A few hours ago, I got to photograph the punch line to a joke. How often does that happen? Not enough, as in never before.
My favorite television comedy series is Cheers. It's hard to believe the first episode of the series aired for the first time in 1982. Next month is the thirtieth anniversary.
Yesterday was also the birthday of Shelley Long, who played Diane Chambers in the first five years of Cheers. She left the show when her contract ended, but returned for the finale of the series.
By the way, Shelley Long has the same birthday as wilderness photographer Galen Rowell. I wrote my tribute to him last year here.
I wasn't thinking about birthdays when I took an afternoon walk through Walnut Creek this afternoon, but that's where I photographed a punch line to one of the best jokes on Frasier. It was an episode in season three, "The Show Where Diane Comes Back."
Diane Chambers arrives unannounced at Frasier Crane's radio station when he's on the air. Frasier hasn't seen Diane for years, and would be happy never to relive the memory of being ditched by her at their wedding ceremony.
Under pressure from the show producer, Roz Doyle, Frasier invites Diane over for dinner.
Diane shows up at the Crane family home.
She tells everybody at the table about living at her Malibu beach house. It's a special life, and she's special, and they're not.
Diane describes a magical moment at Malibu. She spotted a pod of whales just off-shore and had to "...commune with these gentle giants..."
She scrambled for her kayak and started paddling into the surf.
But just then, Diane's kayak was tangled up in an enormous growth of...of....
She can't find the word. It's on the tip of her tongue and the tips of her fingers.
Niles gives her the missing word.
Diane repeats the word and starts to resume her story about the whales and the kayak.
But Martin Crane has his own interpretation of the word,
"That's funny, I thought he said Seek help."
It got a big laugh. The audience members appreciated the way a benign word had been twisted just a bit to create a verbal harpoon.
Diane isn't amused, and now she wonders if Niles did tell her, "Seek help."
So, what is the magical word I photographed today, the one that rhymes perfectly with "Seek help," the one I instantly connected to this episode when I found it in Walnut Creek?
"Seek help," according to Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and the episode's writer, Christopher Lloyd.
I never saw a single episode of Frasier when the original series aired. I didn't have a television back then, but now it's easy to watch online at Amazon's instant video site.
And I remember doing the count last year when I watched the episode for the first time. S-E-A-K-E-L-P. Seven letters. Yeah, "sea kelp" would fit on a plate.
And it has.
© 2012 by J.M. Clarke. All Rights Reserved