David Hyde Pierce on Frasier: the all-time greatest performance in a television comedy by a supporting actor

He was excellent in "the perfect host."

I loved him.

John Larroquette - Night Court

Nancy Kulp, of course. The Beverly Hillbillies. "Chief!"

R3, I found Larroquette pretty one-note.

Vivian Vance ILL.

I actually meant "actor" in the old-fashioned male-only sense, by the way.

He is great but so are Ted Knight and Ed Asner in The MTM Show.

Yes. Vivian Vance.

Anyone who says anyone other than Vivian Vance is worse than Hitler.

And you don't get to be sexist, OP. But if it comes to that the obvious answer is William Frawley.

The Matchmaker episode was brilliant; Frasier makes a pal at work, thinking he'd be great for Daphne. The guy, who's gay, thinks Frasier is making a play for him.

Niles pops over to make sure the guy's not hitting on Daphne. The guy finally says to Niles: "Do you have a problem me dating your brother?"

Niles' reaction is priceless. he doesn't even need to say a word.

R4 The divine Nancy on the right.

David Hyde Pierce was the best, but don't forget Art Carney.

R9, I'm just considering them by gender like the Emmys do. We can have a ladies' thread too.

Carole Kane on "Taxi". I thought of that before you made it gender specific. Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore Show stole every scene.

Jason Alexander

For the Vivian Vance voters.

for once Vivian Vance is more than just a joke answer.

Don Knotts as Barney Fife.

Audrey Meadows was tops as Alice, Ralph's kick-ass wife.

So many comic supporting actors have played buffoons or assholes. DHP's performance was sophisticated and three-dimensional.

And he played a love sick man to perfection, all while being and seeming gay. No small accomplishment.

Agreed r21. You were willing to suspend belief because he was so good.

R10, I can't find a clip of that scene, but this one right after is just as good.

"There's something I have to tell you. Dad wanted to, but I won the coin toss."

Loved DHP, so understated, sublime. Also thought of Loretta Swift in M*A*S*H, her Hotlips character changed so much through the seasons. She had matured considerably by the end of the series.

Laurie Metcalf - Roseanne

Another Frasier scene I love. It's a miracle they found one Niles, that they found another is inconceivable.

He's rolling in money from FRASIER residuals yet still loves doing stage work and is superb at whatever he does. He's one of our most underrated actors.

I wish he'd have an ice-cream soda or two. He's waif-thin.

Hell, I even loved him in The Powers That Be (i actually liked the show too)

Did he and Kelsey Grammer get along well?

Art Carney as the classic, bumbling Ed Norton.

Valerie Harper, The MTM Show

I win.

Jason Alexander needs an honorable mention, for basically playing Larry David.

William Frawley from the Classic I Love Lucy. Fred Mertz decided to wear a bandana.

Niles, Rhoda, Ethel, Fred, Maryanne (Christine Baranski)

Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. Not sure if either was really considered a lead, though. The whole cast was gold.

What... does... a... yel.. low... light... mean?

DHP is unbelievably talented; great with crisp dialogue, snarky retorts, wordless reaction shots -- and the then the show discovered his genius for physical comedy! You try taking a elegant pratfall.

The physical resemblance between him and Grammer, and their sibling chemistry, was a like winning the casting lottery.

I love all the clips posted so far, but my favourite episode might be the ski cabin one.

... an elegant pratfall.

He really is brilliant. His best scene IMO is that Valentine's Day scene--he doesn't have a word of dialogue because it's all physical comedy and he goes from trying to put a crease in his pants to setting the couch on fire. Truly memorable.

R37 and others have made some great statements about how superb DHP is and was as Niles. I really love the episode where he and Frasier go ice fishing with Martin. Great writing, great concept. But I totally agree with R39. That Valentine's Day bit is brilliant.

DHP is so versatile - he's a very adept physical actor, a very nuanced actor in intimate scenes (esp. a gay man playing straight with Daphne,) and his overall timing is superb. And he can sing well and play piano. He really embodied that character.

I love all the other ensemble shows mentioned here so far, but Frasier was a tour de force of that genre.

Why the fuck did David Angell have to die on 9/11? Imagine the other great shows he might have written and/or produced after Frasier?!

The Powers That Be didn't get a long run, but it had a great cast.

In 2009, DHP and Victorias Clark did a Cole Porter concert in a Lincoln Center American Songbook which was one of the most sublime musical evenings I've ever spent. NIGHT AND DAY: ROB FISHER CELEBRATES COLE PORTER WITH DAVID HYDE PIERCE AND VICTORIA CLARK featured nineteen songs concentrating on early Porter of the ‘20s and ‘30s, and while some classics were too famous to be ignored, there was a generous peppering of rarely performed and obscure material (largely chosen by Clark and Pierce) to please aficionados.

The evening offered a master class in the proper way to sing Cole Porter. Clark's medley of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye/Goodbye Little Dream, Goodbye" was suffused with a tenderness and aching longing, while she dove in to "Ridin’ High", thrillingly belting this seldom-sung Merman song from RED, HOT AND BLUE to the rafters, and infused the "The Physician" with a perfect saucy sincerity, sans ‘underlining’.

It was a delight to see and hear Clark’s sense of fun and flair for high comedy expressed in an unforgettable version of "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Maestro Fisher announced it as the next number, “but we’re going to have to do without the trumpet solos it usually has.” Sitting with Pierce, martini aloft, Clark buzzed her lips in a trumpet blast, a twinkle in her eye. Summoned to a music stand, Clark’s ‘hot lips’ filled in tasty trumpet riffs to the audiences delight, eliciting much laughter during her lulls while she leafed through a copy of Vogue from her music stand.

DHP's take on Porter was something of a revelation, finessing the material with understated, crisp wit (IMHO, far surpassing the celebrated Porter stylings of Bobby Short). While Pierces’s baritone may not be the strongest, he knows precisely how to utilize it, respecting Porter’s lyrics and singing them straight and clean, his finely-honed comic timing perfectly punctuating each song when needed. Pierce made a meal with such smart patter songs as "Thank You So Much, Mrs. Lowsborough - Goodbye", and "The Extra Man" and displayed a tender romantic yearning in an uncommonly sensitive version of "Dream Dancing", where he illustrated Porter's practice of composing a melody before wedding it to words, by taking to the piano for the first chorus, then singing it while romantically gliding Clark across the stage cheek-to-cheek.

Wonderful apart, together, Pierce and Clark possed an alchemical chemistry, and their duets were delicious, from "After You, Who?", " Nobody's Chasing Me",, "It's De-Lovely", "You Do Something to Me" (complete with voodoo doll) and "Let's Do It". ("Porter wrote dozens of verses for this song, " noted Pierce, "So in the interest of time we are going to sing all of them.").

The evening concluded with a breezy duet of "You're The Top", topped by Irving Berlins delightfully salacious version (written in 1935 as a gift for Porter and Moss Hart) followed by an encore of "True Love".

The audience response was rhapsodic - On the escalator I ran into Michael Lavine and Brian Batt, both giddy with glee, the latter exclaiming “Wasn’t this extraordinary?".

Afterwards I was privileged to meet both Victoria Clark and David Hyde Pierce. Ms. Clark exuberantly noted “I adore David – I’ve never had so fun rehearsing anything!”, while the latter returned the compliment, modestly noting “A concert like this is all very new to me. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

It should have been taped for PBS’ “Great Performances.”, but I have never been able to locate a boot of it.

"Just One of Those Things" from JUBILEE (1935)

"It's De-Lovely" from RED, HOT AND BLUE (1936)

"Mister and Missus Fitch" from GAY DIVORCE (1932)

"The Physician" from NYMPH ERRANT (1933)

"Thank You So Much, Mrs. Lowsborough - Goodbye" (1934)

"Let's Do It" from PARIS (192re: Victoria Clark & David Hyde Pierce sing Cole Porter (1/14)

"Ridin' High" from RED, HOT AND BLUE (1936)

"What Is This Thing Called Love?" from WAKE UP AND DREAM (1929)

"Nobody's Chasing Me" from OUT OF THIS WORLD (1950)

"Dream Dancing" from YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH" (1941)

"It's Bad For Me" from NYMPH ERRANT (1933)

"Night and Day" from GAY DIVORCE (1932)

'Goodbye' Medley: "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" from SEVEN LIVELY ARTS (1944) "Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye" from BORN TO DANCE (1936)

"It's All Right With Me" from CAN-CAN (1953)

"The Extra Man" cut from WAKE UP AND DREAM (1929)

SONG LIST:

"You Do Something To Me" from FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN (1929)

"After You, Who?" from GAY DIVORCE (1932)

"You're The Top" from ANYTHING GOES (1934)

Encore: "True Love" from HIGH SOCIETY (1956)

VARIETY review:

How could we forget mouthy Aunt Esther from Sanford And Son. "Watch it, sucka!"

Suzanne Sugarbaker

No hate intended here at all, but aren't actresses infinitely more entertaining than actors?

It wasn't comedy but Jonathan Harris stole every scene he was in as queeny Dr. Smith in Lost In Space.

Here's a link to Daily Motion for the full episode of Breaking The Ice that I mentioned in my post at R40. If you have HULU the entire series is there (and much better definition than this link.) Niles has some great moments in this episode.

We love Niles

Betty White as bitchy Sue Ann Nivens. Watch out - she's got a pie in her hand!

re: r42:

The MARY! is strong with this one!

This thread wouldn't be complete without Cloris Leachman as the wacky Phyllis on MTM.

On Coach, Jerry Van Dyke and the guy who played Dauber.

R39 Moose as Eddie gave a bravura performance opposite DHP in that scene. He was always quite a scene-stealer on "Frasier".

Woody Harrelson on Cheers would be right up there.

And Irene Ryan deserves a mention as Granny on Beverly Hillbillies.

The late great Peter Boyle, Everybody Loves Raymond

Honourable Mention: Brad Garrett, Everybody Loves Raymond

Alan Sues, Judy Carne, Goldie Horne, Joanne Worley, Lily Tomlin and Dick Martin, among many others on "Laugh-In"

oops, Goldie Hawn, that is.

another vote for DHP

one of my favorites out of many

No one can match the depth of acting displayed by young Danielle Spencer on What's Happening!! Here is her brilliance on display.

So happy to see the love for DHP. Wonderful actor.

R37 amen. The sibling chemistry really was golden, and one of the few brotherly relationships I have found believable in the world of sitcom. Most actors either underplay or overplay it, but DHP & Grammer together just seemed like they'd been born and raised together in real life.

R35 I have the weirdest inexplicable crush on Lloyd as Jim in 'Taxi'.

Zzzzzz

OP is correct.

For the Brits, it's Joanna Lumley as Patsy. Or perhaps, Prunella Scales as Sybil.

Frasier is the only sitcom I'd love to see a reprise of now. Forget Will & Grace, give me Frasier & Niles.

I also love the Simpsons episodes where Hyde Pierce, Grammar, and Mahoney play Sideshow Cecil/Bob and their father.

Frawley over pretentious hyde pierce all day everyday!

R66 "oh, I know!" is still a catchphrase my mother deploys whenever she takes calls from bed.

She doesn't smoke or wear rollers so the effect isn't quite the same, but still.

Reruns of Frazier every night on Cozi TV. I love it too.

Love DHP. Laurie Metcalfe in any supporting role for female counterpart. Good thread.

I also vote for Laurie DAD IA DEAD!!! Metcalf ... excellent

If anyone has streaming Frasier is running on Netflix !

have at it.......laughing IS the BEST medicine!!

R72 Hulu has all seasons of Frasier too.

The Niles character is always who comes to mind when I think of who posts to DL.

Niles is clearly the "Oh Dear" troll.

During DHP 10 years on Fraiser he never bearded at the Emmys (he was nominated 10 years in a row) He always took his partner Brian with him, and they sat together in the audience,

But he would do the red carpet with either Jane Leeves or Peri Gilpin.

Florence Jean Castleberry

R76 Yay Flo!!

Mother Jefferson

R74: I wish. I think Niles is adorable. My partner is a bit of a fussy snob, but he can actually laugh at himself. I love it.

DHP is also a huge advocate for Alzheimers... someone in his family was afflicted.....

On Frasier, DHP does this thing once in a while where he bares his teeth and grits his front ones while smiling that never fails to crack me up

I still watch this show on Netflix while in bed at night. They never fail to crack me up. The casting was tv gold and their chemistry was great. Even the queenie little food critic, Lilith and Frasier's agent had some great moments.

Ed Asner as Lou Grant on MTM is probably the best alternate choice, and the Emmys were deserved.

But yes, if not for DHP as Niles, Frasier would not have been classic.

My vote goes to Jeff Garlin on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He and Larry David are great together.

No love for us?

The other Niles on "The Nanny" was a lot of fun, too, as was his hate-love interest Lauren Lane.

For Curb Your Enthusiasm, it has to be Susie Essman. Her foul mouth is a work of art.

The gay, little boy on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He and Larry David work well together.

Another vote for Don Knotts on Andy Griffith Show.

Nip it in the bud!

Lovable Irene Ryan as Granny and Jethro, Ellie May, Miss Jane and that all-so-haughtily delectable Mrs. Drysdale.

R23

"Tom is not gay!"

"He seems to be under that impression."

That scene never fails to crack me up.

Originally I thought it was just for male actors.

So let me add votes for Valerie Harper and Betty White on MTM.

And Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Seinfeld. Think what the show would have been without her.

or Michael Richards as Kramer. Jason Alexander is just obnoxious, and Jerry Seinfeld (unlike fellow stand-up Ray Romano) can't really act, so Louis-Dreyfus and Richards really made that show.

For R81

YES THAT'S IT R94!

Adored Ben Schwartz as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein in Parks & Recreation.

Abe Vigoda as the hilariously deadpan Fish on "Barney Miller"

Max Gail's chest and build on that show was also nice. Plus I finally located Hal Linden's shirtless bod on an episode of "Battle of the Network Stars"; it makes up for him being out of "The Pajama Game" at the performance I went to where his character in the final scene just wear bottom pajamas! Starts around 10:00, although if you watch earlier you can see Bruce/now Caitlin Jenner shirtless back in the 1970s.

Honorary mention of Max Greenfield as Schmidt on New Girl.

Not quite DHP level but one of my favorite comedic actors on television these days.

Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd were brilliant in Taxi. "What does a yellow night mean?" is classic comedy.

Frasier had 4 gay actors on the show - DHP, Gil (Edward Hibbert,) Bulldog (Dan Butler,) and Martin (John Mahoney.)

Mary Millar: Rose on Keeping Up Appearances

Yeah, I prefer Millar's Rose. I special shout out to Josephine Tewson's Elizabeth for her great underplaying opposite Hyacinth. OF course, Richard, Daisy and Onslow are all wonderful too, and the dishy Vicar was fun to look at.

Agree 103.

The Professor and Mary Ann.

Well at least the casting people on Frazier were consistent with their casting love interests way too attractive for Frazier than he could never get in real life. All the women he dated were completely out of his league, and so was this guy.

Louis, Louis

The Rev Jim

The Professor from Gilligan's Island was a pretty hot guy.

R109 ...and boring

R106 very true. I really enjoyed the four gay themed Frasier episodes. There were other great side references in other episodes throughout the show's run too. I really liked the writing in those four: The Matchmaker (Season 2 Ep. 3,) The Impossible Dream (Season 4 Episode 3,) Out With Dad (Season 7 Episode 15,) and The Doctor Is Out (Season 11 Episode 3.)

The Ski Lodge (Season 5 Episode 14 ,) was a great screwball episode of all around sexual miscommunication. Nightmare Inn had this choice scene (linked below) from Season 4 Episode 18.

Frasier was great until 2001/2002 or so. Then you can tell the exact point when they started recycling the plots from earlier seasons and they had no idea what to do with DHP and Jane Leeves. Once they started bringing on all those utterly pointless relatives of Daphne as semi-permanent characters, the writing was on the wall. The whole Lana/Claire plot was, basically, the reprise of the Faye/Cassandra storyline, plus a few others. Sometimes, it was almost frustrating: I mean, you have Wendy Malick on the show, do something interesting with her...

My god I forgot how fuckable Tony Danza was back in the day.

andy griffith, bev. hillbillies and gilligans island?

really?

if you cut off 3/4's of your brain, maybe........i never got these stupid ass shows. they weren't even good for escapism.

Another vote for Susie

My favorite Susie moment:

R111 I tried to find the clip from "The Doctor Is Out" that has this classic line from DHP:

After Alistair (Patrick Stewart) announces that he's naming Frasier to fill the open seat on the Opera Board due to the retirement of someone named Nigel, Niles says "looks like Nigel isnt the only one giving up his seat tonight".

And gives that classic Niles-just-delivered-a-zinger look. It's also an extremely racy line for network tv at the time; I'm always amazed it made it through

My favorite Christopher Lloyd moment on Taxi (just barely eeks out "What does a yellow light mean?"): the moment we see Jim become Iggy (@8:20). Bonus: we also see Tom Hanks before he becomes Tom Hanks.

In that clip Lloyd comes off @ R118 as kind of gay. Is he gay in real life?

R117 Yes! That episode was rich with choice moments but I agree that line was a stunner at the time.

Don't think so R119. Pre-drugs Jim was just foppish and uptight (much like Niles).

R111/R117, the line is here:

Do they show Taxi on anything?

Patrick Stewart was hilarious in that episode.

MeTV airs Taxi. It used to be on heavy rotation but now only after midnight I think just once a week. You can find most episodes online.

I loved Barney Miller and Taxi. Does anyone remember some little queen the guys would arrest sometimes who had a crush on Barney?

R112 it's called 'Jumping the Shark'

R112, "Frasier" had a couple weaker years (seasons eight through ten), but its last season was as good as the early years. The Patrick Stewart episode, Martin getting stoned, Maris getting arrested for murder and the final episodes were all great.

Although as good as DHP was that season, I'm still baffled the Emmys didn't nominate and award John Mahoney that year. They nominated him for the show's weakest season (the tenth) after years of missing out, then ignored him for doing great work in a critically-acclaimed final season. It made no sense.

Jackie Joseph from the last 2 years of The Doris Day Show. Likeable and ditzy.

I loved that scene in Will & Grace when Karen and Jack encountered Bebe in a restaurant and said they were fans of the 8 years of the show to which Bebe said "We were on for 9 years" and Karen quipped "We didn't care for season 8". Oh honey!

I always thought David Hyde Pierce was the outstanding one on that show not Kelsey Grammar. He stole every scene he was in.

Agreed, r131. For me, the "Moon Dance" episode was, and is still, my favorite DHP focused episode. His chemistry with Daphne is off the charts. You never would have known he was gay, he was that good at his craft. A really superlative performance.

R132, I'd choose "An Affair to Forget." Physical comedy, heartbreak, verbal repartee and even a couple foreign languages: it was a sitcom version of a decathlon, and Pierce nailed every moment.

Doris Day looks like she's got a croissant on top of her head in that pic above.

I loved it when Niles would make some remark about Maris.

[quote]Her little quadriceps are so tight she's incapable of straddling anything larger than a border collie.

[quote]Poor thing can only get comfort by straddling a frozen butterball turkey.".

There were tons of great Maris lines. All the funnier since we never actually saw her.

Maris is unable to have pets. She distrusts anything that loves her unconditionally.

At this very moment, Maris is slipping out of her frilly under-things and into a non-fat milk bath.

One hour of passion can sustain her for months. She stores it up like some sexual camel.

Maris had it made after she lost power in a storm. Battery operated, works on a clapper so you can find it in the dark. Only problem was, the poor thing, try as she might, she could never clap hard enough to activate it.

She exhausts easily under the pressure to be interesting.

You know my wife Maris has all our servants down at your campaign headquarters licking envelopes. Of course she would do it herself but the poor thing can't produce saliva.

God, that's smart, witty writing.

[R33] was that the one about Maris and the fencing instructor? Absolutely fucking brilliant!!!

Sometimes she switched it out for a ciabatta r134.

I loved DHP's startle reaction, speaking of physical comedy skills. "The Doctor Is Out" (I think it's the same episode) has a great example: when Frasier goes goes into the gay bar, and Niles stays out on sidewalk, he thinks the guy they've been following sees him, and gives a tiny little kind of "Eep!" jump, and picks up the freebie newspaper to hide his face. Then he notices it's a gay rag, and startles himself again. He does a few times in succession, and it's always just this side of bring overdone, and it's priceless. It sounds laborious to try to explain, and I suspect it's very hard to pull off, but DHP makes it completely genuine.

Just this side of being overdone.

I can't say DHP was the best of all time but certainly in any list he'd be in the top ten. When they originally cast the ensemble they were extraordinarily insightful or exceptionally lucky to put together actors who fit together like a machine, making the whole better then the sum of the parts. And some credit to Jane Levees too.

DHP as Niles...unbelievable. All the best performances already mentioned upthread. I still think the Valentines Day ep, where he nearly sets the apt on fire, & Eddies role in it, was pure magic.

Nick Offerman in Parks & Recreation.

Even though it was drama, not comedy, Paulie Walnuts' character on The Sopranos, carried off macabre humor brilliantly.

Class act.

I've been re-watching the earlier seasons of Frasier recently. DHP is brilliant, but they all are really. The casting jackpot. I'm looking forward to the reboot, if it happens.

It would've been such a different show with Lisa Kudrow as Roz. I can't even imagine. It all worked out for the best though.

I've seen on the message boards that some people really hate Roz and Daphne for some reason.

Roz was originally supposed to be played by Lisa Kudrow, but she was fired while they were shooting the pilot--chemistry didn't gel. She was devastated, because she knew the show was going to be a big hit. Then she did an audition for this funky little sitcom called Friends . . .

Maybe she was TOO good and quirky and they thought she would steal Focus from Kelsey/ Frasier.

A little more recent is Sean Hayes, "Jack" from Will & Grace. And if we're including women, then Megan Mullally "Karen". Both were way more entertaining than the Will and Grace characters. A shout out to Leslie Jordan as well.

From Modern Family, Eric Stonestreet as "Cameron" steals every scene.

Aunt Esther was far better.

David Ogden Stiers, who injected some life into the sagging M*A*S*H with the character of Charles Emerson Winchester. He managed to be completely sympathetic without ever being sappy or "lovable" and also provided an interesting foil to Hawkeye and BJ, whose schtick was already worn thin.

Stephen Root in NewsRadio. Actually, Stephen Root is the underappreciated MVP in pretty much everything he's done.

I don't care for those over the top, queen stereotypical performances. Too easy and predictable. Why not have Mickey Rooney play an oriental?