-shames Roz, which is going to be a constant theme on Frasier, which is unfortunate—but still funny, I guess.
Drew: It's—Niles really gives it. Niles is really mean about it. Frasier is more casual about it, but their attitude is that anyone that Roz has already had sex with is not good enough for Daphne, and that's a sucky attitude. And it is kind of weird to think about that Frasier and Roz are single for most of the show, and they're office mates, and they're paired with each other, and—at least initially—most of Roz's scenes are with Frasier. And it takes them a while to ever really address the lack of any sexual chemistry between these two characters.
Glen: Which I thought was nice. I didn't need them to be love interests.
Drew: To not be Sam and Diane about it?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: I do think there's something kind of gay relatable about Roz's slut-shaming because gay men have the—it's sort of a cliché that we're promiscuous and we sleep around, although I will say that many of the men in her black book had very gay names, like Brick and—I don't know—Cock Tease.
[audience laughs]
Roz: Sven Bachman. He's an aerobics instructor.
Frasier: I don't think so.
Roz: Oh. Oh, this one's perfect. Gunther Dietrich. Oh, he's loads of fun, and he's a runway model.
Frasier: A German narcissist. There's an appealing combination.
[audience laughs]
Roz: Okay. I'll keep looking.
Niles: Looking for what?
Roz: I'm helping Frazier find a man for Daphne.
Niles: What?
[audience laughs]
Roz: Here we go. Here we go. He's a tennis instructor, and his name is Brick.
Niles: Dear God, Frasier—Sven? Gunther? Brick? Why not just lather Daphne up with baby oil and hurl her over the wall of a prison yard?
[audience laughs]
Drew: There aren't actual people named Brick, right?
Glen: I don't know.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: But I'll say—I'll actually defend Niles's slut-shaming in that there rapport as characters. They sort of rib each other, and I think it's more hurtful coming from Frasier who danced around it—or tried to. And the whole virgin/whore dichotomy is just sort of—it's overplayed, but I sort of—we'll get to Roz's motivations later in the episode, but I do feel bad for her.
Drew: Yeah. I feel bad for her for the slut-shaming, and also, she's very frequently the one who's left out of most of the action because this episode concludes with everyone but Roz having a big scene together, and she's just not even fucking there.
Glen: I honestly was surprised because I had forgotten some of the episode, and my mind told me, like, "Oh, yeah. Roz shows up towards the end to try and make things right," but no. She doesn't.
Drew: Nope. Just don't see her again. So eventually, you see—it cuts to the station where Frasier is at work, and we finally meet the new station manager, who is Tom, who is played by Eric Lutes, who most people probably know as the non-gay guy from Caroline in the City. He played Caroline's ex on Caroline in the City?
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: Ex, and sometimes current. When we say the non-gay guy in Caroline in the City, you're referring to her artist partner who is straight on the show.
Drew: And who she eventually falls in love with at the end of the show.
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Which is such a weird fucking thing. But if we're talking about shows where you have gay-coded characters who just aren't gay despite everything that comes out of their mouth, Caroline in the City is a really fucking weird example—Richard.
Glen: His name was Richard.
Drew: Yes. And he's played by Malcolm Gets, who is a gay man in real life, and it's—yeah. I just find it very puzzling that '90s TV viewers were just like, "Okay. This person's straight. We'll accept that."
Glen: Yeah. Pretty much any artsy person on '90s TV—I don't know—seems coded as gay.
Drew: Yeah. It's a weird thing. For this episode, the gay guy is played by Eric Lutes, who's kind of jockey on Caroline in the City, and maybe a little bit less so here. And by '90s standards, he's very good looking.
Glen: I'd say by most standards. The suit is ill fitting, but the thing that was striking to me about Tom's introduction is that he's pretty much introduced as a mirror image of Frasier. He is idealized Frasier.
Drew: Oh. That's interesting.
Glen: The framing of the shot when they shake hands is—they're given equal screen presence. They're wearing similar clothing, similar coloring. I think Tom's hair is the better version of Frasier's hair—if Kelsey Grammar had more hair.
Drew: Tom has amazing hair, I should point out. It's almost like Teen Beat, dreamboat '90s hair.
Glen: Oh, it's wavy.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: You'd run your fingers through it.
Drew: Yeah. It looks great.
Drew: He even shares Frasier's backstory in that he traveled many, many miles to get away from a bad relationship. He had just broken up with someone.
Drew: Oh. Oh, you're totally right.
[audience laughs]
Tom: Say, that's a beautiful tie.
Frasier: Oh, thank you. Yes. I got this in London at one of those custom shops. It was just off of Sloane Square.
Tom: You know, I just came from London. I spent the last five years there working for the BBC.
Frasier: Really? I love London. The museums, the theater—
Tom: Oh, yeah. I'm a big theater buff. Three shows a week. I hated leaving.
Frasier: Ah, I can imagine. Why did you?
Tom: Well, I just kind of went through a messy breakup. I thought I'd sleep better with a continent between us.
Frasier: [laughs] Yes. I know the feeling.
[audience laughs]
Glen: I think it's important how similar he is to Frasier because it addresses the—it's drawing a direct comparison. It wants to say, "Here is what the gay version of Frasier is. Our Frasier's not gay. Our Frasier is Frasier."
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: "This is what gay Frasier looks like."
Drew: Better, I guess.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: But also, just a different person. It's also notable that when Tom enters the scene, Frasier is talking about his search for a man for Daphne, and he says out loud, "I'm looking for a man who's cultured, compassionate, intelligent—" all these things, but Tom only hears that part and naturally assumes that this cultured man who's looking for a man of his own is gay.
Glen: Yeah, and hilarity will ensue from this mix-up.
Drew: Of course. Roz, of course, also thinks he's really attractive and seems like she has her eyes set on her [sic], but—
Glen: I actually never—I don't think Roz had any interest in Tom. She may have noted that he's attractive just because Frasier brings it up, but I actually think that Roz is pretty professional in this instance—in this one instance.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: And I actually have to question this company's HR policy that Tom would come in, and on his first day of work be like, "Yeah. I'm going to ask out a co-worker. That's fine."
Frasier: I take it then you are unattached?
Tom: Yes, but I haven't given up hope.
Frasier: Well, you may have come to the right place.
Tom: Really?
Frasier: Yes. Yes. You say you're very fond of the English?
Tom: Oh, yes. Very much. I think I've always had a weakness for people who are just a little eccentric.
Frasier: Really?
Roz: Fifteen seconds.
Tom: Oh. Well, listen. It was nice meeting you.
Frasier: Likewise, Tom. Oh. Say, Tom. This may sound like short notice, but if you're not busy Saturday, why don't you come by my place for dinner? Nothing fancy.
Tom: Well, thanks. I'd like that.
Frasier: Great!
Drew: Technically, Frasier has already asked him out at this point, right?
Glen: Does that make it better?
Drew: No. He should probably know to say no, but I guess there's the pretense of maybe he thought it was just a friendly co-worker inviting me over for dinner. But Frasier quickly invites Tom to dinner at Frasier's apartment as a fix up for Daphne. Tom does not think that at all.
Glen: No. And it is when Frasier again sort of slut-shames Roz through the glass—he writes "Hands off," or something along the lines, on a piece of paper that Roz begins this snowball by not correcting Tom.
Drew: As Frasier can't hear what's happening in the producer booth, of course, and it's Tom telling Roz, like, "Oh. I guess every place is the same."
Tom: Boy. You know, it's the same every job I take. Word spreads like wildfire.
Roz: Hmm. What's that?
Tom: Oh, you know. You tell one or two people you're gay, and before you can blink it's all over the station.
[audience laughs]
Roz: Well, they don't call it broadcasting for nothing.
[audience laughs]
Tom: He seems like a nice guy.
Roz: Oh, he's okay.
Tom: Oh, I hope he's more than okay. He just asked me out on a date.
[audience laughs]
Roz: Frasier just asked you out on a date?
Tom: Yeah. Well, he asked me to his place for dinner. So I wanted to ask you, is there any particular wine he likes?
Roz: Listen, Tom. There's something you need to know about Frasier.
Tom: What?
[audience laughs]
Roz: He's nuts about chardonnay.
[audience laughs]
Drew: And so Roz knows that he's gay, and she just lets this farce happen to poor Frasier because Frasier's a dick. He truly has it coming, even if it's a mean thing to do to Tom.
Glen: Yeah, and that's the thing. Like, I'm sort of torn. I think this is a great play on Roz's part, but it also plays into the cliché of the gay character being used as a prop in the straight character's plot.
Drew: Totally.
Glen: Which, at the time, I would not have thought twice about, and I was entertained and delighted.
Drew: Yeah. Do you remember when you first saw this episode, by the way? Was it on the original airing?
Glen: Yeah. Of course. Again, my father and I always watched "Must-See TV."
Drew: My family, too, and I probably would have watched this with my parents. And I don't think at this point I would have realized it would have any special meaning for me, but this might have been—I struggle to think of a time a show we actively watched would have dealt with gay themes openly before this.
Glen: I remember thinking Dell on Caroline in the City was hot, so this was around puberty for me. This was in the heat of it.
Drew: Don't make me picture you hot and pubic. Ugh. I would have been 12. Is that—
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: When does—is that puberty?
Glen: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Okay. I didn't know what was going on. I was a dumb child. The scene cuts back to Frasier's apartment where he has just informed Daphne that it's a setup, and again, I like Jane Leeves's—I like how Jane Leeves delivers lines, but I wrote down the line they give her. I feel like they're still getting used to writing real Britishisms for her to say. She's just talking about being set up back in Manchester.
Daphne: My girlfriends in Manchester used to set me up all the time, and it was always some gangly bounder with a boarding-house reach, and he wasn't going for the Colman's Hot Mustard, if you know what I mean.
[audience laughs]
Drew: We get it. She's British. We understand. She has an accent. You don't need to clobber us over the head with it.
Glen: Well, I just thought that they gave her the ugliest dress to wear at first.
Drew: The first dress.
Glen: The frock with umbrellas on it.
Drew: Is that what—it has umbrellas on it?
Glen: I think it was umbrellas.
Drew: Well, it takes her a while to get to dress sexy on the show, normally. But it's interesting that Frasier points out that the dress isn't pretty enough and asks her to put on that little strapless number, which is not a thing a straight man has ever said in history.
Glen: I will say I think they exaggerated some of Frasier's mannerisms for this episode.
Drew: To make him seem a little bit gayer?
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Right.
Glen: I mean, they didn't have to push much.
Frasier: Is that what you're wearing?
[audience laughs]
Daphne: Why? What's wrong with it?
[doorbell rings]
Frasier: Don't you have something with a little more oomph? What about that—oh, that strapless number you have?
[audience laughs]
Daphne: Do you have any idea how uncomfortable a strapless bra is?
Frasier: Well, thanks to my fraternity days, as a matter of fact I do.
[audience laughs]
Glen: Going into this date, I just want to say that if I showed up to a man's apartment and was ambushed by having dinner with his father and his father's—
Drew: Nurse?
Glen: Nurse. Yeah. If I was on this terrible date, and I would come up with an excuse to leave pretty quickly.
Drew: Well—okay. That's a good point, but Frasier accidentally makes Tom think that he's actually going to get some action out of this because one of the first things Tom says when he enters is, "Oh, what a great view," and Frasier's response is "Oh, you should see it from the bedroom." So regardless of what he thinks is going to happen, he thinks he's going to get sex, which is all the more disappointing for him, I guess, that he's missing out on that sweet Kelsey Grammar ass.
Glen: I mean, the bedroom is nice.
Drew: It is nice. Yeah. We don't know—we don't know what the view looks like, but—
Glen: Did you just assume Kelsey Grammar would be a bottom?
Drew: I did, in this relationship. That's interesting. Why—do you think—[laughs].
Glen: I don't know. I think Frasier's a top [laughs]. This is a terrible road to go down.
Drew: Yeah. I just don't want to think about that. Also, the fact that his dad is going to be at the dinner as well is sort of explained by the fact that Frasier says, "Oh, I life with my father." And Tom's response is like, "Oh, doesn't that crimp your personal life?"
Tom: That's a hell of a view!
Frasier: It's even better from the bedroom.
[audience laughs]
Tom: Why don't we just start with a drink?
Frasier: [laughs]
Tom: Oh, four places. Who's joining us?
Frasier: Oh. Well, just my little household—my father and his physical therapist, charming Daphne.
Tom: You live with your dad?
Frasier: Mm-hmm.
Tom: I can't even imagine that. Well, I mean, I think it's great that you get along so well, but doesn't having him here kind of put a crimp in your love life?
Frasier: Oh, not at all. No. No—well, except when I bring my dates home. He tries to steal them [laughs].
[audience laughs]
Glen: Yeah, the mixed-message dialogue is on point in this episode of Frasier. It's always on point in Frasier.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Glen: It's prime mix-'em-up TV.
Drew: Mix-'em-up TV. Yeah. But the entire time, if someone just said one fucking thing, it would solve the whole thing. But unlike an episode of Three's Company where you're like, "Just say the thing. You would fix all your problems," with this you kind of are more prone to just roll with it, I guess.
Glen: Because the things they're saying are much funnier.
Drew: Yeah. The writing's a lot better.
Glen: This is a small, small nitpick, but I felt so bad watching Frasier open that bottle of wine that Tom brings because he's opening it like a peasant with an old-turn kind of wine opener. I mean, that's still how I open wine, but a real wine gay nowadays has all the fancy wine openers.
Drew: Like the rabbit that I have.
Glen: Yeah. You have a fancy wine opener that I'm always afraid of breaking.
Drew: You can't break it. It works really easy. It's much, much, much easier. Martin does nothing to solve the problem of seeming gay because he recommends his—Duke's the bar that he likes to go to. And he tells Tom, "Yeah, there's a lot of young cops there." So, he's made this poor man think there's a gay bar full of young cops. That's not a bar that exists anywhere in the real world, right?
Glen: Is that a type that exists? Are people—
Drew: Young cops?
Glen: Are people into young cops? Like, I know—
Drew: I watched every episode of Southland, and if there was ever a show that would actually feature a bar full of gay cops, it would be that show—and that was not a thing they ever had on that show. I guess this is maybe an okay time to talk about John Mahoney's sexuality in as much as we can say, because we don't know him. But as of the recording, he has just recently passed, and there hasn't been anything yet published about his personal life. But if you google around, the perception is that he's a gay man, a gay actor, who simply didn't ever talk about his personal life in interviews, which is his own business and he's welcome to do that. But I think a lot of people who don't know that find it very surprising that—I guess because they only know him as Marty and they don't think of him as being primarily a stage actor, which is what he did for most of his life.
Glen: He also played an openly gay man in Broken Hearts Club—Broken Hearts League?
Drew: Broken Hearts Club.
Glen: Okay.
Drew: He did, but so did a lot of straight—isn't Timothy Olyphant and Dean Cain in that movie, too?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. I don't—they're not gay, are they? I don't think so. I don't know. We're not in the know. Someone smarter than us can maybe tell you what's going on with those guys. But yeah, it's interesting to see John Mahoney play—it's not the only time they kind of tweak his sexuality over the course of the show.
Glen: No. There's definitely an episode where he pretends to be gay in order to get out of a date with a woman. Hilarity ensues, and he ends up pretending that Niles is his boyfriend, and it's very uncomfortable.
Drew: It's very fucking weird. That's right. Maybe if we do a Season Two of this show we can do that episode as well. There's a lot of Frasier episodes we could pick from.
Glen: Yeah. I'm pretty sure you want the Gil episode first.
Drew: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. We'll talk about Gil first. Yeah. By the way, in case you're cruise, we think this will be a little 10-episode effort. We'll see how it does. We have the 10 episodes picked out, but there is no shortage of LGBT sitcom episodes that we would be very excited to talk about.
Glen: Yeah, and I specifically wanted to do this one because I knew I wouldn't be too offended whereas some of the other offerings—we might not be so lucky.
Drew: Right. They're not all award-winning episodes. I'm looking at my notes right now, and at one point it just says on a line on its own, "Poor Daphne." [laughs]
Glen: Yeah. Daphne—she does a great job in this episode, having to go back and forth between delighted and heartbroken, and her discovery of Tom being gay is a nice five-second bit of TV where she walks in on the jig-is-up moment and just turns around, and in one motion, removes her wireless bra.
Drew: She's walking in the background. Tom and Frasier are talking, and all Daphne hears is Tom say, "—that I'm gay," and without Frasier or Tom even seeing her, she does a 180 and walks back down the hallway to her bedroom, and yeah, just whips off her wireless bra and—strapless bra.
Glen: Oh, that's right. Strapless. Sorry. We're gay men.
Drew: We don't understand lady clothes.
Glen: I wonder if you notice any differences in Tom's—I guess performative—sexuality over the course of the episode. I felt that as the evening progressed, as he found out that more and more people in this family were gay, he got more comfortable with himself, and I felt like in one-on-one scenes, especially with Martin or with Niles—who he assumed was gay—he loosened his mannerisms, too. In the group scenes, he was more like he was at work: a little bit more reserved and buttoned up.
Drew: Oh. I didn't notice that.
Glen: I just think it was an interesting note because maybe we've moved beyond that as a society, but in the '90s, performative sexuality was how you would blend in your day and night life.
Drew: Right. Right, right, right. Huh. That's interesting. You just made me realize that doo-doo—due to [enunciated clearly]—[laughs].
Glen: Doo-doo.
Drew: Doo-doo—ugh. I keep saying that. As a result of miscommunication, he is tricked into thinking that both Frasier and Martin are gay. That never happens with Niles. No one ever—he just sees Niles as he is and he's like, "Oh, this person is also a homosexual."
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. I think we need to talk about how it's revealed initially, which the first person at the dinner party to figure out what's going on is Niles, who by the way is not invited to the dinner at all and just lingers because he's creepily protective of Daphne and doesn't like the idea of Daphne being charmed by this educated—
Glen: Handsome.
Drew: —handsome, yeah—much handsomer man. So, Niles is undercutting everything that Tom says at dinner, and then eventually Niles goes into the kitchen, and then Tom follows him and says, "Hey. I can't help but shake the feeling that I've offended you in some way.
Tom: Niles? Can I speak with you a moment?
Niles: Yes.
Tom: I was wondering, did I do anything that offended up?
Niles: No [dishes clang].
[audience laughs]
Tom: Oh. Must be all in my head [laughs]. But I sense that you had a problem with me dating Frasier.
Niles: Well, if you must know—
[audience laughs]
Niles: I'm sorry. What was the question?
[audience laughs]
Tom: Do you have some problem with me dating your brother?
[audience laughs]
Niles: No.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Now, Niles, I didn't ask Tom to dinner so he'd end up talking to you all night in the kitchen. There are others who would like to have a crack at him.
[audience laughs]
Drew: And Niles completely changes and immediately approves of Tom and tells Frasier that he thinks that Tom is exactly the kind of man that he should be fixing up Daphne with, which is a nice moment.
Glen: And when he does reveal the secret to Frasier, I think Niles gets an amazing line where he says that Dad wanted to tell Frasier, but Niles won the coin toss.
Drew: Yeah. And it's said so quickly that it just clips right by, and he jumps into giving the news. But yeah, it is a perfectly written line.
Glen: It's a buried joke, and I love unearthing it every time.
Drew: What do you think of the scene—so at this point, Niles and Martin are in the kitchen off screen and it's just Frasier, Daphne, and Tom talking out where the dinner table is, and you do not see Martin learn. You just hear him explode with laughter from the other room, and they kind of react to it and then just keep talking. I guess it makes me feel bad for Tom. It's not a homophobic laugh, really.
Glen: They're laughing—they're not laughing at Tom, though. They're laughing at Frasier.
Drew: Right.
Glen: And also, they're on the balcony. It's a little bit more believable.
Drew: Oh, that's right.
Glen: Although there are plenty of people who study the acoustics of Frasier's apartment to wonder how some of these secrets always get kept. Yeah. I never read anything—it's not malicious in context. I don't think it's malicious outside of the show, either, even looking back. It's just—it's a ridiculous thing.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: Yeah. At any point, someone could have said something. It could be cleared up very easily, but that's TV, so—
Drew: Right, and it's a very funny episode. So, I'm not going to knock it for that. I guess I just feel bad for—it's weird that the amount of joy they're taking in Frasier getting crushed in front of—his efforts being literally rendered to nothing and looking like a fool. Their joy for that is greater than any suffering that Daphne or Tom is going to experience as a result of this, but whatever. They're kind of jerks.
Glen: I don't know that Tom's going to necessarily suffer from this. I've had women hit on me in bars and think I was straight for some reason.
Drew: It's because you're tall.
Glen: That might be it.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: And I don't think I'm ever—I'm trying—I don't think I'm ever—I'm not offended by it. So, I guess from Tom's perspective—they assumed he was straight, which probably happens, and it was just a mix-up, and once it's cleared up—
Drew: Right.
Glen: It's only—I guess really the only person who has any sort of culpability in this is Roz.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: But again, I forgive her.
Drew: Right. Yeah, because Frasier's a jerk. But it is interesting that when Martin's having a one-on-one with Tom, he brings up football, and Tom says, "Oh, my gosh. I miss football so much," because he was recently in England and you can't watch football there. So, that is—I guess this episode got an award from GLAAD for defying stereotypes about gay men, and even though it does say that Tom likes opera, he also likes football, and maybe that's enough? He doesn't really seem like either to me, but maybe in 1994 that was a big deal.
Glen: But you also—I don't want to give it too much credit for that because that's also the main conceit of the episode is a man who appeals to a straight woman and—quote/unquote—a gay man in Frasier, and so he has to dance the line for the joke to work.
Drew: Right. Okay.
Glen: So, he couldn't be a stereotypical gay man in the '90s necessarily because that would ruin the joke. We still have to believe that Daphne would be into him.
Drew: Right. She could just have horny goggles on because he's '90s-hot.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: The one instance of performative sexuality that I can recall is immediately after Niles has delivered this news to Frasier out in the hallway, out of earshot of anyone else, that Tom is gay, and he's there for Frasier and not for Daphne. Frasier goes back in, and Tom is just leering at—leering is not the right verb, but he's giving him fuck-me eyes.
Glen: Yeah. Yeah. He's taken the glasses off. He is all cozy on the couch.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Glen: Yeah. You'd do him.
Drew: Yeah. With a look like that that just cuts right through you, yeah. I totally get it.
Glen: In that scene also, Frasier is so incredibly uncomfortable that he's doing performative something.
[audience laughs]
Tom: So.
Frasier: So.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: God. I hate this song.
Tom: You know, I've broken my rule for you. I usually don't date guys I work with.
Frasier: Yes. Well, I sort of relaxed my rule for you, too.
[audience laughs uproariously]
Tom: You're cute when you're nervous.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Yes. Well, I must be downright adorable now, then.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Yeah. I think that's actually kind of an interesting moment because you're seeing—even though it's only a one-sided, man-on-man seduction, Tom's going through the motions, and that—again, like I said, this was before that gay bar episode of Roseanne where she gets kissed on the mouth. That's not something people might have ever seen before. If you were just the kind of person who watches whatever's on primetime TV.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good for it winning an award.
Glen: I do think I'm of thoughts on how this whole thing between Tom and Frasier resolves when they're in the kitchen and everything's out and Frasier says to Tom, "It never occurred to me—"
Frasier: Don't take this wrong, but it never even occurred to me that you might be gay.
Tom: Well, it never even occurred to me that you might be straight.
[audience laughs]
Frasier: Thank you.
Glen: And it works because, again, we think Frasier is gay—or gay acting.
Drew: Right.
Glen: But it's also such a beautiful undercut of straight privilege whereas they just want every gay person to announce that they are gay because they feel like you—quote/unquote—ambush them by coming out later: They feel attacked, they feel threatened—
Drew: Like you snuck it in there.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: But we never ask straight people to announce that they're straight.
Drew: True. I actually didn't think about that. Although I have to say, I was pissing around on Tumblr, and there was just a text post, and the text post is literally, like, Person One being like, "Oh, I had no idea you were gay," and the other person being like, "Oh, it never occurred to me that you're straight." I'm sure the person who wrote that was, like, 14, and has not seen this episode of Frasier and just arrived at it on their own. But I kind of feel like Tom's response is no less valid a response to straight—because straight people will still say that to gay people as if—without considering what it means to say that. They'll be like, "Oh, that's weird. You don't act too gay. I didn't think you were at all." That is still a worthwhile conclusion to come to.
Glen: Yeah. Have we talked about David Hyde Pierce being gay?
Drew: Did we talk about that?
Glen: We talked about John Mahoney being gay.
Drew: Yeah. We talked about how he came out after the fact, and it was actually for the website I used to work for, and I remember them pushing it like it was a huge scoop, like they just happened to interview him and he mentioned the fact that he had a husband or something, and they published it like it was a huge scoop. And I think—it was either Brian Moylan, or it might have been Richard Lawson making fun of their treatment of this scoop. It was like, "The most effeminate man in '90s primetime TV turns out to actually be gay. That's not actually news." It was kind of a nasty way to receive the news, but it kind of hand a point. Like, what the fuck was he waiting for?
Glen: It was around the time that Tim Curry came out, wasn't it? They were both in Spamalot.
Drew: Oh, was it? Okay.
Glen: I think, because I remember I was in Chicago when that was there and the whole cast went to one of the gay bars there.
Drew: Oh. Yeah. Well, I guess that makes sense. I'm glad he did. I'm glad he felt like he was fine to do that, but it's like when what's-his-face from Will & Grace finally came out after the show ended. It was like, "Well, you know we assumed you were, and it's weird that—" I don't know. It's actually a very weird thing to talk about. Yes, that's your thing to disclose when you feel comfortable to do it, but it's weird when you do it at a point when it seems like you literally have nothing to lose career wise.
Glen: It just makes it all the more ridiculous that Niles was not a gay character. Like, the actor really didn't have anything to lose. Four or five seasons into the show, he has his Emmys. It would have been perfectly believable if Niles came out.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: Like, "Sorry about that crush on Daphne. I was obviously not in my right mind. I was repressing a lot and married to an awful woman that made me feel bad about repressing my sexuality. So, sorry I put that all on you, Daphne."
Drew: Right.
Glen: And now I'm going to sleep with men.
Drew: Right. I do like that plotline for Niles, and it is interesting thinking about that in conjunction with Chandler, who we barely knew anything about at this point. But not very long into the run of Friends, they started the running joke about how Chandler seemed gay and people thought he was gay. And unless I'm mistaken, they actually did think about the idea of having him come out, and they're like, "No. We're not going to do that," and then he marries Monica, and—yeah. It's just kind of a weird thing.
Glen: Yeah. That's a weird thing to think about, like, giving your gay-seeming characters the most forced relationships possible.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Got a heterosexualize them up.
Glen: Healthcare worker—that's what Daphne is. She is not his nurse.
Drew: Right. Healthcare worker.
Glen: Live-in healthcare worker-slash-psychic.
Drew: She also does the laundry, though. She also does—and cooks dinner for them sometimes.
Glen: Yeah. Domestic duties.
Drew: I'm pretty sure her job description wouldn't have included everything that they make her do, but—
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: They frequently also overrun the boundaries of privacy with Daphne. There's a whole episode about it.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: The episode closes with Del—not Del—Tom saying, "So, your dad's not gay either?" He's like, "No. My dad is not gay."
[audience laughs]
Frasier: No, no. Dad's not gay [laughs].
Tom: [laughs] But Niles? Come on.
[audience laughs and applauds]
Frasier: No, I'm afraid not [laughs].
Tom: Huh. So, wait a minute. This Maris guy he kept mentioning is a woman?
Frasier: Well, the jury is still out on that one.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Kind of you're like, she's not mannish, but I think it's more of a joke about her being subhuman or—
Glen: Yeah, because at this point in the series she's apparently so thin she has no body fat, which would mean no breasts.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Yeah. The one time we actually get close to seeing her, it's Roz spies her through a keyhole and she's like, "I don't see her in the room at all. All I see is that hat rack." And Frasier's response was like, "Look closer," and then she gasps in horror when she realizes that's Maris. But yeah, un-castable. You can't cast that.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: And then the episode, the closing credits are Frasier and Daphne sitting on the couch smoking cigarettes and drinking booze of some sort because they are no less sad and alone than they were when they started.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: The lesson is: Don't try at all because you're just going to fail, and you're going to feel worse about it.
Glen: I mean, yeah. I guess that's the lesson for all gay men.
Drew: Don't try.
Glen: Don't try. Don't date.
Drew: But we're trying a podcast. We're trying—
Glen: No. We're nailing—
Drew: Oh. We're nailing the podcast?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Okay. Awesome. We landed this one really wood—really well. I just pronounced it wrong.
Glen: All downhill from here.
Drew: Yeah. Tom does come back.
Glen: Yes.
Drew: For just the one episode, though, right?
Glen: Yeah, and just the one scene—is it more than one scene? Anyway, it's a Bebe Glazer episode, so you should watch it not just for Tom but for Bebe.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Bebe Glazer, by the way, who stars in the relatively new film The Phantom Thread—I saw it in the theater, and I cannot tell you how excited I was to see Bebe Glazer on screen. She's a very talented—Harriet Sansom Harris. She's great. Not in this episode.
Glen: Tag her [laughs].
Drew: Just @—Does she have Twitter?
Glen: I don't know.
Drew: Okay. By the way, Eric Lutes has acted a lot. If you thought that his career ended with Caroline in the City, you are wrong. He's continued to do stuff, and I looked into his online presence a little bit, mostly to ascertain, like, is he gay. I do not believe he's gay.
Glen: He's just very handsome.
Drew: Years gone by, he's still pretty handsome, and he's married to Jane Sibbet who is not only Ross's lesbian ex-wife from Friends but also Heddy from Herman's Head who—I always think of her as Heddy because I'm one of the few people that really cares about Herman's Head. Glen is also one of these people.
Glen: Yes. I am smiling so big right now. You cannot tell because it is a podcast.
Drew: Yeah. She also looks great. She doesn't appear to have aged a day since Herman's Head, and I like that these two—they were important people to me from '90s pop culture—ended up together at some point. I couldn't tell when—I think they have kids.
Glen: Do not stalk the kids' internet.
Drew: No.
Glen: Leave the kids alone.
Drew: That's weird. Overall, what are your thoughts on how successful this episode was?
Glen: Oh, I think it's very successful. We don't have a scale yet, but we should come up with a scale.
Drew: We'll probably compare it to this, because I think the things we're talking about are "How well did they handle it?"—like, how sensitive are they with material that might have been new for viewers—and "How horribly dated does this seem?" And this episode is 24 years old, and it holds up really, really well. It's still funny, and a lot of the situations presented aren't completely alien to being a gay man trying to navigate a sea of straight people.
Glen: I think for me when I'm watching these, it is how important to the actual story in the show is this episode, and to the plot, and I actually think this is not shoehorned in. A lot of these episodes are just going to be plopped down in there as a random thing. But I actually think that this whole gay question, for lack of a better term, was pretty central to the Frasier concept. They needed to answer it one way or another, and this was a great way to answer it.
Drew: I agree. I didn't think about that until you brought it up, but I think you're completely right.
Glen: Thank you. Say that always.
Drew: No. No, no. Yeah. So, that has been "The Matchmaker," the first episode we're going to do, and we hope you guys enjoy the next nine. There will be no more Frasier episodes, but at some point it would be great to do the three or four other good gay-ish episodes. Thank you very much for listening. Glen, if people want to find you online, where should they look for you?
Glen: Oh. I'm on Twitter @IWriteWrongs—that is "write" with a W, although Twitter is mainly for politics and comic book fandom, I guess.
Drew: You keep it balanced, yeah.
Glen: Yeah. On Instagram, you can find me @BrosQuartz, and yes, it's a Steven Universe reference.
Drew: If you don't know what Steven Universe is, tweet at Glen, and he'll explain it to you.
Glen: Or just, like, look it up online.
Drew: You'll do a better job.
Glen: Okay.
Drew: Yeah. Lesbian aliens is what it's about. I am @drewgmackie on Twitter, and on Instagram I am @kidicarus222. Yes, by the way, that is an Instagram handle I came up with a very long time ago and just have maintained all this time. You should also check out my other podcast, which is We Are Not Young Anymore. It is very similarly nostalgia focused. It is me and my co-host Chris Eggertsen talking about movies we liked in the '80s and '90s and seeing how well they hold up today. There is even an episode with Glen. Glen was our guest on Return to Oz, and he might be making an appearance on the new season.
Glen: Maybe.
Drew: Maybe.
Glen: And if you're headed to South by Southwest this year, I have a film premiering there, You Can Choose Your Family. Get tickets or get a pass—I don't know. How rich are you?
Drew: Tell them who it stars.
Glen: It stars Jim Gaffigan.
Drew: And Anna Gunn and Samantha Mathis—these are important people.
Glen: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Drew: Samantha Mathis, another person that's very important to me.
Glen: Super Mario Bros. movie.
Drew: Yeah. So, yeah. Google Glen's movie, and then go pay money to watch it, please.
Glen: Well, I don't think they have to pay money at South by Southwest.
Drew: Oh. What the fuck? What are you doing it for?
Glen: To sell the movie so that they can then go pay.
Drew: Right. Okay. All right. So, my moviemaking roommate has more cool things to talk about than I do. I just have the podcast.
Glen: Sorry. Don't worry. It's over after this.
Drew: Yeah. That's it. Thank you much for listening. We are going to post the next episode next week. Listen to it.
Glen: Bye.
Drew: Bye.
[Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone" plays]