In Seattle, Frasier fronted his talk radio show on KACL, where he would provide advice to the residents of Emerald City. Numerous episodes made much of his notoriety in the city itself, with various residents recognizing Frasier in public. But he was far from a national celebrity. By the time he shows up in Boston, however, he’s clearly hit the big time.
Prior to the show’s debut, Kelsey Grammer promised that Frasier would be “rich beyond his dreams,” which was a slightly cryptic way to tease the new series. All becomes clear in the first episode, though. Not only is Frasier recognized by various Bostonians, he’s able to buy the entire building in which his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) lives so he can live across the hall. But it’s not until episode three that we’re given the full rundown of how the doctor became so filthy rich.
In the episode, we learn that the doctor hosted “Dr. Crane,” a TV show that started as a fairly straightforward advice show in which Frasier would welcome a guest and try to help them with whatever personal issues they were experiencing. It was basically a TV version of his radio show. But Frasier shows his friend Alan (British comedy legend Nicholas Lyndhurst) how the series evolved into a bombastic sensationalist circus and went national as a result, causing Frasier to become a massive (and massively rich) star.
His celebrity status is made clear from the scene in episode three when Frasier tries to teach his first class as a Harvard professor but his students are more interested in Googling him to find out his height and net worth. Upon seeing the answer to the latter, Frasier’s nephew, David (Anders Keith) exclaims that his uncle is “like a Rockefeller.”