ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512050008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
Niles Crane is in a panic.
Maris is missing.
And that's cause for alarm. And laughs, as anyone who's a fan of NBC's ``Frasier'' will realize after watching the recent episode, ``The Last Time I Saw Maris.''
We've heard a lot about Maris, Niles' severely blue-blooded wife.
We know her well, in fact.
We've just never seen her.
Apparently, Niles (David Hyde Pierce) doesn't get to spend much time with her either, which is why it takes him about 72 hours before he realizes something is amiss and calls his brother Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) for help.
She is quickly found, traced through credit-card records on the other side of the country in New York, where it turns out she's been on a Cartier-caliber shopping spree.
The event - with counseling from Niles' brother and fellow shrink Frasier - leads to marital disaster and the possible end of Maris.
But let's hope not.
Like so many of TV's unseen stars, Maris is one of our most beloved characters, someone we're free to color in the way we choose, a figure who adds mystery, imagination, an X-factor to the show.
Remember ``The Millionaire,'' the '50s classic where each week, eccentric multibillionaire John Beresford Tipton (the voice of Paul Frees), his back to the camera, would call personal secretary Michael Anthony (Marvin Miller) into the study of his mansion, hand Anthony a check for $1 million and send him off to change the life of some unsuspecting soul?
As if to tweak the viewer just that much more, the magnanimously motivated Tipton demanded only one thing from the recipients: that they never attempt to discover his identity.
And speaking of the rich and faceless, how can we forget Charlie Townsend (the voice of John Forsythe), the man who called the shots on the detective show that defined jiggle TV in the '70s, ``Charlie's Angels''?
Again, we got a glimpses of Charlie, little insights into his character. But no mug shot. Never the full picture.
On ``Magnum P.I.,'' private eye Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) lived it up in Oahu on the beachfront estate of super-successful writer Robin Masters, ostensibly serving as his security guard. Magnum borrowed Robin's car, had the run of his house, etc.
But Robin never showed.
Or did he?
At the end of the series, it seemed as if Robin had been there the whole time, masquerading as his own short-tempered manservant Higgins (John Hillerman). Why he would do such a thing defied logic even by television standards. The only possible explanation, and one often supported by TV, is that money - lots of money - makes people eccentric.
Like ``Frasier,'' many shows - sitcoms in particular - seem to have a lot of fun keeping spouses off camera.
On ``Cheers,'' for example, the show from which ``Frasier'' was spun off, Norm Peterson (George Wendt) went on and on about his wife Vera at the bar (which is where he obviously went to avoid her). We saw Vera's feet once and might have caught a glimpse of her face had it not been covered in that one episode with pie (Wendt's real-life wife Bernadette Birkett did the honors).
On ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show,'' Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) talked often and at length about her husband Lars, who actually owned the building but never walked into a scene. (When Mary's friend Rhoda, played by Valerie Harper, got her own show, she also got her own unseen co-star, Carlton the doorman.)
HBO's ``Dream On'' tortured its lead character Martin Tupper (Brian Benben) for a while, forcing him to compare his life as a measly, sex-obsessed book editor to his ex-wife's second husband, the saintly, forever prize-winning and never-present Dr. Richard Stone.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB