Martin Does In His Way Written by
Directed by
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Production Code: 3.3.
Original Airdate on NBC:
Transcript written on 17th December 1999
Quotes & Scene Summary {nicholas hartley}
Act One.
Scene One - KACL.
Frasier is approaching his last caller of the day.
Frasier: Well, we have time for one more caller. Roz?
Roz: We have Ed on line three.
Frasier: Hello, Ed, I'm listening. [no answer] Ed? [no answer] Ed?
Well, we seem to have lost Ed. Let's take another caller. On
line four we have.... Roz?
Roz has begun eating and cannot talk because she has a mouth full.
Frasier: Roz?
Roz takes some milk but she still cannot eat it quickly enough.
Frasier: We have....
Roz decides to mime. So she points to her eye.
Frasier: Eye.
Roz leans to the left.
Frasier: Lean. [then:] Oh, Eileen. Hello Eileen, I'm listening.
Eileen: [v.o:] Dr. Crane, I've been very happily married for twenty
years and I wouldn't dream of cheating but lately when we're
making love I find myself fantasising about people... other
than my husband.
Frasier: Well, that's perfectly normal. It's quite to spice up one's
love life by imagining a trist with oh, a sport's figure of
a movie star or...
Eileen: Or a radio psychiatrist?
Frasier: Excuse me?
Eileen: It's your voice, Dr. Crane. You must have the most sensuous
voice on earth.
Frasier: [putting on a sensuous voice:] Oh, I don't know Eileen.
Eileen: I've never seen your picture. Would you mind describing
yourself.
Frasier: Oh, well I don't really think that's appropriate...
Roz: I'll do it.
Frasier: Roz, I don't think...
Roz: He's about six' one, with a granite jaw and the broad
shoulders of a marine. He's been wearing his hair short
lately but that only accentuates his colbate blue eyes, his
chiseled cheek bones and his full provocative lips.
Eileen: Wow! Thanks Roz, and thank you Dr. Crane; I'll be thinking
of you tonight. With any luck: twice! [hangs up]
Frasier: Well, this is Dr. Frasier Crane feeling a little red in his
chiseled cheeks. Till tomorrow then, this is KACL 780 AM.
[signs off air]
As Frasier presses a button Roz enters his booth and goes to the tape
deck.
Frasier: Roz, that was quite a flattering description. You know just
out of curiousity: Were you just helping that lady with her
fantasy or do you really see me that way?
Roz: [freezes then:] You really don't know do you? Frasier, I'm
so attracted to you, I always have been.
She starts to get closer to him.
Roz: Your looks, your voice...
She begins to stradel him and bend him backwards on his chair.
Roz: You don't know how many times I've wanted to strip naked and
hurl myself at that glass partition like a bug on a
windshield.
Frasier: Are you through?
Roz: [slaps his head:] Well ask a stupid question.
She gets off of him and goes back to the tape deck as Frasier sorts
his briefcase out.
Frasier: All right Roz, I will see you tomorrow.
Roz: Hey, aren't you going to the staff meeting?
Frasier: No, no, no, just tell them that my aunt died. I'm off to her
lawyers now, she put me in charge of her memorial.
Roz: I'm so sorry.
Frasier: Oh, don't be, she was a dreadful old harpee. Life around was
her was miserable.
Roz: That should look nice on her headstone.
Frasier: Well, I don't mean any disrespect but you know, the entire
time I knew her she never said anything to me that wasn't
scornful, derising or contemptuous.
Roz: So how come she made you in charge of her memorial.
Frasier: I was her favourite!
Scene Two - Frasier's Apartment.
Daphne is cutting Martin's hair at the dinner table whilst he reads
the paper. Niles and Frasier enter with bags and they ad-lib
greetings. Frasier notices Eddie rolling on the couch.
Frasier: Dad, I thought we had an agreement. Eddie doesn't roll
around on the sofa and I don't throw him in front of a bus!
Niles: Hello Daphne.
Daphne: Oh, hello Dr. Crane. Will you be joining us for dinner?
Niles: If it's not too much trouble. It's Maris' night to host her
book club and they are more comftable not having a man
there.
Frasier: Yes, apparently Niles makes the ladies self-concious.
Niles: Well, I sat in on the last discussion and Mrs. Esterbrook
Kindred developed a facial tick everytime she had to say the
word "Balszack".
Martin: So how did it go with Aunt Louise's lawyer? Did you get all
the fads and affairs straightened out?
Niles: Ask her yourself.
Niles places her urn on the table. This causes Eddie to run off down
the corridor to Martin's room.
Frasier: Apparently, it was Aunt Louise's wish that Niles dispose of
her ashes.
Niles: Now the pressures on me to find the perfect place for her to
rest for eternity. I haven't the faintest idea what to do
with her.
Martin: Why don't you just flush her down the toilet?
Daphne: Mr. Crane, you're can't do that!
Martin: Why not? She loved the water.
Niles: Oh, oh, that's it: the beach. Oh, no, no, she hated seagulls
and vice-versa. [then:] Oh, oh, oh.. no! [then:] It doesn't
matter where I pick, you know it's not going to be good
enough. Whatever I did she always found felt. Remember when
I used to mow her lawn?
Frasier: Yes, what about the Christmas tree I bought her.
Niles: The ash tray I made at camp.
Frasier: [immitating her:] Is that the best you can do? It wobbles!
Niles: [to urn:] I wish I had that ash tray now!
Martin: So when's the memorial service?
Frasier: It's two weeks after tomorrow. Lucky lucky me, her last
request was that I deliver the eulogy.
Daphne: Oh come on now, you can handle it. You just stand up there
and say a few nice things.
Frasier: There aren't any!
Daphne: Then just make them up. Everyone lies a little in eulogies.
Frasier: No Daphne, I refuse to invent virtues the woman didn't have.
I'll just have to find something good I can honestly say
about her.
Martin: [stands:] Good luck! She was nothing but a crabby, tight
fisted old pain. All she ever did was sit around that house
day after day watching TV. She kept that same old cruddy
furniture all her life.
Martin sits down in his old chair in front of the box prompting Niles
and Frasier to give a stare at each other. Martin notices and
inquires "What?" but Niles and Frasier just skate round the issue and
sit on the sofa.
Niles: Oh, remember how she always used to complain about the
winters?
Martin: Oh yeah, every year she was going to take a trip to the
south pacific. It was her big dream. But would she spend the
money? Nooooo. She just sat around whining all the time
about how she'd like to be in a warmer climate.
Frasier: My guess is she finally made it.
Daphne: [hinting:] I think it would be terribly bad to go through
life having a secret dream and never forfilling it. You'd
never do anything silly like that would you Mr. Crane?
Martin: What're you talking about?
Daphne: Oh, I don't know. Perhaps a little something involving a
certain shoe box you keep hidden.
Frasier: Shoe box?
Martin: Forget it, it's not important.
Daphne: Oh, fine if you don't want to talk about it, don't talk
about it. It's only something you've given over thirty years
of your life to.
Martin: Hey, I didn't tell you that so you can go around blabbing it
to everyone.
Frasier: Tell us, dad, what's in the shoe box?
Martin: Nothing, all right.
Everyone starts encouraging Martin to tell everyone so he does.
Martin: It's just some songs I wrote... for Frank Sinatra.
Daphne: And he keeps them in his shoe box.
Martin: I think your work here is done.
Daphne darts off down the corridor to Martin's room.
Martin: Your mother and I used to listen to Sinatra all the time. I
know most of his songs by heart. I guess I got it into my
head one day that I'd try to write a song myself. I'd be at
the station house or on a steak out, I'd get an idea and
pretty soon I had a shoe box full. I used to imagine your
mother and I seeing Frank in the sands in Vegas and he'd
open the show with one of my songs.
Frasier: Oh gee, dad, why did you never tell us about this?
Martin: Because it is stupid. They were no good...
Niles: Oh...
Martin: And don't bother to ask, I'm not letting you see 'em.
Daphne rushes in with the shoe box.
Daphne: Here they are. Just like I told you, in his shoe box.
Niles: [reads:] "You are the song my soul would sing"
Frasier: Very poetic.
Niles: [reads:] "You make my heart go ring-a ding-ding.
Martin: That was during Frank's ring-a-ding period.
Frasier: Lord, this shoe box is full of them. [reads:] "I didn't mean
to hurt her, she made me lose my mind".
Martin: Hey lemme see that! [reads then:] No, that's just some
confession I took from a guy. The lyrics are on the back.
Anyway, I never finished them. They were never any good.
Well except this. I gotta admit this has got Frank Sinatra
written all over it.
Niles: [reads:] "She's such a groovy lady".
Martin: It's still got that nice contemporary sound.
Daphne: So, why don't you send it to old blue eyes?
Martin: No, they're just words scribbled on a piece of paper. The
tunes in my head I don't know how to write it down.
Frasier: Well, Niles and I do. You've got the tune in your head, why
don't you let us write it down for you.
They begin arguing over this and Martin decides it's a bad idea. So,
Daphne is tactical.
Daphne: Oh, you're wasting your breath trying to convince him to do
something.
Frasier: Dad, come on. [he refuses:] Yeah, you're probably right. You
just sit there night after night watching TV until the time
finally comes when we collect your ashes and scatter them
over that chair where they'll probably go unnoticed.
Martin: [realising:] All right, okay.
Niles and Frasier are overjoyed and run to the piano. Niles sits down
claiming he'll be sitting at the piano, however Frasier isn't too
happy about this. Martin goes up near to the piano and they begin.
Martin: Okay, so boys, the way I'm hearing the intro. It goes
something like this.
Martin shouts a weird noise mixed with bwobbety-bwas, scobba-doobas,
and finishing an unearthly noise sounding like "bwaaaaaa!"
Niles: Of course, it is your piano.
Niles stands up, however Frasier pushes him back into his seat
realising after all he ended up with the best job.
End Of Act One.
Act Two.
Scene One - Frasier's Apartment.
Niles is at the piano. Frasier is stood up behind him and Martin is
sat on a high chair by the piano. Niles is playing the conclusion to
the song.
Martin: No, no, it goes: Groovy lady of mine, ba-ba-ba-bap-bam-ba-a-
aaa-a-a-a!
Niles: Like: [plays something along those lines]
Martin: No, no, come on, this is the big finish. Ba-ba-bap-bam-ba-a-
aaa-a-a-a!
