‘A Cranes' Critique’
Season 4, Episode 4 - Aired October 22, 1996
Frasier and Niles are dumbstruck when Martin befriends a brilliant and reclusive author who published just one book.
Quote from Niles
Frasier: Houghton has a new book?
Niles: I've lost the feeling in my legs! [Niles tries to grab hold of Martin's cane.]
Quote from Frasier
Niles: Dad! You have to skip the game. It's not just for our benefit. After all, it's baseball. The man must be starved for intellectual stimulation.
Martin: Oh, I know what you're saying. That someone like that would have to prefer spending time with you instead of some dumbbell like me.
Frasier: Dad, you're not dumb. You miss the point entirely!
Quote from Niles
Frasier: So you two boys are off to the baseball game, huh? Double header.
Niles: That's two games!
T.H. Houghton: Yeah.
Niles: Little known fact about baseball: the owner of the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees to finance a Broadway musical, "No No Nanette".
T.H. Houghton: ... You ready, Marty?
Quote from Frasier
Frasier: No No Nanette!
Niles: I'm sorry. There are exactly two things that I could possibly add to a baseball conversation. That, and... No, just the one.
Quote from Niles
Niles: Frasier.
Frasier: Yes.
Niles: Have you noticed how Houghton always carries a satchel with him wherever he goes?
Frasier: Well, actually as a matter of fact I have.
Niles: And didn't Dad mention that Houghton was on his way to his publisher's after the game with a new manuscript?
Frasier: Yes.
Niles: And would that be the very same satchel, which is now resting under my head?
Frasier: Oh, my God!
Quote from Martin
Martin: Boy, I've had it with you guys. If you were "Hoss" and Little Joe, Ben Cartwright would kick your sorry butts right off the Ponderosa.
Quote from Niles
Frasier: Well, we've destroyed a man's life.
Niles: Not to mention depriving future generations of a work of art.
Frasier: Well, you know on the other hand, had he actually published it the critics surely would have noticed that Dante parallel.
Niles: Hmm. If he felt bad hearing it from us, imagine how he would have felt reading it in the "New York Review of Books."
Frasier: Oh God, yes. With his fragile ego he probably would have been completely devastated.
Niles: Who knows what he might have done?
Frasier: Do you know, Niles, we saved that man's life.
Niles: Yes, I think you're right. ... On the other hand...
Frasier: Don't go there.
Niles: See, that's why you're the older brother.