In the age of social media and tech domination, watching a traditional multi-camera sitcom is sort of like looking at a museum exhibit via the small screen. That was certainly the case with Kelsey Grammer’s short-lived “Frasier” revival series, which ran on Paramount+ between 2023 and 2024 and predictably failed to capture the magic of the original series, which remains one of the best sitcoms of the 1990s. Seeing the beloved Dr. Frasier Crane on an over-lit CBS soundstage in the 2020s was somehow deeply sad — like a memento mori with a laugh track.
That wasn’t the only time Grammer tried and failed to recapture the sitcom magic that made him a star in the first place. Back in 2009, the “Cheers” star’s sitcom “Hank” debuted on ABC, and ended up being even more short-lived than the “Frasier” revival.
In a contemporaneous piece for NPR, Linda Holmes warned readers, “If you’re enjoying ABC’s new comedy block, you still should not watch ‘Hank.'” Holmes noted that while “Modern Family” and “Cougar Town,” which debuted a week prior to Grammer’s show, were “excellent” and “pretty decent” respectively, “Hank” was “terrible.” What was so bad about it? Well, it seems that in 2009, the type of sitcom humor that worked so well for Grammer less than a decade prior was already outdated.
Kelsey Grammer played a ruined entrepreneur in Hank
Somewhere between the end of “Fraiser” in 2004 and the debut of “Hank,” the classic sitcom format had become less cool, replaced by shows more indebted to the mockumentary style of “The Office” than to the “filmed in front of a live studio audience” stage play style of classic sitcoms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kelsey Grammer didn’t get the memo.
Whereas the “Frasier” creators set out to make an anti-“Seinfeld” sitcom by subverting established tropes (ever notice how the show doesn’t have any interstitial music or establishing shots of apartment buildings?), “Hank” seemed to revel in heralding the recrudescence of a specific kind of formulaic sitcom humor. The show was created by Tucker Cawley, who otherwise won three Emmys for his writing contributions to “Everybody Loves Raymond.” It follows Grammer’s Hank Pryor, who, after making a fortune in the sports retail world, loses everything and is forced to move back to his hometown of River Bend, Virginia.
He does so alongside his wife Tilly Pryor (Melinda McGraw), teen daughter Maddie Pryor (Jordan Hinson), and son Henry Pryor (Nathan Gamble). Hank does his best to acclimatize to a much more humble existence that forces him to focus on his family after years of being consumed by his work. That simple premise encapsulated the all-important combination of humor and heart that makes a great sitcom. Unfortunately, in the case of “Hank,” it made for a show that felt like it was doing an impression of the great sitcoms — which explains why it only lasted for five episodes before ABC dropped the axe.
Kelsey Grammer should have called it sitcom quits with Hank
“Hank” was all generic sitcom humor. One “joke” sees Kelsey Grammer’s Hank Pryor call out for his housekeeper before realizing he no longer has one. The punchline is “Oh, right,” and that’s the joke. There are glimmers of the “Frasier”-era magic, with Grammer displaying some of the same charming naiveté that characterized the lovably pompous Dr. Crane. But most of the jokes feel like they’d already become tired a couple decades prior. Some gags even feel like direct rip-offs from other shows, like when Hank Pryor and his wife are forced to sleep in a fire-engine bed à la Monica and her race car bed saga in “Friends.” There’s even a moment when a mattress gets pinned halfway up Hank’s staircase, which seems oddly reminiscent of Ross’ legendary “pivot” palaver.
Critics didn’t hold back. In the aforementioned NPR piece, Linda Holmes described how “the tone of the comedy feels like it’s borrowed from the late 1980s and early 1990s” and how “the audience laughter is cranked up to ‘UTTER HILARITY,’ despite the fact that none of the jokes justify it.” The New York Post was even more matter of fact: “Grammer’s show, ‘Hank,’ is one of the worst new (or old) comedies of this or many other seasons.”
Plenty of shows in TV have been canceled after one season, but “Hank” went off the air in less than two months, leaving five episodes unaired. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the show had “underperformed in the ratings,” and a quick look at the numbers shows “Hank” had lost almost half the viewership of its pilot by Episode 5. That should have been the end of Grammer’s traditional sitcom efforts, but he’d return five years later with “Partners.” It lasted one season.
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