'Frasier' Calls Back To Old Colleagues Among Six Guest Stars For Revival Season 2
The Kelsey Grammer-led revival series welcomes Yvette Nicole Brown and Amy Sedaris, returning Dan Butler and Edward Hibbert, staging a 'Back to You' reunion with Patricia Heaton
Frasier is pegging its guest stars, and with its success firmly established, is getting more reaches back into its past for its Paramount+ revival’s second season, currently deep into production. It turns out, Peri Gilpin increasing her presence by recurring as Roz is attracting more old KACL friends and colleagues. Dan Butler and Edward Hibbert will be stopping by, reprising their roles as Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe and Gil Chesterton, while Amy Sedaris, Yvette Nicole Brown and Patricia Heaton will be guest starring as new characters. Star Kelsey Grammer’s daughter Greer will be playing Roz’s daughter Alice.
Of this crop, it was Sedaris’s casting that was reported first. She is set to appear as Dr. “Doc” Stathos, described as “a municipal therapist with a down home, scattered veneer. She works with the firefighters at Freddy’s firehouse and is also a big… fan of Frasier Crane from his old TV talk show.” She first gained fame co-creating and starring in the Comedy Central sketch series Exit 57 with Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello, which subsequently led to Strangers with Candy. Her subsequent main roles included Adult Swim’s The Heart, She Holler, the Emmy-nominated At Home with Amy Sedaris, and as the voice of Princess Carolyn on Bojack Horseman. She’s also appeared as Peli Motto on four episodes of The Mandalorian and two of The Book of Boba Fett, with other major recurring roles in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, the DuckTales reboot and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Sedaris’s voice work also includes films like My Life As a Courgette and The Boss Baby: Family Business.
The castings of Brown and the younger Grammer were reported about an hour apart on June 4. The former is playing Monica, the sister of Harvard’s head of the psychology department Olivia, played by series regular Toks Olagundoye. Of the three new characters known so far, she was the most previously-existent, garnering several mentions in the first seasons as Olivia recalled many moments of their sibling rivalry. It seems Monica was the one to be lived up to, as she is described as “part haughty professor, part Nancy Drew, the brilliant, biting, and delightfully deadpan Monica is Olivia’s perfect older sister. She has everything Olivia has and everything Olivia wants – and never misses a chance to remind her.” Known for playing Helen on Drake & Josh and Shirley on Community, her other series regular roles have included The Mayor, the most recent TV iteration of The Odd Couple with Thomas Lennon and Matthew Perry, the disappeared-from-Disney+ series Big Shot, and Act Your Age. Her current and recent series regular voice roles include Frog and Toad, Good Times, and the upcoming Among Us adaptation as Orange.
Alice Doyle was born in the original series’s fifth season episode “Life of the Party”, making her six at the end of the original series and about 26 now. She’s friendly, outgoing, and inherited more than some of her mother’s free-spirited ways. Having just moved to Providence to study architecture, Alice is eager to catch up with Frasier’s son Freddy, played by Jack Cutmore-Scott, and complicate whatever romantic plans he may have. Apparently the two were a lot closer than what we’d seen of them before. Grammer’s acting career began on the other Paramount-owned Seattle-set series that got a Paramount+ sequel, iCarly. She played Tancy, one of the pair of hosts of the web show Exercise Rox, who in "iSpace Out" won a chance to go to space after Carly’s claustrophobia cost her her own, Sam’s and Freddie’s. She would go on to play Lissa Miller on MTV’s Awkward and recur as Axl’s girlfriend April on The Middle, which starred Patricia Heaton.
Heaton is also guest-starring on this season, in an apparent arc. She’s playing Holly a down-to-earth, unpretentious Boston native openly mocking of overly-intellectual types. A bartender at upscale restaurants and events, she is extraordinarily comfortable with both who and where she is in life, something that “always-climbing, always-reaching” Frasier finds as alien as he does attractive. A reunion between co-stars of Fox’s short-lived news station sitcom Back to You for Grammer and Heaton, created by Modern Family‘s Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd. It repays an appearance by Grammer on Carol’s Second Act, Heaton’s most recent series which ran on CBS during the 2019-2020 season. In the final moments of what was ultimately the series finale Carol's ex-husband Richard, played by Grammer, shockingly appears at the hospital with the news that he's the new chief of staff. She is a three-time Emmy Award winner, two for starring on Everybody Loves Raymond for nine seasons. She has three films upcoming: a supporting role in Merv from Amazon MGM Studios and starring Zooey Deschanel and Charlie Cox, and just completed Unbreakable Boy with Zachary Levi and The Ritual with Al Pacino. She also supported Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s controversially bigoted commencement address at Benedictine College.
Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe was the host of Gonzo Sports Show, touted at the time as KACL's highest-rated show among most demographics. Described as a volatile, boorish, intensely macho sports philosopher, he was also a womanizer who consistently fawned over Roz. Butler is probably otherwise best known as Mr. Simmons on Hey Arnold! and in its movies. His film appearances include Hannibal Lecter films of two different continuities, Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs, and more recently in Blonde. His most recent TV credit is an episode of The Blacklist. Chesterton meanwhile is the pompous, effeminate (so much that his colleagues believed he’s closeted gay, who knows whether that will change with this new appearance), super-refined food-critic host of Restaurant Beat on KACL. His envy for Frasier’s timeslot made him very antagonistic back then. Hibbert has actually been the not-Rowan Atkinson in the role of Zazu for Timon & Pumbaa, Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, and The Lion King 1½. His most recent television roles were in Grace and Frankie and Blue Bloods in 2019, but it’s possible you’ve recognized him in his appearance in Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film The Prestige.
“Dan Butler and Edward Hibbert have made an indelible contribution to television, and I am overjoyed to welcome them back to Frasier and for the opportunity to work together once again,” Kelsey Grammer said in a statement. The main cast also includes Harvard-attending nephew (and thus Freddy’s cousin) David, played by Anders Keith, Alan, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, an old Oxford buddy who persuades him to stay in town and become a Harvard psychology instructor, and Jess Salgueiro as Freddy’s friend Eve, a single mom who becomes his ex-roommate when Frasier poaches him from across the hall.
James Burrows who co-created Cheers and directed nearly all of its episodes and that of Frasier, directed the first two episodes of the revival and will be back for two more this season. The continuation as a whole comes from writers Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli, who executive produce with Grammer, Tom Russo, and Jordan McMahon. It is produced by CBS Studios in association with Grammer’s Grammnet NH Productions. The original series was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee.
