Looking back on it, Frasier was a truly unique show: it was the most successful spin-off ever, lasting as many seasons (11) as Cheers. The show (mostly) never dumbed down its comedy for the audience, yet remained a critical and commercial success on primetime Thursday's for the majority of its run. It made Kelsey Grammar a star, despite allowing him to sing its theme song. All six main characters (including dog Eddie) stayed with the show for its entire series, while another main character (Maris) was never seen. Oh, and the show had countless "secret" celebrity guest cameos.
It's a well-known secret that we (and we imagine many others) never knew about: the radio station's caller lines were spoken by anonymous voice-over actors while filming in front of an audience, and then overdubbed in post-production by celebrities (they often literally called-in their parts). The end credits of season finales showed headshots of all the celebrities who had "called in" that season. It became a fun game for some to try to guess who the caller-of-the week was.
So who called in? Here's the list of people in the above clip (which leaves out a ton of celebs, including Jeff Daniels, Mel Brooks, John Malkovich and many others): Christopher Reeve, Ben Stiller, Eddie Van Halen, Elijah Wood, Malcolm McDowell, Art Garfunkel, Kevin Bacon, Macaulay Culkin, Gary Sinese, John Lithgow, Matthew Broderick, Carrie Fisher, Billy Crystal, Ed Harris, Ray Liotta, Jodie Foster, David Duchovny, John Cusack, Cindy Crawford, Halle Berry, Ron Howard, John McEnroe, William H Macy, Gillian Anderson, Daryl Hannah, John Turturro, Laura Linney, Bill Paxton, Helen Mirren, Stanley Tucci, Penny Marshall, Estelle Parsons, and Hilary Duff.
