A Very Special Frasier at We Luv Video

A frame from Our Frasier Remake, a collaborative animated tribute to the classic sitcom. This segment was animated by Austin artist Dana Dale, who was one of over 130 artists, many from Austin, who contributed to the project. (Art by Dana Dale)

When Austin animator Dana Dale volunteered to be part of Our Frasier Remake – a gigantic, collaborative project recreating an episode of the beloved sitcom Frasier through animation – she had no idea that she would end up re-envisioning the episode's most important moment.

It's the pivotal scene in “My Coffee With Niles” (season 1, episode 24) in which Niles Crane asks his big brother, Frasier, if he is happy. “I always remembered that scene,” said Dale, “so it was really great to be able to do that bit.”

That moment – and the entire recreated episode, complete with new voice performances by Emmy winner Eric Bauza (Looney Tunes), SAG Award winner Lauren Lapkus (Adventure Time, Harvey Girls Forever!), James Adomian (Harley Quinn), Daniel Van Kirk (Bob’s Burgers), and more – gets its world premiere in Austin tonight at We Luv Video, a week ahead of the new revival of Frasier premiering on Paramount+.

Our Frasier Remake Batch 46 (Art by Stephanie Schaffler)

“We’re doing something kind of bonkers,” said project creator Jacob Reed. A lifelong Frasier fan, he admitted he was bit baffled by the idea that there would be a Frasier revival because the original show “was such a high bar to clear.”

However, it sparked an idea: to pay his own tribute to the show. In part, he was inspired by fan-created video collage projects like Star Wars Uncut and Our RoboCop Remake, where fans and filmmakers would take a scene or just a snippet of the original film, then recreate it, and have it dropped, without seeing anyone else’s work, into the edit. “I think it’s really fun when fans express their fandom by remixing something,” Reed said.

Our Frasier Remake Batch 27 by Austin artist Abigail Weber (Art by Abigail Weber)

However, Reed put in place one edict: Each segment had to be animated. Yet that wasn’t a limitation, but an invitation. Growing up in Southern California, he was one of the generation who got to see the ultimate animated touring show, Spike and Mike’s Twisted Animation Festival, in person and on the big screen. “I just remember that blowing my mind,” Reed said, not least because of the wild and eclectic variety of styles seen onscreen in any one evening. Clearly, this was going to involve a lot of animators, so he started by mailing some friends “and that’s when they said we’re going to need a lot more people.”

Over 130 people, to be precise, animating a total of 185 clips lasting between 6 and 12 seconds, adding up to 20,465 individual frames running 22 minutes in total. “It takes a ton of work,” Reed said, and the question was, where was he going to find them? After all, it’s not like anyone talks about Frasier anymore.

Our Frasier Remake Batch 66 (Art by Miguel Roselló)

Yet that silence is oddly an indication of what made Frasier so unique among the pantheon of era-defining 1990s sitcoms. Reed explained, “With Friends, people were interested in the soapy, will-they-won’t-they elements, and Seinfeld codified all these things that we went through but didn’t have words for.” However, both had one-liners and meme-able moments that are easy to repeat and spread. When Reed started transcribing the episode for the new voice cast, he realized that it was a 22-minute episode with 30 minutes of dialogue. There’s a density to Frasier leavened by quick-wittedness and repartee. There are memorable lines and characters, but whereas many sitcoms have funny bits, Frasier relied on droll delivery, dialogues, and episode-long payoffs. “Every episode is like watching an extremely well-written, well-rehearsed, well-performed farce,” Reed said.

The abiding impact of the show became clear as soon as he started reaching out to friends, and putting out the call for artists via Instagram and the r/Frasier subreddit. His pipe dream quickly became fully crewed, with artists picking their “batch” via gifs on ourfrasierremake.framer.website. Then he had to keep track of assignments and submissions using the Miro whiteboard software. “It was quite the sales pitch,” Reed said. “Nobody’s getting paid, it’ll be a ton of work, but it’ll be fun.”

A second, very different, yet still recognizable look for Niles and Frasier Crane by Austin artist Dana Dale in Our Frasier Remake (Art by Dana Dale)

Word of mouth is how Dale found out about the project. She heard about it from Jess and Jamie Wade, who she had worked with at Austin’s Minnow Mountain on projects such as Richard Linklater's Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood and Prime Video's Undone. Jess Wade mentioned it on a Slack channel, “and I'd just finished a job,” Dale said, “and I'm always up for something like this.”

She initially signed up to do a different scene to that pivotal moment, “a two-shot with Niles and Frasier," Dale said. “I wasn’t sure how much I was going to be able to do, so I picked this really simple scene.” However, after completing that, and as the project was nearing deadline, she realized there were still some more batches up for grabs – including that pivotal question. “It’s the crux of the whole episode,” Dale said.

Our Frasier Remake Batch 65 (Art by Ian Pfaff)

The project coincides with Frasier’s 30th anniversary, Reed said, adding that “even without the revival, I think people would be excited.” Moreover, it gave many animators a chance to showcase their skills during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, which affected animation just as much as it did any other area of film and television. “People are just itching to make something fun.”

The finished project launch online on Oct. 11 (the day before the new Frasier debuts on Paramount+) but before then there will be three public screenings. The world premiere takes place in Austin tonight (Oct. 6), 7:30pm, at We Luv Video, followed by screenings at Vidiots in Los Angeles and Grand Illusion Theatre in Seattle on Oct. 7. Public screenings weren’t part of the original plan, Reed said, “but all of the theatres that it’s showing at, they all have this really rich history in the artistic community of the town that they’re in, so it’s cool to be part of that.” Moreover, all ticket sales will benefit both the host venue and Union Solidarity Coalition, which was founded to provide direct financial support to crew members who lost health insurance during the WGA strike due to strike-related shutdowns.

Our Frasier Remake Batch 98 (Art by Harry Chaskin)

So what does Reed think of the Frasier revival? Of course, there’s a concern that it can never recapture the magic, with only Kelsey Grammer returning to the main cast, and Bebe Neuwirth (as Frasier’s sardonic ex-wife Lilith Sternin) and Peri Gilpin (his longtime, long-suffering producer Roz Doyle) making appearances. However, Reed said, this is a show and a character that has always defied expectations. “When they spun off Frasier from Cheers, nobody thought it would be a success, but it went on to be one of the biggest sitcoms of all time.”

However, when it comes to Our Frasier Remake, Reed said he was proud of both the work and the community that has been created by its production. He said, “I’m so hopeful about the collaborations that will come out of this.”

Our Frasier Remake

We Luv Video, 100 E. North Loop. Fri., Oct. 6, 7:30pm. Tickets and details at weluvvideo.org.

Also screening at Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif., Sat., Oct. 7, noon (details here, and Grand Illusion Theatre, 1403 NE 50th, Seattle, Wash., Sat., Oct. 7, 12:30pm (details here).