Kelsey Grammer’s Best Character Isn’t Frasier Crane
Frasier and Cheers fans may not want to hear this, but the role that Kelsey Grammer was born to play is Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. As somebody who watches an unhealthy amount of Frasier (there have been interventions), this is a statement that I can fully get behind. Sideshow Bob has all of the qualities of Frasier Crane, but Grammer is able to take things to the next level through his yellow-skinned avatar in ways that simply cannot be accomplished in a live-action series.
Sideshow Bob Is An Unhinged Frasier Crane
The way I see it, Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane and Sideshow Bob have very similar temperaments but act on different impulses.
While Frasier thinks very highly of himself and makes a concerted effort to make sure everybody sees his good qualities, Sideshow Bob is a malignant narcissist and psychopath who spends most of the early seasons of The Simpsons trying to murder Bart Simpson whenever he makes an appearance. By the same token, both Sideshow Bob and Frasier Crane let their hubris get the best of them, more often than not leading to disastrous (and hilarious) results.
Kelsey Grammer’s Line Delivery Makes The Character
Kelsey Grammer uses his Frasier Crane energy, which involves a gratuitous amount of tongue-in-cheek pomposity, to make Sideshow Bob such a memorable character because his flamboyance oozes through every line of dialogue.
For example, in a Season 7 episode called “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming,” the wild-haired prison escapee threatens to detonate a 10-megaton nuclear warhead unless the city of Springfield stops broadcasting content on their television networks. But since we’re talking about Kelsey Grammer here, Sideshow Bob can’t simply refer to television as an “idiot box,” but rather an “omnidirectional sludge pump.”
The Showtunes Came From Grammer
Kelsey Grammer has gone on record in the past stating that the idea of Sideshow Bob having a penchant for singing show tunes and standards came to be while he was still working on Cheers.
Legend has it that Grammer would show up on set singing in his booming baritone voice, and when he was first offered the role of Sideshow Bob, he was really allowed to explore this territory while developing the character. While Frasier Crane is no stranger to having operatic outbursts in Frasier, he’s never sung the entire score of the H.M.S. Pinafore before attempting to commit murder on a runaway houseboat.
The Rake Of Comedy
The real reason Kelsey Grammer’s best character is Sideshow Bob, however, has to be the recurring rake gag that started in Season 5’s “Cape Feare.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with the bit, Sideshow Bob repeatedly steps on rakes that are littering a parking lot, and with each ‘thwack’ to the face, he lets out a grumbling groan that I don’t even think I can properly type out on my best day, but still find myself muttering every time I stub my toe.
At the end of the day, Kelsey Grammer has two legendary, long-running characters in the form of Sideshow Bob and Frasier Crane that will be a part of his legacy forever.
Brother From Another Series
While I often find myself binge-watching Frasier because all 11 seasons of the original run are omnidirectional sludge pump gold, I can’t in good conscience say the same about the entire run of The Simpsons. However, each and every time Kelsey Grammer appears as Sideshow Bob, he steals the show.
But if you truly want the best of both worlds, all you need to do is look up a Season 8 episode of The Simpsons called “Brother from Another Series,” in which David Hyde Pierce portrays Sideshow Bob’s long-lost brother, Cecil, in an effort to parody Frasier.
