Frasier Season 2 Serves Up A Delicious Nod To Niles That You May Have Missed

Contains spoilers for "Frasier" Season 2, Episode 1 — "Ham"

Call it the Massachusetts garbage disposal massacre. In the inaugural episode of the second season of the "Frasier" reboot, poor David Crane (Anders Keith) just wants to prove to his uncle that he's mature enough to go to Cameroon to spend the summer tagging chimpanzees. His uncle pooh-poohs the notion. David becomes determined to show his responsibility off, and the perfect opportunity presents itself when the extremely expensive Jamón Ibérico Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) has ordered from Spain arrives. Unfortunately, his attempts to help summarily result in the ham being stuck legbone-down in a garbage disposal — not to mention the ruined cake and shattered pitcher of sangria. Luckily for David, however, Frasier and his friend Alan Cornwall (Nicholas Lyndhurst) are too upset about their fight over his cousin Freddy's (Jack Cutmore-Scott) loyalties that they can't stop bickering. Forgiveness ultimately arrives even for David, who pries the ham free of the garbage disposal and serves it up. It apparently tastes heavenly, in spite of everything it's been through. 

If David's antics seem a little familiar, then you're probably remember that David's father, Niles (David Hyde Pierce) had his own disastrous day during "Three Valentines" from Season 6 of the original series. During that entirely silent segment, Niles' attempt at ironing his pants results in injury, humiliation, and several small fires. The clumsiness that connects father and son is pretty clear here, but Niles isn't the only Crane who's bad with an oven.

Though David's dad is a fairly big slouch in the kitchen, the entire Moon-Crane side of the family line might be suffering from a culinary curse. It was a long-running gag on the original "Frasier" that Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves) is utterly talentless in the kitchen and cannot cook to save her life. Her attempt at helping Frasier and Niles launch a restaurant turns into a disaster and some of the most dire dinner parties Frasier ever put together were made worse by Daphne's poor cooking skills. Fortunately, her physical therapy skills have proven to be quite superior to anything she could do with a fondue pot. 

While David's biggest problem doesn't have much to do with cooking, it's probably wise for him to stay far, far away from any blenders, ovens, sharp knives or other cooking elements, no matter how good the ham he ultimately serves is.