By Robert Scucci | Published
If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that when I’m not looking South ParkI watch copious and unhealthy amounts of Spawn. I have a projector in my bedroom that projects a 150-inch image onto the wall, and more often than not, Frasier Crane’s big bulbous head hovers over me like a sleep-paralyzed demon who always tells me in no uncertain terms that he’s listening. Like most long-running sitcoms, jumping into a series like Spawn can seem overwhelming. Although the series is primarily episodic, it is not without overall continuity from season to season, which can make it difficult for newcomers to find a solid entry point.
The obvious answer to the question “where should I start looking Spawn” is season one, episode one. Google’s wonderful AI search results will tell you exactly that, but let’s not settle for the obvious answer here. My job, as a madman Spawn fan, is to focus on the golden era of the series, which is surprisingly difficult to pin down because Spawn rarely missed throughout its 11 seasons. As long as you completely ignore the recent reboot attempt you’ll be fine, but for now let’s focus on a few episodes that I think represent the peak Spawn.
Frasier has always been a comedy of errors
Most Spawn the episodes function as simple comedies of errors, built around people who should by all accounts be considered extremely intelligent and adept at interpersonal communication. Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce) are both Ivy League graduates and practicing psychiatrists who command a certain amount of respect from their peers. Their father, Marty (John Mahoney), is a retired detective who knows how to read a room on a more instinctive than academic level. More often than not, Marty is the smartest man in the room, which greatly bothers the Crane brothers because they value academic discipline above all else.
Niles, who is unhappily married to Maris, who is never seen on screen, is absolutely obsessed with Marty’s home health aide, Daphne (Jane Leeves). Daphne remains completely oblivious to his infatuation despite it being obvious to everyone, including Roz (Peri Gilpin), Frasier’s brainy radio producer.
With the main character revealed, we can move into what I think are two excellent entry points into the series: Season 3’s “Look Before You Leap” and Season 6’s “The Seal Who Came To Dinner.”
“Look before you leap”
“Look Before You Leap” fits perfectly into the above dynamic, giving each main character a moment to shine in the worst possible way. When Frasier decides to celebrate the upcoming leap year by breaking from his usual routine and “taking a leap,” he encourages everyone else in his orbit to do the same.
Frasier wants to ditch his annual performance of “Buttons and Bows” on the PBS telethon he hosts and instead perform Verdi’s “Ella mi fu rapita / Parmi veder le lagrime.” Rigoletto. Determined to make sure everyone else takes a leap, too, he pushes Roz to reconnect with a failed romance on her daily bus ride, Daphne to finally try the haircut she’s been considering, Marty to fly to Montana to visit a friend whose birthday is February 29, and Niles to stop letting Maris walk all over him.
As expected, every piece of advice Frasier gives backfires spectacularly. Roz realizes she is attracted to a married man who is more than willing to have an affair, Marty’s plane crashes on takeoff, and Daphne’s haircut is so tragic that her emotional breakdown wakes Niles. This prompts him to rush home and sleep with Maris to curb his urges, culminating in one of the series’ most iconic lines: “I don’t care, Niles has to have it!”
Frasier, finally realizing his mistake, retreats and sings “Buttons and Bows” on live television instead of the complicated tune he had originally planned. It becomes a ritual of humiliation of the highest order because he was so focused on learning the Verdi piece that he forgot the lyrics to the much simpler song.
Each character follows Frasier’s “take a big leap” philosophy and learns the hard way that sticking with the status quo might have been the smarter decision. Frasier backs out like a coward at the last minute and ends up suffering the most public embarrassment of all, once again hoisted by his own petard.
“The Seal Who Came to Dinner” Goes Dark
Focusing specifically on the dynamic between Frasier and Niles, season 6’s “The Seal Who Came To Dinner” is a masterclass in how the smartest guys in the room are also the dumbest. When Niles gets the opportunity to win the Golden Apron Award with his gourmet club, he panics about hosting the dinner at Shangri-La, the singles apartment he lives in while going through his rancorous divorce from Maris.
He initially wants Frasier to host the event in his luxury apartment, but a microscopic crack in Frasier’s balcony window makes him reconsider because everything has to be perfect for the people he is trying to impress. Niles instead suggests hosting dinner at one of Maris’s many beachfront properties during her trip abroad, which also offers the added benefit of having a front-row seat to a meteor shower that her guests are eager to see.
At first, the evening seemed to go smoothly. This changes when Frasier and Niles discover a dead seal washed up on the beach, accompanied by an unbearable stench. Panicked, the brothers decide that they must dispose of the corpse before the guests arrive, stabbing the seal and weighing it down with one of Maris’ clothes so that it can sink underwater.
Maris’ nosy neighbor and the police quickly come to a very different conclusion, suspecting the Crane brothers of murdering Maris and dumping her body in the ocean before calmly hosting a dinner party. As expected, the night turns into chaos, and Frasier and Niles are dragged away in handcuffs, completely perplexed as to where everything went wrong.
Everything Frasier is awesome Frasier
That said, it’s hard to think of a single episode of Frasier that fails in its chaotic delivery, largely because the entire series thrives on its characters’ poor communication with each other. “Look Before You Leap” and “The Seal Who Came To Dinner” stand out because they lean more on disjointed absurdity, keeping the comedy relentless from start to finish.
Every action has a disastrous consequence, and these episodes highlight the main cast while shedding light on the dynamics you’ll see throughout the series. If you like what you see here, from Season 1, Episode 1 will seem like a natural next step. If you can barely manage a smirk, maybe it’s time to hook up with another ’90s sitcom.
Spawn is streaming on Paramount+.
