Room Full of Heroes

Welcome to Reverse Psychology, the Fraser Rewatch Podcast, where we go backwards through every episode of the show. Tonight, we are covering Season 9, Episode 6, Room Full of Heroes, which originally aired on October 30th, 2001. Is this going to redeem Marty, or bury his reputation once and for all? We'll find out. I'm your host, Curtis Sheck. Joining me as always, it's our resident upside down rich, Ryan, Stan, so... Hello! It's good to be here again. Also with us today is a real butt face. It's my brother, Ethan Sheck. I'm excited to hear everyone's thoughts on the Human Genome Project and its impacts politically. We are going to get into it, trust me. Can we get into how your brother called you a butt face? I can't be above board. I don't support that. In fairness, it was a reference. I wasn't just saying it because I'm a jerk. To what? To his face? Yeah, to the fact that my face is a butt. Gert, if it is, you shouldn't call that out. That's not good. I will do a little tease here. We will let the audience know what I was referencing when we get to that scene. Oh, we're putting pictures of Ethan's face on Instagram. All this butt face talk aside, where's Brad? You forgot to say him. Oh, yeah, I didn't invite him. Gert, yes. Good work. One butt face out, one butt face in. Well, this is a Halloween episode. And it's not our first, is it? Was the zombie episode a Halloween episode? Yes. Okay. So this is our first really focused on the holiday of Halloween episode. False. Is that the one with the pranks? Yes. Yeah. Pranks was the other one. Okay. Which was equally as focused on Halloween. I don't know what Curt's talking about. I mean, they weren't talking about trick-or-treating in costumes, but sure. They were. Curt. They were, Curt. They were. It doesn't matter. It's a Halloween episode where there's a Halloween party present. I want to know about the Halloween parties you've attended. Are there any notable examples you have of either really good or maybe really bad Halloween parties? Yeah, I'd like to go first. Okay. Uh, fucking penguins stole my Xbox one Halloween. I was about to be really confused, and then I remembered what we were talking about and figure I'm going to go ahead and wager that the penguin was a guy in a costume? Is that a fair assumption? No, it was a piece of shit in a costume. Were they being an animal penguin or the Batman penguin? Uh, good question. It was like, if you know, the Linux symbol. It was like the Linux penguin. Okay. Yeah, sure, sure. Wheezy for our Toy Story fans out there. Ooh, very nice. So, real nerd. Oh, again, a piece of shit. I was picturing more of a jock type. I don't know. I didn't crack him open. I found he was gone by the time he took the Xbox. How do you know he did? How do you know it was the penguin if you didn't catch him in the act? Oh, he had a wagon with him, which is probably telling. Why did a Linux user steal a Microsoft product? Oh, that's a good question. There's so many questions. Really? Really good question. When you say wagon, you mean like a little red wagon a kid would carry? Like, what do you mean? Yeah, I think it was red. Kids don't carry wagons. What are you talking about? Radio flyer? Uh, yeah, I think I might have done a radio flyer. I don't know. I've never. It was really unusual. I don't know. Like an Xbox flyer. There was a few of them together. And I assume that that they brought like a bottle of booze or whatever with them. And I wasn't at all phased that they were in our basement like a foot from my Xbox. I was like, yeah, that happens sometimes. You know, these situations occur. They were left, came back, and it was gone. You know, particularly in college, we had some heavy drinking nights out. I don't think we ever needed an entire wagon to pull all the alcohol we were bringing. Well, we, I mean, we could have used it as a front to steal Xboxes. So we screwed up, I think. I mean, I assume you didn't have like renter's insurance back then. Like, what did you do? You just were out of an Xbox? Yeah, never. I didn't, I didn't go seek compensation from random people. I was like, I let someone in, they took it. I don't know. Done and done. Ethan, what about you? Did you have any notable Halloween party? Have you ever had an Xbox stolen? Had an Xbox to be stolen. Yeah, I wouldn't say I have a ton. Like, you know, I enjoyed them in school. I mean, it's not exactly a party, but we had gone on a, my wife Hannah and I, friend of the show, we went on a ghost tour that was in like the West Village in New York. And we were doing it on Halloween, which seemed like a great time to do that. Not recognizing that that would be the same time as the massively popular Halloween parade in the West Village, which meant that it was a very, it was a very festive time. We saw a lot of people in costume. Is that like the gay area? One of them. Because the gays love Halloween. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're gonna circle back to that, Curt. This has to be the worst day to pick a ghost tour. Almost anywhere. So our tour guide is doing a great job considering they had to keep track of everyone in our group, reversing through like just teeming crowds of costume partiers there to see the various like displays going down in the parade. I'm certain that guy has lost some people on tour, especially on Halloween night. It's just gonna happen. There's nothing you can do. Here's the thing, Ryan. That was a sexist assumption on your part because our tour guide was woman. Ooh. As a woman in a position of authority. I gotta go check myself. I apologize. Curt, I recuse myself. It's you and your brother tonight. Still better than having to have Brad. I don't know. I'm trying to think because I only went on ghost tours with Curtis because he loves booking stuff. And I don't know. I don't know if it was a man or woman that was touring us. I don't remember. I think it was a woman that we did when we were in New Orleans. Yeah, it was a woman. So there you go. Not sexist. I mean, it's a little sexist that you forgot. No. What is that? It's not bad memories, not sexism. I just assumed it could be anyone. I saw my last one was a woman. My next one will be a man. 50-50. I was trying to think of like a bad Halloween party. I don't think I've had a bad Halloween party experience. You were at the party where my Xbox got stolen. You can just yes and that one. Well, I don't remember that part. Was that the party where Chris Farley tried to fight me? What? I don't remember Chris Farley trying to fight you. And I'm pretty confident I would remember that. There was one party where we, it was Halloween and everybody was dressed up. I think it was in your apartment. And there were a bunch of strangers milling about, scoping out where the electronics were. And there was one guy, kind of a bigger guy, but he had chosen not to dress in a costume. He was clearly not in any kind of costume whatsoever. And being the cad that I was, I decided to taunt him. And I think I said, what are you, Chris Farley? He did not appreciate this. What a weird taunt and what a weird thing to get mad about. Well, he was mad because I was basically calling him a bad guy. I mean, he was, right? Was he wearing a little coat? Well, you know, I'm trying to remember. Answer the question. He was not wearing a little coat. I'm trying to remember. Or it's possible that there was a guy dressed as the man down by the river and his friend was the one who wasn't wearing a costume. Oh, that'd be fun. I can't, I honestly can't remember. I think it was one or the other, but I think if it was the latter, I just said, did you come as an asshole? Or something really not funny, like just really dickish. And it went from, it went from zero to he legitimately was about to murder me very quickly. I don't remember how I got out of it. I mean, it's definitely your fault, like from everything you've relayed to us. Curt, hop in the radio flyer. Let's get out of here. This is my era of being a real asshole. Do you think that that guy got so pissed off that he's like, I'm just going to take the first Xbox I see? Do you think you caused this? It's a real possibility. You son of a bitch. He was ready to fight me. I said, no, no, no, just take this Xbox. Look, there's electronics everywhere. Just go take one. Well, should we find out what happened at this Halloween? How do the gays do Halloween? Are they, they're good at it? Oh, yeah. Is that what we said? Yeah, well, I would say that like outside of pride, like Halloween is probably the most like gay, the most excited the gay community gets is Halloween. Party, you get to dress up. And it's also like a big like opportunity for a lot of like drag queens and stuff. Their first time out in drag is a Halloween costume. Oh, all right. So Curt, since we're just hitting on things gays, like where do we land on Chick-fil-A? Are we in or out? I've only ever had it once before we knew they were they were gay hating and I didn't like it. So I've just never felt any need to return to it. You know, if it was good, would you have just gotten over the gay hate or would you have been like, no, that chicken sandwich is out of my life now? I mean, I will eat at Jimmy John's and it's objectively not good. So, right. But Jimmy John's presumably doesn't hate the gays. Well, I think they they're one of the like the owner is an asshole. I mean, they're all probably owned by assholes. But like, I think he was like, we're saying above board. I'm not I'm not condoning anything. And you as can you speak for the gay community and tell me it's OK to get Chick-fil-A, the second closest chicken sandwich place to my house. I will tell you this. There is no ethical consumption in capitalism. So whatever you do, you're being an asshole. Oh, that means it's a free pass. Free pass. Great. All right. What's the first closest chicken restaurant? It is Raisin Cane's. Raisin Cane's is. Oh, Ethan's a big fan of that. It's really good. But it's it's too close. So we've gone so much that I'm kind of over it. It's also not. You don't go there for the sandwich. No, you don't go for that's a good point. You don't go for the sandwich. You go for the other thing on the menu. Yeah. I live in a pretty decent sized city, one of the one of the bigger cities in the country. And you would expect me to be surrounded by like a diversity of of food options. When it comes to fast food, I currently the closest by far is the McDonald's. There's not a whole lot of other options fast food wise. And we're about to move. And where we're moving to, not a lot of fast food options. McDonald's closest by far. I don't know why McDonald's is doing so well in the city of Chicago. But it's so good. It's so convenient. You know what you're getting. I mean, lots of you can hate McDonald's all you want. They do a lot of things right. And they probably don't hate the gays. So it just wins all around. Should we find out if Frasier does a lot of things right and hates the gays in this episode? Yes, please. We open with the moon rising over Seattle. It's Halloween and Frasier is throwing a party where everyone dresses as their hero. The building's children think he feasts on children's brains. A rumor we discover, Marty is spreading. Isn't that, I think our second or third time seeing Frasier in costume. And he just, costumes work for him. He looks great as Sigmund Freud. He really went for it, yeah. I think he tends to pick very dignified, like, historical figures, right? He does always, I mean, I remember him as Uncle Sam. So he always dresses up old. But he does it well. Yeah, yeah. I did like the Daphne thought it was Fidel Castro though. It works. I think what stuck out to me initially was just seeing how many pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. I can't recall another episode where he went this hard for Halloween. And I feel like Frasier really would probably just have, like, a tastefully ugly autumn wreath. I think the difference maker this year is that he is trying to hawk his new game invention. So he wants to, he really wants to sell. Lean in. Yeah. I don't think we were at Frasier's apartment for last Halloween. We were at Niall's apartment for last Halloween. And Curt, I don't know if you recognize a familiar face. We're talking about Beans? We're talking about Bean. He was back. He's in the new building. Who? None of your beeswax! Curt, don't start with me. You know who he is. We've covered this in detail. Knock it off. Huh. Okay. You say Beans. Ethan, your brother refuses to acknowledge even Stevens and no one gets why. No one understands it. We did not grow up watching Disney Channel at all. I'm aware of Beans. I know your mom made you watch Frasier. I get it. I'm aware of Beans through cultural osmosis and nothing more. Well, he was amazing in Even Stevens and great in both Halloween episodes of Frasier, which is how I know we did trick-or-treating stuff last time because of me. Oh, you're right. Okay. I was trying to place, like, you said there was a Halloween episode and then you said it was in Niall's apartment. I was like, what was this episode? You're right. It's the one where Gert gets in a prank war with, I know you said it was the prank war episode, but I forgot that side. I was thinking of a zombie side of it, not that side. You know, there was a child involved and he was going to war with a very old lady. So we're saying that this kid previously trick-or-treated at the Montana and now he's at, what are they called? The Elliott Bay Towers. Elliott Bay Towers. Thank you. Weird confirmation he lived in the Montana. There's no reason to think he couldn't have just, like, he could just be hanging out with a bud here or something. We have no real sense of the geography, right? Like, we don't know if the Montana is, like, a next door building or if it's, like, across town. No, we have no idea. We have no idea where either one is even close to. The only one we have any guess of is Roz because we know she's near water. It'd be really funny if it was, like, a next door building, but they still made Roz schlep over to help him move. I mean, it's in play. So I'm curious, Ryan, we're going to talk a lot this episode, I think, once again, about Marty because this is another kind of Marty heavy episode. Yes. I'm curious, just in this scene, you know, when we learn that he's spreading this rumor, did this endear you to Marty or did it make you, did it double down on the idea that he was an asshole? I had a hard time with it. You know, I was like, ah, he's a scallywag. I don't know. It's fine. I don't have any. This is the second episode in a row where you're pronouncing things weird. I did it. Yeah. This came, that one I can agree. He was very malicious of him. That one came out weird. I said the other one right and I said, but anyway, he's been a scallywag. And I don't know what to tell you. I didn't, I didn't know if I liked it or hated it. I was like, this has happened. It's a weird prank. I guess. I don't know what to do with it. I think it's fully justified that the man's going around tussling children's hair. Like he deserves every rumor spread about him. You know, I think I missed that bit. I'm old man crane. Good Lord. I have tousled every young head in this building from the laundry room to the rooftop. Ew. Yeah. That's horrifying. Is that a direct quote? That is a direct quote. Oh my God. I was still processing the scallywagness. I don't, I don't like that one bit. Even independent of that. Like it's very good scallywagging. Yeah. What is, it's weird though. Cause my initial reaction was like, Marty, stop talking to kids. Now they know that there's hair tussling going on. This is, this is bad. Oh, what a different time. The 2000, early 2000s were. We're going to have to call the police to get a paddy wagon for all this scallywagon. Everything was so innocent in October of 2001. What a simpler time. Ethan, we were all worried about terrorism. We weren't worried about weird old people. All I know is that if my kid came home, it was like an old man tussled my hair. I'd be like, okay, where does he live? We're arresting him immediately. I would be more worried about any man like ruffling through children's hair. No, that's a. Ruffling through. Ruffling through is the next level of tussle. Yeah. You tussle. Then you ruffle. That sounds like he's looking for lice. Exactly. He's forming a public servant. He's grooming them. It's not weird. He's just grooming the children. Yeah. He's, it's just an older man grooming children. What's wrong with that? Oh, we're getting on a list tonight. We get a title card. It's flu and party season. Frasier is Freud. Marty is Joe DiMaggio. Daphne is Elton John. Roz is Wonder Woman. And Niles came as his own father. Frasier's game is less fun and more tedious. Okay. Marty is Joe DiMaggio. I find this interesting because he's a diehard Seattle sports fan and Mariners didn't exist until 1977. So it is reasonable to think that he would grow up idolizing a Yankee, even though he is a current Mariners fan. Marty does not know what you're saying right now. You're aware of this, right? He's turned his mic off and gone to bed now. So I, well, I'm a nerd across the board, but one of the more niche ways I am is that I'm very nerdy about first uniforms. And so I, I noticed there was a patch on his sleeve as Joe DiMaggio. And I was like, what's that? I'm sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt throwing a flag on the play. When you said you're, you're nerdy. I thought, okay, he's going to talk about statistics. There are a lot of sports nerds who are super into like the, the numbers of the game. You went with their costumes. Yes. I will give you a, you point very quickly, very quickly. Yeah. Whatever you can say next, you're right. So I was just curious about the patch. So I looked into it because it, well, I found it before I realized that if I had unpaused, the next shot would show it very clearly because it was a closeup. But he had a American League golden anniversary patch on it. And so this was something that was born on American League uniforms in 1951, 50 years, of course, after the American League began. And it was also just happens to be the last season that Joe DiMaggio played and also Mickey Mantle's rookie season. So I just thought that that was interesting because I was like, wait, why is that Yankees uniform got a patch? Because an older Yankees uniform would usually just be blank sleeve. But there you go. I got to tell you, I've never noticed a patch in my life. Talking to an Eagle Scout, I noticed patches. Did you get your 50th anniversary of a baseball patch as a scout? No. I didn't earn it. Well, try better. It's funny how you put that much thought, research, time, energy into like investigating this patch and the justification for why a character would like this particular baseball player. And literally all I thought was, Joe DiMaggio, that's one of those like famous baseballers that old guys just always like. We're really proud of you for that one. Makes sense. It does. I don't think, yeah, the Mariners never had, they've never won, right? So I don't think that there's no famous Mariners, right? They're kind of like the Steelers in that way. All right, buddy. I think they made it to the World Series like recently, but way after Marty died. I don't think they've made it to the World Series. It's okay. Good news. I hate baseball. I don't have to worry about that. But Ken Griffey Jr. is a very famous Mariners. I got some last thing about Marty as his costume. Did he look younger as Jolton Joe? Like, you know, a very old timey baseball guy. I mean, he didn't have to have his pants hiked up as much, I guess. Like, kind of looks crumpy. I thought he looked significantly younger. It was really confusing. He does play older. The other thing that I noticed that I don't think I've ever noticed before watching this episode was that when Alice came in with Roz, she was dressed as a dog and she had a tag that said Ariel, which is the name of their, of Roz and Alice's dog. I don't know if that's been revealed to the Upside Down, but these are major spoilers. The name is not so, so, okay, so I can't see the Crane's dog. Curt can't see whatever Roz's last name's dog. Doyle? Is that it? Yes. Okay. Yeah. The Doyle's dog. He's never seen that one. I had to like tell him that there was this extra dog in the scene. He was like, no, there wasn't. Oh, right. She does. I was sitting here like, wait, she has a dog. When did that happen? I literally forgot again. Little Alice dressed as her own dog, which is, uh, that's a cute costume. That is a cute costume. Why do we need Alice to be part of this episode? That Roz seemed like a good mother. Yeah. There are a lot of these scenes where Alice shows up purely so that she can be set aside in a way that explains away why a single mom is not with her daughter. Well, we don't do that every time. Like we do it maybe once a season. A lot of times she shows up either at work or at the coffee shop. And that's usually like during the day. So you can presume it's like Alice is either in school or in daycare. Or like it makes more sense. But like in the evening, I think it's they feel like they need to explain it away more. Yeah. I don't think they had to. I think Roz just shows up. It had been fine. Well, it's even weird because I don't think she says it out loud. Like I'm going to put her down and let her go to sleep. I can presume she's napping or maybe she's playing. She just disappears. Yes. Apparently Alice is the world's best sleeper. Unsupervised, just playing somewhere in the apartment. I don't know why Roz doesn't just move to the other side of the country so we don't have to bring up her child at all. Zing! Also with Roz, like she goes to put Alice to bed or to play. I don't know. But when she returns in full costume, almost no time has passed. She put on that Wonder Woman costume lickety split. That's why we brought Alice in is just to get her out of the scene to get her back in quickly. I guess she did a true Wonder Woman thing. Maybe she just spun around three times and she was in it. Yes. Hell of a look though. We get that right after the Eldon John reveal and it's like, okay, this episode is popping off. This is a trait of like 90s sitcoms that you would get these because they had episodes all throughout the year. They would have like seasonal episodes and you'd get a lot of sitcoms with like fun costumes because they'd always have a Halloween episode. And I really enjoy it. And I feel like when the current model of like streaming shows that come out whenever and they're like 10 episodes serialized, you don't really get fun seasonal episodes anymore. It's true. I mean, you could. They just choose not to. Probably because it's too much to get everyone in costumes. And usually if they do, it's like, we'll do a Christmas special or something like that. Yeah. This is the best version of a costume party I can remember from a TV show. I mean, Roseanne was always really famous for doing elaborate ones. The other thing I wanted to talk about with this scene. So there's all these cancellations. Frazier keeps getting phone calls of people who are going to come to the party saying they got sick. I think the real reason is because they just wanted to have the core cast members. They didn't want to have a bunch of extras. 100%. You know, milling about in the scene. But I also just wondered, like, why? Why does he even need to be other people invited? Like, these are the only people he cares about. These could be the only people that were invited. I mean, this would be a terrible game for a lot of people. It's a bad game anyway. But it would be a terrible game if you had, like, 20, 30 people at the party. If it was closer to, like, a dozen, I feel like that would make it more interesting because you'd have, I don't know, hearing from Freud every few seconds. I think max three people. And if you have a fourth who, you know, usually joins you, just don't invite him because you don't have room for him. Like, three max. Let them do the B-plot somewhere. Yeah. It would just be too much. It would be fun. You know what? That would have been a good use of B-plot is just seeing what all the rest of them go into a fun party. I find interesting is that they introduce that Daphne has the weirdest Elton John impression. I wrote a song about Princess Diana. And everyone kind of reacts to it and that it's never brought up again. He's a weird character. Like, I don't know all of his accents through the years. I don't know if it's changed. I don't know if it's always been the same exact thing. I don't know. I just would have taken more because it was quite a choice. It was the same song I wrote about Marilyn Monroe. When I saw the thumbnail, I didn't get Elton John from it. I thought she was dressed as Austin Powers. Dressed as Leap Day William. That'd be great. When Diles comes in as Marty, I took notice of David Hyde Pierce's very hairy wrists. I don't know if they're good at them. So if you didn't catch them this time, you had to stay sharper. That's all I'm saying. Totally missed them again. You are just obsessed with these wrists. Very eye-catching, in my opinion. Yes, they're fetching wrists, Ethan. I don't know. I still missed them again. I don't know what to tell you. I was really focused on the fact that he was dressed like Marty and a hell of an impression all the way through this episode. Fantastic. Hannah, she had said that her favorite part is when they both lean back and laugh hard with Niles being Marty. And then the rest of the episode makes her sad, so she didn't want to watch it with me. You know what, though? I actually appreciate his laugh when he's alone from Marty, because you can still see how clearly, perfectly Marty it is. Yeah. And it makes, like, I've never really honed in on the fact that he does that laugh. And then you see him alone, you're like, oh, yeah, that is still the Marty. That's very clearly the Marty laugh. Because David Ipia is an incredible actor. Of course he can pull off this great impression. But it's not unbelievable that Niles could do this, because it's his father. He knows him very well. And some of it isn't good. Like, I don't think his cane walking is good at all. And I think that was probably a choice. I disagree. I think that cane walk is money. I don't think it matches what Marty's doing, though. There's one where when Marty cane walks at him as he has just cane walked, I swear it's exactly the same. Okay. Frazier accuses Niles of using his party as an excuse to become Marty's favorite kid. When everyone decides to play different games instead, he storms off. Frazier's just a big old baby. Frazier's insistence on the rules and regulations for his own, you know, game that he came up with, and so it's so important. It reminded me of when I was in elementary school, and I was obsessed with Captain Underpants, Dave Pilkey book series. A classic? Yeah. Literature classic. I had some friends that were also, you know, big fans of Captain Underpants. And so I was like, I'm going to, like, I'm going to start a club. But I had no framework for what, like, a fan club does. I was just a kid in school who was obsessed with being good at school. And so my idea was, like, I'm the authority figure because I'm the biggest fan of this. So I will make tests to make people prove their knowledge on this. Otherwise, they're not worthy of being in this club. Somehow it never took off. Oh, no. How many kids took your test? No one ever took it. I don't think it got as far as that because my concept was so bad. That's fair. It's funny, though. This scene reminded me of your brother and every game he's ever tried to make. Well, we're going to get far afield from this game later. Don't you worry. I love the line. You're not playing my game. This is chaos. We're just five people in costumes drinking. Amen. I didn't think it didn't really track. Like, he was like, everyone's having fun, but we need to be doing my thing. Like, I don't know. We haven't really seen this out of Frasier before. We've seen him be very insistent. But the fact that it was going well and he just really wanted to play this shitty game. He's usually a little better at reading the room and going along with stuff. I don't know. You remember, he's not doing this to have a fun time or to socialize with these people. He's doing this to market a new product he thinks he can sell. You know what? Totally forgot or didn't realize that was part of it. He's showing his persnickety-ness right away. You know, he forces Roz into embarrassment about the Wonder Woman choice. And it's like, oh, you're not playing my game right. Like, it has to, everything has to be within his bounds. Otherwise, no one's having his good time. In the lobby, Frasier commiserates with a small child whose brother stole his candy. This kid thinks Frasier is a psycho before realizing he's old man Crane. Yeah. Why is Frasier talking to little kids? I'm glad we didn't see the hair tussle because that would have been tough. But I hated all of this. Not just talking to little kids. He encourages this child to find some pink insulation to hide in his brother's bed so that he will itch. That is wild behavior. And probably something he's done to not. A significantly better prank than when we saw him in a prank war last Halloween. I don't know if I recall seeing the lobby of his apartment building at any other point in the series. We've seen other parts of the building. We saw the lobby, there was two times. Two times, okay. In a weird Benny Hill bit. And then once when Frasier's dad was trying to get with... Cam Winston's mom. Yes. Okay. Good to know. There might have even been another time. Dang. Technically, the Cam Winston episode and the Segway episode were the same episode. Oh. It was A and B plot. Oh, okay. Well, well then. We've never been on this bench before, though. I think that's new. New bench. Yeah. When he's basically telling the kid to feel as bad as he does, essentially. And when he gives the line, Ruined your much anticipated evening. Like, he just slowly determines with himself that he's... Everything that he's projecting onto this child is his own feelings. That's another excellent example, like we talked about last episode, of how Frasier is able to self-reflect within a story, but not actually grow in the larger series. True. Yeah. Dead on. Yeah. Really insightful analysis. I was just thinking about how he talks about wanting to eat non-human brains in the elevator with the child. I marked that down as well, because I was curious. Like, I've never been anywhere where they were serving calf's brains. I mean, you've been to KFC, Ethan. Relax. The casualness with which he said, and he's like, I don't eat brains. Well, not human brains. I need to be honest with this child about the brains that I do eat. I'm certain it's a delicacy in places, but it was funny to watch him kind of go through like, I'll explain it. Oh, I probably shouldn't. I won't. Also, I was not aware until that scene about bournois sauce, however it's pronounced. I looked it up just to know, like, what is that? And it's basically cooking butter until it's so dark and brown that it's practically black. So, yeah, very, very deeply cooked butter on top of a cow's brain. Dummy. Ryan, I have some bad news. I did not prepare this dish to try on the pot. Come on. Come on. I would absolutely try it. I mean, I don't think it would be. Oh, you know what? I would try it. I'm just going to leave it at that. It's like a lot of meat things with brains and a lot of things where it's like, I don't want to be able to tell what it was. Yeah. You like the folds of the brain. I'm like, oh, OK. That's fair. Even if it was sufficiently processed, I feel like I just I'm not a big fan of organ meat. I mean, if you're going to describe it like that, sure. Just relax. It's all right. I mean, if you had beef tongue, it's really good. I actually have had that and it is OK. It's not my favorite, but it's OK. I mean, you can make it very good. And I'm certain you can make beef brain very good with as soon as you blacken some butter or whatever. I have nothing against using every part of it. When Frazier returns home, everyone is ready to give the game another go until a boorish, drunken Niles kills the mood. I don't think Niles killed the mood. OK, go on. I mean, Marty killed the mood. Niles was just doing an accurate, incorrect portrayal of his horrible dad. OK, here we go. So let's let's get into it. OK, first of all, everyone was starting to get less comfortable because clearly they could tell that it was not that Marty was not enjoying Niles making it so far. Niles was drunk. He was drinking beer, which he normally doesn't do. He also begins this scene. Frazier returns home to see Niles in a corner making out with Taffney. He's behaving very different from we normally see Niles. Why is he so hammered? Six beers isn't that many. He's a very thin man. We saw them put down like two leagues of wine each, like the most amount of wine you've ever seen anyone put down. OK, important missing factor here, though, is time. We do not know if this was over the course of three hours or one hour. Like we have no idea how long he's been drinking if I mean, it didn't seem like Frazier was gone for that long and he only had like maybe one beer when Frazier left. So I think he knocked down like five beers in like 20 minutes. All right. But it's a nonstandard can. Like Marty's definitely a Miller like guy or like, you know, maybe like a Budweiser guy if we're going to really amp it up. There's no way that those beers are that strong. Again, when you're used to drinking wine, he's used to sipping wine. I mean, I don't know how often he's like throwing them back. Again, I'm referring you back to when they were taste testing wines for the wedding and there was one million cups on their table. Well, again, we saw lots of bottles. We did not know how full those bottles were. But no one batted an eye or questioned why there were so many on a table. There are a number of things happening. One, it's a different alcohol than he's used to. He's had a lot of it. Lower percent, though. And he's been putting on this impression. So his brain is like drunk stupid, but he's still trying to juggle this thing in his head. I, yeah, I think he's getting pretty jumbled up. And everybody can tell that he's a mess. Yeah. I was taking too far. Marty put his foot down. I liked it the way he says, you're not going to put those words in my mouth. I will not be portrayed as some drunken, judgmental jackass. A nice turn in the scene. Like, I felt like they wrote it sharply so that when it gets serious, you know, you felt the impact. But it wasn't like whiplash. I got to give credit to both actors, Marty and Niles. Their actors crushed it in this episode, in this scene especially. I think Marty comes off pretty well. The best we I think we've ever seen him come off, honestly, which is good. Thankfully, we had the scallywag bit to offset things because I don't know. This is a different Marty than we've seen. And Niles is great. I mean, the way he handles it through getting scolded and then even after, I think really, really well done. I agree with you 100%. It was an impactful moment. Was anybody surprised we don't get the makeup, though? There is no scene where they have a heart-to-heart to make up. They just kind of imply it with Frasier's, like, he's your hero for a reason thing. Yeah. And I feel like David Hyde Pierce did a great job of acting sobered up by the moment as well. He had that drunk clarity moment that happens sometimes. I can tell you what happened after the scene, though. He walked in to go to apologize to his dad, threw up in his shoes, and then his dad was like, all right, whatever. Get out of here. You will not put these words in my mouth. This scene wraps up nicely with the callback to, you know, Frasier eating brains. He's trying to get the wig off of Niles. It's stuck too much spirit gum. And he's trying to get the wig off. And right as the children all arrive to trick-or-treat, and it looks like he's ripping a scalp off with a spoon. It's good. It's a very cleverly done bit. It's not the biggest we've ever seen, but I think it was a good one. I agree. They sprinkle it throughout and set it up without it feeling like, you know, it was a little shoehorn to be like, well, now we have to take this thing off or whatever. But it didn't make me feel like, oh, they're just doing this to get to the joke that I know is coming. Right. I mean, as soon as they reference it right, you know they're going to do something with it. Obviously, it's too weird and specific of a setup for it not to come back. And they definitely did a better job than I was anticipating. If you're really watching the scene, you can kind of tell that Kelsey Grammer, not Frasier, Frasier's trying to get the wig off. Kelsey Grammer is trying very daintily to not have the wig come off prematurely. The way he's like holding the spoon in his head. He's being very intentional to not actually rip it off. Yeah. I mean, no way to do that. Probably. Right. No, no. No, that's not a criticism. It's just a fun little bit of trivia. Unless you actually glued it to his head, right? Like, I don't know how you would do it. He was holding the spoon wrong, though, right? He was holding the spoon right side up, which is not why you would grab a spoon in that moment. It's a weird utensil to go to, I think. Like, I'm not saying you should have used a knife, obviously. But it does feel weird that he's like, the first thing I should think of is a spoon. That's what I'm going to use. All right, Curt, what's your first instinct? What are you grabbing? Wait, Curt, this is an emergency situation. He has to apologize to his dad. For some reason, I'm thinking of a ruler. I'm grabbing the Goo Gone. Goo Gone's a good move. I don't want a physical object to pry it open. Ethan, you're not aware of this. We've seen in the past, they don't have an ability to remove goo naturally. This has been a problem that's plagued us before. Well, Frasier plays this out with Eddie attacking Niles' toy version of Eddie. Do you feel it was really aggressive for Daphne to be vacuuming right after the party of six people? I mean, when your employer asks you to, it seemed like, oh, you get to go to a party and then clean up after it, even though it was all Frasier's idea. I mean, we couldn't do a next day vacuum. It had to be that night. I'm on board with the idea that Daphne shouldn't be cleaning at all. But I got to tell you, I have cleaned up after a party. The last time we had people over, it ended early enough that we were like, let's just clean up. It was great. We woke up the next morning. Everything was put away. It was really nice. It's kind of nice to do it right after. Okay, yeah. Throw in parties, clean up after. Great, Curt. Did you vacuum? When I lived alone, and my husband will vacuum, like, weekly. Pretty good. I thought once every six months was an appropriate cadence. Now having kids and vacuuming every minute of my life, yeah, once a fiscal is probably fine. Well, Ethan, did you think this was a good one? Yeah, it's a good one. Do you have any rating for it? Move on. No, Curt, move on. Read the room. Yeah, I would say this one was not my hero, but it was... Oh, oh, Ethan, which costume would you give it? Oh, I'll give it the Elton John, because it had potential, but could have gone even further. Okay. And it confused you a bit. You're saying it looked good, but the accent was not very accurate. Just lean into the accent. That's all I'm... And everything she said was bananas, right? So I think that's a really good comp. Nailed it. This is another episode, and I feel like most episodes are going to fall into this camp of being somewhere in the middle. It's not the best. It's not the worst. I ranked this 28 out of 77, which is on the high side. And I honestly, as we were discussing it, I was like, oh, yeah, when we get to that, it's going to be on the lower side, right? It's not. It's on the higher side. So who knows what I'm doing? But I like this better than Match Game with Laura Linney, but I would rather watch the most recent one we saw, Junior Agent with Kristen Chenoweth. All right. I mean, I think Match Game is a good comp. I don't think this belongs next to Junior Agent, but I think they are close-ish. So because you think Junior Agent is a lot better or a lot worse? Yeah, I think this is better. I think this is the best episode we've seen of this season. I think visually it's great. They smash it visually. For Ethan, your sake, terrible season still, right? Like, we've had some decent episodes, but all in all, just a trash season. But you're saying this tops Blazy Boy for you. Yes. Things are still trending upward now. Yes. I think Blazy Boy slides slightly in the wake of this episode. And I think there are 26 episodes between this and Blazy Boy. You're a psychopath. It's fine. Right. But they've apparently traded good episodes for mediocre tossed salad. That's fine. This is where I feel more comfortable because this tossed salad is garbage. Absolutely. This might be the worst one of the season. But the episode, probably the best one of the season, I think. It's at least close. Junior Agent is probably my second. So. Or Blazy Boy. I don't know. But I gave this an 8-1. Again, visually great. The storyline, for the most part, made sense. The only issue is really Frasier forcing everyone to have a bad time. Other than that, I thought everything was pretty good. Okay. In this episode, Frasier has invented a game everyone hates. And we're going to play it. It's hero worship. That's great. Usually, I have to explain so much in my setup. And this one, Frasier has done all the light work for me. Yes, yes. I took the liberty of jotting down a few reminders and regulations for your edification. Well, so what are we doing? Okay, so let's start just by going around and we'll each name who our hero is. Who have we dressed up as tonight? Ryan, why don't you go first? I've dressed up as George Dempster. Uh, okay. And that would be? American hero, George Robbie Dempster. Do I have to explain it? Won't that come up during the questions? Also, don't you guys just know him? I don't know who that is. I've never heard of him. Oh, Curt. Okay. Debbie Dempster? What was it? George Dempster. And you've gotten to the right issue. Have you heard of the Dempster? No. George Dempster invented the dumpster. Also, Dumpster is a brand name. Did you know that? I think I did know that. I'm glad to know it now. Thank you. I feel like I want more for me. Why is he your hero? I'm sorry. Do you love trash? Do you just wish trash was everywhere? Because I guess you can, uh, I guess you hate George Dempster if that's the case. He's the reason we don't have trash everywhere. Well, I just want to know what brought this to mind. He invented the dumpster, Curt. Look, Ryan, I think you need to stay within bounds of Curtis's vision for this game, okay? Sorry. Should we be picking a hero that aligns with what Curt thinks is a hero? Ethan, if we make him mad, he'll leave. We should really push for this. I just would like to know a little bit, like, where did this come from? I don't understand. So you like trash? It's not that. No, no, no. Like, I could be like, for me, it's John Crapper because I want to celebrate indoor plumbing. That's a very good answer. Right, but I didn't think of it because that's not what I think of when I think of heroes. What made you think of him? Is he somebody you've learned a lot about in the past? Did you Google this? Like, who invented the dumpster? Of course. Of course I did. And it was John Dumpster. And I was surprised how close the name was to the product. It's important to note, Ryan, that your hero? Not a woman. Well, I don't know. I don't know if the women have got into trash yet. I don't know. Let's get rolling. I want to get into some garbage. I just know the dumpster did. He also made the dump master, Curt. So there's that. Well, tell you what, I'm going to go next, actually, because my hero is a woman. Whoa. Cool. Cool. You get a medal for being not sexist. I don't know what to tell you, Curt. She was a pioneer in small local government trash collection. That's right. Is that real? It's Leslie Knope. Oh. She is a woman who, in one of the episodes of Parks and Rec, she became a trash collector to prove a point about women being trash collectors. And you understand everything she did was all on the back of George Dumpster. I don't need your sarcasm right now. All right. Well, Ethan, what trash-related person did you pick? We have a dumpster man. We have a fictional character. And I chose Jim Lovell. Oh. The astronaut most famously known as the captain of Apollo 13. As portrayed by Tom Hanks. I had a number of people I was considering. I went with Leslie Knope Larson because Ryan brought up trash. On my list was John Glenn. Hmm. I've never seen Apollo 13 and I only know the big three astronauts. So I don't know who you're talking about. Hold up. You've never seen Apollo 13? You need to sit down and watch yourself Apollo 13. I like that you're not worried about the history aspect. You're like, you just need to see this movie. Oh, I don't know. I don't even want to play this game anymore. I want to spend the rest of this just watching this movie with you. Just bring normal, fellas. I have the DVD and I will send it to you because it is a great movie. One of the best. I do. It is one of my favorite movies. Sorry, real quick. Could you also send me a DVD player? Because my Xbox got stolen. Oh, shoot. There was a Boy Scout leadership training thing every summer. And on one of the nights, we would watch Apollo 13 and then have a discussion about leadership. I'm sorry. Were you leading this effort? It was part of the program. And I did. I was on the staff at some point for it. The way you described this thing, it made it sound like this was part of a yearly curriculum. Did you watch it every year or is this just something that happened once? Oh, OK. So it was specifically a like week long leadership course within Boy Scouts that like troops would send kids to so they could learn skills to come back and lead their troops to whatever. I went through it and then I was on staff for it. And it was an annual tradition that we would watch Apollo 13 and have a discussion about leadership. But you've seen Apollo 13 like a bazillion times. Quite a few number of times. Yes. It's very rewatchable. It is. And Tom Hanks does a great job portraying him. And based on what I've seen of Jim Lovell, he seems like a lovely guy. Tom Hanks does a good job portraying everyone. Well, sure, sure, sure. Just to recap, we've got Inventor of the Dumpster, local government in a fictional town. And we've got Tom Hanks. So moving forward, let's get to... Oh, yeah, there's a game, right? I thought we were just sharing people we like. For the inaugural question. In the first game ever of Hero Worship, copyright Fraser Crane, boilerplate, boilerplate. As your hero, please share your reaction to the Human Genome Project, not only as a scientific venture, but as a regulatory challenge to governments, foreign and domestic. Makes sense that you went this route. Who's going first? I mean, you volunteered by talking, right? Ah, yeah, I think it's total garbage. I don't... I'm not buying any of this genome crap... Trash. Is he from Boston? Uh... No, he's from Knoxville, Tennessee. Why are you doing that accent? No one has a Tennessee accent. I don't even know what it is. What do you mean, no one has a Tennessee accent? Let's hear it. I'm saying that there are humans with it. I'm not saying... Let's hear it, Pigeon Forge. I can't do a good... Let's see. Knoxville. There you go. No, do the accent first, and then I'll tell you if it was good. Oh, I'm from Knoxville. Knoxville. Yeah, it gets Alabama real quick, doesn't it? Well, you know, some are in the hills, some are in swamps. I don't know. What do they call it in Alabama? Prairies? What do they got in Alabama? No one knows. Literally, all I know is they have golf courses. That's it. I don't know why I know that. Most places do, at least in this country. Apparently, Bama's got some extra ones. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. All right, I'll try a Knoxville accent, I guess. Do yours again? Do the way you said Knoxville again? I'll just imitate that. I'm from Knoxville. I'm from Knoxville. Yeah, I think the genome project is trash. And real good garbage trash, Curt. Sorry, who are you again? I don't think it's trash at all. Oh, you're Mickey Mouse. That's right. No, I don't think it's trash. I think that it's an amazing thing. It's a wonderful thing that's bringing all sorts of wonderful improvements to life and science. And it's something that we're going to be really excited about. We're going to have so much uses for it. And I'm just so excited, excited, excited. That's fucking effort there, Curt. Ethan, what did Tom Hanks say? Who's Ethan? I'm Captain Jim Lovell. You're going to tell me this is a good accent or not because I didn't see the movie. I don't have to do an accent because he's from Cleveland. Oh, okay. There's a weird amount of people from Ohio that are like, I got to get into space. Fuck this planet. I'm going to say you should be doing like a Catherine Hall accent. But I was in the command module of 08, along there with Frank Borman and William Anders and everyone else on my Wikipedia page, orbiting the moon for the first time. I was on the precipice of discovery. And that's what I think of the Human Genome Project. Zowie. Ooh. I love how my only way to imitate Leslie Knope is to talk faster. And your only way to imitate John Lovell is to talk slower. I like the Zowie though. It didn't feel right, but I liked it. That I did borrow from him. When they gave Tom Hanks the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, Jim Lovell came out to do some sort of little speech to honor him. And he says, I got to do this and that. And then I got to be played on the big screen by Tom Hanks. Zowie. So I've internalized that. So have I. It's pretty good. Zowie. Who else has a question they'd like to ask our heroes? I can ask. Great. Let's say one man's trash is another man's treasure. What's your favorite piece of trash? You've left Alabama and headed to New Orleans. I was going to say. This power is wielded. If you've ever seen Toy Story 4, I was doing the bear. Toy Story 3. Sorry. Toy Story 3. Yeah. Lots of. I was doing lots of. I was going to say, isn't that Kelsey Grammer? But no, that was from. He was in the second one. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I was sorry. I was distracted by your accent. What was the question? What's your favorite piece of trash ever collected? Well, I think that the trash that I actually did collect out of the river of Pawnee was the most rewarding because I cleaned up the river and provided for my community and got something important done. It's amazing how much trash overlap there actually is with Leslie. It works really well. And how about you, Spice? It might have said a bucket of bolts that we were surviving in on Apollo 13 after the accident left us almost stranded in space. I might have called that piece, that a bunch of trash. But as my mother said in one of the scenes in the movie Apollo 13, if they could make a washing machine fly, I could land it. I love that John Lovell is. It's Jim Lovell. You said John twice. Yeah. You're thinking of John Lovell. Yeah, that's it, ticket. Jim Lovell, I love that your version of him is him quoting his mother, but the on-screen mother, not his actual mother. I don't know what she said or something. Ethan, would you like to ask a question? I mean, the question I did mark down for this was the Human Geno Project. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it's under. You stepped in it. How about this? How do you describe your perfect day? I describe it as trash-free thanks to the Dumpster Dumpster. Let me tell you, folks, this thing works like a beaut. I love he's still in salesman mode. There ain't no more to trash. That's dumpster with a D. It drives with a T, and that stands for trouble. It was an incredibly successful, Curt. Immediately upon making the dumpster, it was a worldwide phenomenon. Well, my day starts at 4 a.m., and then by 5 o'clock, I am already halfway through my morning tasks. I'll speed it up on better. Oh, is that it? Your perfect day is at 5 a.m. My perfect day starts at 4 a.m. I get up. I get ready. I get out the door. And by 4.12, I am already at work plugging away at the important business of punny. Throughout the day, I will be doing all kinds of important things to help the country. And by 2 a.m., I'm finally ready to go to bed. Oh. Oh. I don't... Leslie wouldn't. She's not up past nine. I think she is famously a very... Gets very little sleep. She's got a scrapbook for her friend. Yeah. Yeah. If I was better at this, I would have had all kinds of scrapbooking mixed into that. I mean, I know you do. You should have had Parks and Rec scrapbooking ready to go. Leslie has a question. Okay. Leslie may speak. The woman may speak. Can't tell if we're asking these questions as ourselves or as the characters. It seems like we're asking them as the characters, which I was not prepared for. All right. Speak for the lady, Curt. Please. If you were to meet your hero, what would they think of you? This is a tough one. I'm going to tell you, this is a really tough question. What era is he from? He is from the 1800s. So he would just think you're magic. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, however this conversation is going down is crazy anyway, but yeah, it would be tough. Probably be like prejudiced against you being Irish. No, famously not prejudiced at all. He actually hired the first black person for something, I read. He hired the first African-American civil service secretary and supported desegregation. So suck it, Curt. Idiot. Okay. Okay. Also, oh, guess what? He also was really cool to handicap people and blind people. You know what? You know what, Curt? I don't have heroes. I am heroes. And this is definitely the accent I've held the whole time. Knoxville. Reporting out. Very mid-Atlantic. Did you address how you would react to Ryan Sansone? No, no. Dempster didn't have any heroes. He was the hero. Yeah. What was your question? My question is, how does Dempster react to Ryan Sansone if he was to meet Ryan Sansone? I missed. Is that what you asked? What would that even mean? Oh, oh, you're saying how would he react if he met me? Yeah. This is like a very straightforward question. It's exactly how you asked it before. If your hero was to meet you, what would they think of you? Oh, I've been the hero the whole time, so that's very confusing. Okay. I got you. Okay. I didn't know that when I wrote the question. Yeah. Throw him in the dumpster. The Dempster dumpster. Because he is trash. And guess what? It's very easy to dump with our patented dump master. The first ever front-loaded garbage truck. This is very confusing because he goes from being this humanitarian who really was not prejudiced at all to kind of a psychopath who's going around murdering people just to sell the capabilities of his dumpster. I didn't say it. No one got murdered. I just got thrown in the trash. Oh, it was playful throwing you in the trash. It was fun. It was a fun bit of fun. I guess there were no hydraulics in this age. You didn't. It wasn't going to crush you. There was a mechanism to push it out through the back door. But yeah, I don't think it compacted the trash. I mean, this is the first one ever. You know, there was a lot to. The fact that they could get one over the front of the truck is incredible. Mr. Lovitz? It stinks. I would say, or sorry, Captain Jim Lovell would say, whoa, Zowie, another Ohio Eagle Scout. Let's talk about how great Tom Hanks is, huh? Let's give this young boy a patch as he tussles your hair. If I got a patch from Jim Lovell, ooh, I'd let him tussle my hair for sure. Groom me, Mr. Lovell. I can tell you that I would let him tussle my hair was the most sexual thing that's been said on this pod to date. The grooming line was fine. Do we have any other questions to ask of our heroes? It's very clear we don't, but I think we could figure something out. Okay, here you go. What would y'all do if he got the typhoid? I have a good idea. Yeah, I know what Mr. Dempster would do with typhoid. Do you? Do you now? Yeah. I think he might throw it in the trash. No, you know what he would actually do? He would literally go and argue with the world's foremost expert on dealing with typhoid fever and say, you don't know how to do it. Did he know how to do it? He lived. I don't know what to tell. He invented the dumpster after having typhoid fever. You tell me. You tell me, Curt. No, I won't tell you. That's not how reading. I don't have Wikipedia up and you do. You don't have Wikipedia. I don't pay $3 every year out of guilt. If I got typhoid, I would spend some serious time going through my three ring binders because I have four of them that go through all of the steps for how to manage different types of illnesses. Specifically, typhoid is part AB of section three of binder four. So I would go through it. I would check all the steps. I would get all the treatments done. And obviously, I would go to my hero, Ann Perkins, because she is the greatest nurse of all time. And she would be able to take perfect care of me. Now, I think you're one of those later folk that don't get enough of the rest. So I don't believe you would treat it in any manner or fashion. I think you would succumb to the typhoid. I was in space. Do you think I fear your earthly diseases? I was face to face with the moon himself. You were space to face. Oh, good one. Well, that was a thing we did. Ryan, why don't you tell us the thing we're going to do next week when we cover the previous episode. It's season nine, episode five. Love stinks. So this is right up your alley with your theme for the night. I'd throw it in the dumpster. It stinks. Frazier falls head over heels for a smelly melly named Deborah. Okay. When you say smelly melly, you mean he's going to be dating a woman with B.O.? Some sort of smell that's uncouth. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know where. Was that named Deborah or debris? I said Deborah. Debris. Oh, that's fun. I like that. I love the delayed reaction on that. I was answering the question of face value at first. I was like, oh, he's making a joke. All right. You mean it's space value. I'm still coming down from space. I don't know. I don't have to tell you. Well, we'll find out if that's what happens next week. That's going to do it for us. Thanks to Ethan for joining us again. I think you mean Captain Jim Luggle. Yes. Thank you, John Lovitz. Zowie. Thanks to Gavin McLeod for our theme music and thank you for listening. I suppose you don't really care if this podcast is successful. You would never take five minutes out of your precious day to go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. You don't use Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, or TikTok. You aren't curious what happens if you search for Reverse Psych Pod. Lord knows you can't be bothered to shoot us an email at reversepsychpod at gmail.com. For myself, for Ryan, and for Ethan, you're welcome. So the wrap-up is a lot of fun, I think. We get, uh, is that the biggest... Don't just jump right past... Wait, are you saying the wrap-up to this scene? Yeah, I'm talking about the scalping. I don't know why I thought you were going to the next scene. Sorry. There is no next scene. Okay. Okay.