For years I’ve been dreaming of a Left 4 Dead mod that features the cast of Frasier. Trapped between safe houses in an abandoned hospital, Niles caves someone’s head in with a hardback copy of the ICD-9 codes, as Marty jams a door shut with his walking stick. Daphne – who’s a little bit psychic – correctly predicts the arrival of a Jockey through a broken window while Frasier is lost in a panic, circling wildly and raging about his next trip to La Cigare Volant.
It would work, I think. A set-piece at the KACL studios, where zombie-Roz traps them all in the sound booth as Gil Chesterton – possibly not zombie-Gil-Chesterton – lights the place on fire. A frantic last-minute rescue mission back to the apartment to save Marty’s armchair. Niles is wiping his new machine gun with a handkerchief because who knows who had it before him? Eddie sniffs out a cache of grenades. “Need a med-kit!” yells Daphne. I’m listening.
But is this the only way to take the greatness of Frasier and spin it into a video game? Is it even the best way? Let’s go to a new caller.
One of the things that has always surprised me about Frasier comes down to the idea of character function. In films and TV, where time is at a premium, you tend not to have a lot of redundancy. In terms of characters, this means they have to be distinct, and they have to fulfil distinct roles. Look at Cheers, in fact, and you’ll see a good example of this. Sam is the womaniser, Diane is the moral heart of the show, and Woody is a goofball. But then look at Frasier and something quickly becomes apparent. Fretful, pompous, pedantic, over-educated and slightly out of touch with modern life, Frasier and Niles are both fulfilling very similar functions.
I have pondered this for a while – mostly while watching Frasier. Frasier himself came from Cheers, where he was a special character, an extreme stereotype of the over-thinking psychiatrist whose own life is a terrible mess. To make him the actual star of a sitcom, he had to move slightly – just slightly – to the centre ground. The producers did this by in effect creating a more extreme stereotype, his brother Niles. Compared to Niles – and only compared to Niles – Frasier is more of a natural lead.