‘Cheers’ and ‘Frasier’ Both Had Unseen Characters: It Was Not On Purpose
Frasier was a spinoff of Cheers. Dr. Frasier Crane’s character appeared in the Boston bar in season 3 and only left when Cheers went off the air. Frasier covered the psychiatrist’s post-Boston life. While the two sitcoms were very different shows, they did have one thing in common. Both shows had unseen characters. The parallel happened by accident.
‘Cheers’ had an often-discussed character who was never seen
Cheers had no shortage of interesting characters. Everyone who walked through the bar had an interesting story. Still, fans of the long-running series were attached to a character they never saw.
For the duration of Cheers, Norm Peterson spoke about his wife, Vera. More often than not, Norm made disparaging remarks about his wife. Despite his grumblings, he did care about Vera. Vera Peterson was never seen, at least not in totality, but she was heard several times.
‘Frasier’ had an unseen character, just like ‘Cheers
While Frasier was a markedly different show than Cheers, the co-creators did honor Cheers in one major way. Just like Norm’s wife, Vera, was never seen but often discussed, Dr. Niles Crane’s first wife, Maris, was never seen but often talked about.
Maris was first mentioned during season 1 of the series. She was discussed with distaste by the Crane family on multiple occasions, mostly during Niles’ divorce. A socialite with various medical ailments, Maris was described as having extremely pale skin, a slim build, and an overbite. Niles once said she had extraordinarily tight quadriceps and was exhausted by the pressure to be “interesting.” The descriptors got more outlandish as the seasons wore on, but the initial description of Maris changed the course of the show.
The writers never intended to keep Maris hidden for the entirety of the series
While the team behind Frasier intended to connect Frasier and Cheers through the unseen characters, they never planned to keep it going so long. David Lee sat down for an interview with Yahoo! TV in 2016 and admitted he and Frasier co-creators, David Angell and Peter Casey, were initially planning to play a little prank on viewers with Maris. Lee explained that they planned to keep Maris hidden for just a few episodes, so fans would be tricked into thinking Maris would be like Vera. They always intended on revealing her, though.
Lee explained that after Maris’s initial descriptions, they realized no actor would actually fit the role. The grandiose description of Maris was so bizarre that the part had become uncastable. Instead of searching high and low for an actor to fit the role, Lee, Angell, and Casey simply ran with it. Maris became just like Vera, but far more ludicrous. It still wasn’t what the team had planned.
