7 ms·

https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2016/03/25/where-everybody-borrows-your-name https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2016/03/25/where-everybody-... Fun fact (or cons

by 5cott0 3y ago

https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2016/03/25/where-everybody-borrows-your-name https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2016/03/25/where-everybody-... Fun fact (or conspiracy), Cheers and by extension the character of Frasier Crane were plagiarized from a late 70s local Boston sitcom called Park Street Under.

robertlagrant 3y ago
Very interesting, but I'm not sure that follows, unless there was a Frasier Crane-style character in it, which that article doesn't mention.
- 5cott0 3y ago
  Not mentioned in that article but Part Street Under even had the mailman & the psychiatrist!
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Oh. Wow!
- jancsika 3y ago
  Apparently they had a psychiatrist character named Harvey Dorfman: Harvey: “Look, I’m Dr. Harvey Dorfman. I wrote the book Success Through Fear. [Audience laughs.]…I live in the South End, so perhaps I can help you. And I’m a psychologist, so I’m qualified to help you. And I’m sympathetic, so I’d like to help you. Can I help you?” I love the line about "Success Through Fear." I'd be curious to know if Dorfman had a Boston accent. Frasier's character worked because he was an outsider to Boston. Also, IIRC his references to psychiatry were supposed to come off as earnest-- and often pretentious-- setups for the other characters' punch lines, unlike this quote.
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. I think one of the most interesting things in Frasier is his struggle to find his identity, between radio host and psychiatrist. As far as I remember on the show he never had any "real" patients, just his callers.
    - RajT88 3y ago
      > Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. Kelsey Grammer I know was cast as "Sideshow Bob" on the Simpsons before he was a radio host in Frasier, but I always thought he brought a lot of the Frasier character to the Sideshow Bob character. The disdain manifesting of course as homicidal rage with Bob.
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      >Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. I've seen 99% of Frasier episodes and never once got the sense that Frasier has disdain for his callers. The show wouldn't work if he did, because Frasier is a good person. His snobbishness and pretensions are funny characteristics, but they don't define him.
      - COGlory 3y ago
        I interpreted it more as exasperation.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I think you're right; it's more he disdains his own station vs being a "real" practicing psychiatrist working with patients over a number of years like his brother. But he also loves his callers, and deeply values when he can help them.
        TMWNN 3y ago
        Frasier does not disdain or dislike KACL in any way. He could go into private practice anytime and does so briefly. Frasier quite enjoys being a local celebrity. If anything, Niles is the one who envies his brother, however mildly; despite his jokes about Frasier's "fast-food" psychiatry, Niles sometimes admits to envying how his brother is well-known, and that he helps many people over the air while Niles's own work is anonymous to the public. I don't know where this idea that Frasier is a snob comes from. A "snob", to me, is someone who looks down upon those he views as his lessers; views them as fundamentally different and forever unable to achieve his own far greater status. Frasier never once acts as a snob to his uneducated father. He never shows anything but respect for Daphne despite being the product of a family from the bottom of Manchester, and never says or implies that she would in any way be unfit for Niles (Niles's own marital status conflicting with his lust is a different story). Frasier sometimes gets irritated by Martin's habits, or failure to appreciate the same things as his sons. He sometimes gets irritated (but more often amused/bemused) by a rambling or bizarre story from Daphne. But if such is the definition of snobbery then we are all snobs. To put another way, we are all snobbish about some things (and the Crane brothers have more things on their own lists than most people), but only snobs believe that such things make them inherently better than others.
jancsika 3y ago
> If you didn’t, but saw the pilot of Park Street Under, you didn’t miss much. They were teeth-gnashingly similar. This is the head writer of Park Street Under. He's writing an article about the extent to which Cheers copied his show. He quotes zero lines between the two shows that are similar. There's another article that goes into more detail: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2018/03/20/cheers-conspiracy-park-st-under/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2018/03/20... From that one it seems clear that the similarity is the choice of character roles and the setting, and not at all in the lines of the scripts for the pilot or any of the other episodes. It stinks that they lifted those things. But that's not what I had assumed when I read the word "plagiarized" in OP's comment. (To the head writer's credit, he never used that word.) Edit: clarification
- 5cott0 3y ago
  The only original thing in the Cheers pilot was Ted Danson’s wig.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Thanks for that read! Some key quotes: > Cheers director James Burrows has long denied his show was lifted from Park St. Under, maintaining that it was inspired by Duffy’s Tavern, a radio program created in the 1940s by his father, Abe, a Tony Award–winning humorist and writer. The troika of Cheers creators... claimed to have modeled the Cheers bar on Boston’s Bull & Finch, which they visited while developing the sitcom. > The similarities between the two make an argument for some kind of influence. The question of whether Cheers took something from Park St. Under, however, obscures something vital: As special as the little Boston sitcom was, and there’s reason to think it was truly loved, it was never going to be Cheers. It had its shot. ABC Entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos... told Bennett, “I like them, but I just want to tell you they’re really not deserving of being on the ABC network level.” > One reason, perhaps, why the legend lived on so long is that Cheers affirmed that there really was something great about Park St. Under. > To me, the things that are so lovable about Park St. Under—the local feel, the rough-around-the-edges inside jokes that make it seem familiar—aren’t the things that made Cheers such a hit.... With its production woes and shoestring budget, she didn’t even think season two of Park St. Under was likely to happen. The claim that Cheers made off with a ready-made hit misses what the local show really was—the good and the bad. > Does this mean the legend is finally done? Doubtful... The claim that Cheers looted the show is just too juicy and has been part of local legend for too long to be forgotten entirely.
steviedotboston 3y ago
Check out this podcast episode which talks about Park Street Under https://timworthington.org/2021/02/04/looks-unfamiliar-74-matt-lee-if-the-1950s-produced-a-videogame-this-would-be-it/ https://timworthington.org/2021/02/04/looks-unfamiliar-74-ma...

by 5cott0 3y ago

robertlagrant 3y ago

Very interesting, but I'm not sure that follows, unless there was a Frasier Crane-style character in it, which that article doesn't mention.

5cott0 3y ago
Not mentioned in that article but Part Street Under even had the mailman & the psychiatrist!
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Oh. Wow!
jancsika 3y ago
Apparently they had a psychiatrist character named Harvey Dorfman: Harvey: “Look, I’m Dr. Harvey Dorfman. I wrote the book Success Through Fear. [Audience laughs.]…I live in the South End, so perhaps I can help you. And I’m a psychologist, so I’m qualified to help you. And I’m sympathetic, so I’d like to help you. Can I help you?” I love the line about "Success Through Fear." I'd be curious to know if Dorfman had a Boston accent. Frasier's character worked because he was an outsider to Boston. Also, IIRC his references to psychiatry were supposed to come off as earnest-- and often pretentious-- setups for the other characters' punch lines, unlike this quote.
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. I think one of the most interesting things in Frasier is his struggle to find his identity, between radio host and psychiatrist. As far as I remember on the show he never had any "real" patients, just his callers.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    > Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. Kelsey Grammer I know was cast as "Sideshow Bob" on the Simpsons before he was a radio host in Frasier, but I always thought he brought a lot of the Frasier character to the Sideshow Bob character. The disdain manifesting of course as homicidal rage with Bob.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    >Dorfman's tone lacks the subtle disdain Dr. Crane has for his radio callers. I've seen 99% of Frasier episodes and never once got the sense that Frasier has disdain for his callers. The show wouldn't work if he did, because Frasier is a good person. His snobbishness and pretensions are funny characteristics, but they don't define him.
    - COGlory 3y ago
      I interpreted it more as exasperation.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I think you're right; it's more he disdains his own station vs being a "real" practicing psychiatrist working with patients over a number of years like his brother. But he also loves his callers, and deeply values when he can help them.
      - TMWNN 3y ago
        Frasier does not disdain or dislike KACL in any way. He could go into private practice anytime and does so briefly. Frasier quite enjoys being a local celebrity. If anything, Niles is the one who envies his brother, however mildly; despite his jokes about Frasier's "fast-food" psychiatry, Niles sometimes admits to envying how his brother is well-known, and that he helps many people over the air while Niles's own work is anonymous to the public. I don't know where this idea that Frasier is a snob comes from. A "snob", to me, is someone who looks down upon those he views as his lessers; views them as fundamentally different and forever unable to achieve his own far greater status. Frasier never once acts as a snob to his uneducated father. He never shows anything but respect for Daphne despite being the product of a family from the bottom of Manchester, and never says or implies that she would in any way be unfit for Niles (Niles's own marital status conflicting with his lust is a different story). Frasier sometimes gets irritated by Martin's habits, or failure to appreciate the same things as his sons. He sometimes gets irritated (but more often amused/bemused) by a rambling or bizarre story from Daphne. But if such is the definition of snobbery then we are all snobs. To put another way, we are all snobbish about some things (and the Crane brothers have more things on their own lists than most people), but only snobs believe that such things make them inherently better than others.

jancsika 3y ago

> If you didn’t, but saw the pilot of Park Street Under, you didn’t miss much. They were teeth-gnashingly similar. This is the head writer of Park Street Under. He's writing an article about the extent to which Cheers copied his show. He quotes zero lines between the two shows that are similar. There's another article that goes into more detail: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2018/03/20/cheers-conspiracy-park-st-under/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2018/03/20... From that one it seems clear that the similarity is the choice of character roles and the setting, and not at all in the lines of the scripts for the pilot or any of the other episodes. It stinks that they lifted those things. But that's not what I had assumed when I read the word "plagiarized" in OP's comment. (To the head writer's credit, he never used that word.) Edit: clarification

5cott0 3y ago
The only original thing in the Cheers pilot was Ted Danson’s wig.
crazygringo 3y ago
Thanks for that read! Some key quotes: > Cheers director James Burrows has long denied his show was lifted from Park St. Under, maintaining that it was inspired by Duffy’s Tavern, a radio program created in the 1940s by his father, Abe, a Tony Award–winning humorist and writer. The troika of Cheers creators... claimed to have modeled the Cheers bar on Boston’s Bull & Finch, which they visited while developing the sitcom. > The similarities between the two make an argument for some kind of influence. The question of whether Cheers took something from Park St. Under, however, obscures something vital: As special as the little Boston sitcom was, and there’s reason to think it was truly loved, it was never going to be Cheers. It had its shot. ABC Entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos... told Bennett, “I like them, but I just want to tell you they’re really not deserving of being on the ABC network level.” > One reason, perhaps, why the legend lived on so long is that Cheers affirmed that there really was something great about Park St. Under. > To me, the things that are so lovable about Park St. Under—the local feel, the rough-around-the-edges inside jokes that make it seem familiar—aren’t the things that made Cheers such a hit.... With its production woes and shoestring budget, she didn’t even think season two of Park St. Under was likely to happen. The claim that Cheers made off with a ready-made hit misses what the local show really was—the good and the bad. > Does this mean the legend is finally done? Doubtful... The claim that Cheers looted the show is just too juicy and has been part of local legend for too long to be forgotten entirely.

steviedotboston 3y ago

Check out this podcast episode which talks about Park Street Under https://timworthington.org/2021/02/04/looks-unfamiliar-74-matt-lee-if-the-1950s-produced-a-videogame-this-would-be-it/ https://timworthington.org/2021/02/04/looks-unfamiliar-74-ma...