NBC Offends Kelsey with 'Friends' Promo

By Alison M. Rosen

Friday January 23, 2004 11:09 AM EST

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"Friends," the "best comedy ever"? Not if Kelsey Grammer has anything to say about it.

NBC is yanking a promo spot for the series finale of its Must-See hit, in which the sitcom is described as "the best comedy ever," the Associated Press reports. The hyped-up claim has irked a few people -- most notably Kelsey Grammer, whose own NBC comedy, "Frasier," is saying goodbye this season.

"I don't blame them for saying that," Grammer says, according to AP. "Although we all know it's not true."

Grammer admits that he felt the hoopla surrounding the ending of "Friends" was stealing the thunder, a bit, from the ending of "Frasier," scheduled to end a week after "Friends."

He didn't sound too bitter, though. "It will be more of a, I guess, social phenomenon for 'Friends' to leave than it will for 'Frasier,' so we will accept that," the actor said. "We've always been creatively, I'd like to think, setting a very high bar. And we can go out saying that we continued to that end."

CBS chief Les Moonves also took the opportunity to take a dig at his rival network about the claim that "Friends" is the "best comedy ever."

"The people who did 'All in the Family' and 'M*A*S*H' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Honeymooners' and 'Cheers' and 'Seinfeld' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond' all those shows, may have a little bit of a problem with that claim," he said.

NBC spokewoman Rebecca Marks admitted the network may have overshot its mark, saying, "(NBC) was just trying to hype it and went overboard."