Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997 | 9:43 a.m.
HIGHEST common denominator.
There's a phrase you hear associated with television all the time -- assuming you haven't taken your medication lately.
If, however, you're poppin' your Prozac to ward off that tele-funk that descends around now -- when the oppressive ordinariness of the new TV season becomes depressingly clear -- you know that "highest common denominator," lofty goal though it is, is as commonly heard in the power suites of network TV as, say: "To hell with ratings -- let's put on something with class."
And so the world is blessed with "Family Matters" and "Baywatch." Urkel and Uber-Babes. Jive and jiggle.
Not that it's all that bad -- but it's not all that good, either. A famous expression declared: "Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" Translated to television, figure that programmers less often reach for the heavens than for the floor, to pull up their socks.
Except, on those rare occasions, when they reach for something like "Frasier."
Yes, this is in praise of "Frasier" -- a show so often honored that on its last Emmy win, after its victory as Best Comedy Series was announced, the podium-bound producer heard an audience member moan: "Not them again!"
Yes, them again. And, for my money, again and again and again. As palatable to the art house crowd as the "Animal House" crowd -- assuming you like to laugh -- "Frasier" favors subtlety over silliness, sophistication over stupidity, wit over wisecracks and respect for viewer intelligence over contempt for viewer laziness.
Unafraid to milk laughs out of articulate ideas and upper-crust cultural references -- and still respect its sibling main characters, cerebral cut-ups Frasier and Niles Crane, while gently pricking their pomposity -- "Frasier" also practices the almost lost art of finding laughs in what isn't said:
The pause after carefully constructed wordplay that packs as big a punch as a pratfall; the half-finished sentence -- you can fill in the punchline yourself -- that stems from a logical situation instead of the writer's reach for a gag line; the love-struck, erudite Niles reduced to flummoxed stuttering in the presence of divinely daffy Daphne, exposing the exquisite incongruities of love-lust (love truly is blind); the hilarious stare-downs between Frasier and his four-legged foe, Eddie, that speak volumes about foppish Frasier's whopping insecurities.
Words are not necessary. Silence is the golden punchline. As viewers, we actually have to burn a few brain cells -- if only for a split-second -- to pick up on the joke just waiting to be discovered, instead of having it mashed in our faces like Jimmy Cagney wielding that grapefruit against Mae Clarke in "The Public Enemy."
In the screeching sitcom scene, where dry one-liners are greeted by waves of hysterical canned laughter designed to trigger our giggle response like lab rats rewarded with food pellets, how rare -- and artful -- is that? And in an age of cable overload and satellite dishes, when networks don't even waste time on theme songs anymore because we might pounce on the remote, it takes tremendous courage -- especially in comedy, where timing is everything -- to risk letting a few beats go by before the joke reveals itself.
Here's a show that dares us to keep up with it. That demands that we pay attention. That isn't video wallpaper. And that's before you add the deft and delightful performances by Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce and the rest of the cast.
Arguably -- and I'll take a deep breath here -- "Frasier" is better than today's hottest comedy, "Seinfeld," an exceptionally well-done example of modern vaudeville that hones to a fine point the best qualities of a sitcom -- putting funny characters with funny things to say in funny situations -- but doesn't transcend the genre by challenging its audience.
Reaching back, "Frasier" outshines "Cheers," the show that spawned it (and the class of '80s sitcoms, for the same reason as "Seinfeld") -- but only because the "Cheers" creators were still tinkering with the high-wire wordplay they would later master on "Frasier," falling back on occasional slapstick and the Sam-Diane/Sam-Rebecca sexual tension.
Factoring in different eras and expectations, "Frasier" may be as important as "I Love Lucy," the sitcom standard-bearer. In the '50s, "Lucy" pointed the way for comedies for decades to come, before cookie-cutter sitcoms saturated TV, lowered the bar and, ironically, turned the genre into a joke.
In the '90s, "Frasier" can point the way out of the morass, demonstrating how bold and brilliant sitcoms can be -- especially when they dare to respect the audience.
SURFIN' THE SCENE: Maybe it's just me, but I find it tough to embrace the spiritual fulfillment bestowed by "Touched By An Angel" when Roma Downey's sexy saint inspires my sinful thoughts. Who says an angel can't be, well, heavenly? Certainly not the ratings. You doubt it? Imagine what would happen if CBS dumped Downey and replaced her with Dom DeLuise ...
Had to love the Johnson & Tofte (KKLZ 96.3-FM) ticket contest for last weekend's Fleetwood Mac concert, in which listeners had to stick their heads in a vat of MAC-aroni to win front row tickets -- and TV news directors who ran the story were eligible to win a pair of ducats, too. The media bribing the media to cover media bribery. ...
Last season, two of TV's best shows -- "Law & Order" and "Homicide" -- did that ol' primetime two-step, the crossover tango, in which characters from one show appeared on the other, and vice versa. It was great TV. Obviously inspired by such riveting drama, two more legendary series -- "Baywatch" and "Pacific Blue" -- will do the same this season. With noted thespian Carmen Electra along to emote mightily (every flip of her hair is fraught with subtext), prepare for: Bike-Riding Cops in Speedos Meet Bosomy Lifeguards in Bikinis. Start engraving those Emmys.
SWEEPS WEEP: SEX AND MAYHEM? Ah say, ah say, must be sweeps, son! Need proof? Here's a rundown of recent programming: "Love, Lust and Marriage: Why We Stray, Why We Stay (ABC); A "48 Hours" installment on infidelity (CBS); "The Sex War: The Tension Between Men and Women" (NBC); and a "Dateline" segment called "The Finer Points of Flirting" (NBC). And whip out your calculator to tote up all the sex segments on local news.
Over at Fox, they're not stooping to sex ploys, as you can tell by their thematic lineup: "Video Justice: Criminals Caught on Tape," "World's Scariest Police Chases III," "Prisoners Out of Control," "Cheating Death: Catastrophes Caught on Tape" and (my personal favorite) "World's Deadliest Swarms."
That last one features attacks by locusts, bees and maggots. It was apparently filmed at a retreat for network executives.
CROON A TUNE: Credit Trivia Smarts, K-News Style for this week's answer, since the talk radio station's Beth Lano knew that the lyric "on a star-spangled night, my love, you can rest your head on my shoulder" was from the theme to "Love, American Style." Nicely done, Beth. You're truer than the red, white and blue-ooo-ooo-ooo.
Next: What series theme told us that "there's a scout troop short a child; Khrushchev's due at Idelwild?" As always, be the first to tell us -- along with providing the spelling of your name and daytime phone number -- and we'll print your name here.
OH, LORDS: We've come a long way from the days of flipping baseball cards behind the schoolyard. NBC is now hawking trading cards for its Saturday night "Thrillogy" lineup. In a stroke of promotional perversity, one for the show "Profiler" profiles its rookie serial killer -- portrayed by ex-porn princess Traci Lords.
I'll trade ya 12 Albert Belles, 27 Ken Griffeys and three dozen Mark McGwires.
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