'Drew,' 'Frasier' Look to Shifts

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/08/2001 at 12:54 PM EST

Cleveland may soon get a retro-fitted "Drew Carey Show" spin-off, and Seattle is looking at a possible "Frasier" take on the horrors of Sept. 11. First, the news on Drew: Carey and the creator/executive producer of his ABC sitcom, Bruce Helford, are working on a special episode that would flash back to the 1980s -- when the cast of the show was in high school. Young actors would play the roles of Drew, Mimi and the show's other regular misfits, reports Variety. Once the episode is completed, Helford and Carey, along with executives from the network and Warner Bros. TV, will decide whether on not to move forward with the format as a regular series. Meanwhile, "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer has announced that on a future episode of his NBC sitcom, he would like to deal with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Grammer has a personal stake in this: "Frasier" executive producer David Angell and his wife, Lynn, died on one of the four crashed planes. "It's been crossing my mind lately that maybe we need to at least address (Sept. 11) in some way. We are also a contemporary show, concurrent with what's going on in our daily lives," Grammer told reporters recently. "To completely ignore it, I think might be a mistake."