Kelsey Grammer is currently enjoying a great deal of success with the revival of “Frasier,” a series that has been running on Paramount+ since October 2023. The original “Frasier,” itself a spinoff of “Cheers,” starred Grammer as the titular character, a radio psychologist whose persnickety attitudes and tastes invited all manner of zany shenanigans into his life. The original show lasted 264 episodes over 11 seasons, making it one of the most successful sitcoms of its decade.
But, as many might be able to point out, Grammer’s career has been wildly varied in success. He often shows up in films, yet he has headlined far more bombs than hits. Grammer has played Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast in several live-action “X-Men” movies, but he has also appeared in a slew of weird, low-budget, straight-to-home-media schlock. Who could forget, for instance, the bizarre glories of Andrew Lawrence’s “Money Plane” (the film where he played a character called Darius Emmanuel Grouch III, aka The Rumble)? Grammer has similarly starred in numerous low-rent Christmas movies, including “Mr. St. Nick” in 2002, a musical version of “A Christmas Carol” in 2004, and “Father Christmas is Back.”
That last one, a 2021 Netflix release, seemed to barely make a blip on the radar and only has a 12 audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, yet it somehow secured a sequel in 2022 called “Christmas in Paradise” (a film so obscure, it’s not even mentioned on Grammer’s Wikipedia page). “Paradise” itself only holds a paltry 3.6 score on IMDb and stars Elizabeth Hurley as Grammer’s onscreen daughter (!).
Now, it seems that the makers of the “Frasier” revival wanted to playfully nod to Grammer’s notable Christmas failures in their own series. The show’s Christmas-adjacent season 2 finale is even titled “Father Christmas” in what appears to be a reference to Grammer’s not-so-jolly holiday films.
The latest episode of Frasier gently pokes at the bad Christmas movies Grammer has made
“Father Christmas” centers on Allan (Nicholas Lyndhurst), a character who has an estranged daughter and a granddaughter he has never met. Frasier (Grammer) and his friends thusly conspire to reunite Allan with his family in time for Christmas. The title is, of course, a play on the old nickname for Santa Claus, but it’s also an indicator of the episode’s themes of fatherhood. Some of the show’s fans pointed out that the new “Frasier” is even setting up a vaguely incestuous romance between Frasier’s son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) and a character named Alice, who is played by Grammer’s real life daughter Greer Grammer.
The title may also be a cute allusion to “Father Christmas is Back.” In that film, Grammer plays (sigh) James Christmas, the father of four adult daughters named Joanna (Hurley), Caroline (Nathalie Cox), Elizabeth (Caroline Quentin), and Vicky (Talulah Riley). The characters all snipe at each other, bicker, and are generally awful upper-class people. However, it turns out one of the daughters has been in contact with their estranged father, much to the consternation of their uncle John (John Cleese). Cue Grammer and Cleese eventually getting into a fistfight, a whole lot of comedic bitterness, and some question as to the actual parentage concerning one of the four sisters.
In the sequel “Christmas in Paradise,” James Christmas flees to a tropical island where he meets Billy Ray Cyrus as … himself. Three of the daughters from the first film then travel to the island to find James and drag him back home for Christmas. Neither of these films should be confused with “The 12 Days of Christmas Eve,” another Christmas movie that Grammer made in 2022, and which more or less rehashed the now-famed premise of “Groundhog Day.”
Grammer’s late-stage Christmas movies aren’t talked about a lot
One can admire Grammer for working on whatever jobs come his way — he’s never been unemployed — but these Christmas movies are horribly reviewed (if they’re even reviewed at all). The makers of “Frasier” perhaps wanted to make fun of Grammer’s tendency to take quick Christmas gigs and forced him to be Father Christmas once again to remind viewers that, yes, there is a whole segment of Grammer’s recent career that he doesn’t talk about a lot.
Since “Christmas in Paradise” and “The 12 Days of Christmas Eve,” Grammer has already appeared in several other projects. He reprised the role of Sideshow Bob in both a recent episode of “The Simpsons” and a “Simpsons” holiday special called “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” He was also in the Christian movie “Jesus Revolution,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie “The Marvels,” and two low-budget thrillers called “Wanted Man” and “Murder Company.” Grammer seems to have affected a very workmanlike attitude toward his acting, happy to work the job in front of him. Some of his jobs are high-profile, some he throws off in a weekend. He’s great in “Frasier,” and he certainly commits himself to crap like “Money Plane.”
Grammer may not see his recent Christmas movies as a “low point” in his career, then, but mere additional steps in a career that has lasted since 1977 when he first began appearing on stage. Sure, you’re not going to find too many critics willing to defend Grammer’s Christmas movies — they all look utterly awful — but Grammer likely doesn’t feel the need to defend himself. He’s back on “Frasier” anyhow.
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