Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, and More

by James Burrows

The only professional aspiration came from my grandmother, who wanted to be a doctor’s mother. Abe once wrote, “The only reason I started to write is that the Depression was on. I was out of work, and I found out that there were many comedians who needed jokes as much as I needed money.”

During that time, I also discovered Steve Allen, the host of Tonight Starring Steve Allen, which became The Tonight Show. Steve was saddled with the unenviable pressure of getting an audience to stay up and watch this new format when they needed to be at work at eight A.M. On his first show, in 1954, he bravely went into the audience and asked an older woman if she wanted to say hello to anyone at home; she replied, “Everyone I know is sleeping.” Steve was a genius. He had a brilliantly funny mind.

After high school I attended Oberlin, which was and still is a very liberal institution, fully in sync with how I was raised and what I believed was right. Hopefully, college is the time where you figure out who you are apart from the daily influence of your parents. My mother’s liberal values were now independently mine.

Beginning in 1941, my dad was head writer for the first five years of Duffy’s ten-year run. He was careful about writing and casting. He implemented a program where writers got paid for submissions that he liked and created a path for the best ones to get jobs. One of the best of his discoveries was Larry Gelbart, who later went on to write for Bob Hope, develop M*A*S*H for television, co-write Tootsie, and co-author Broadway shows, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Sly Fox. Larry said of my father, “He was the best of us and the one we always wanted to be.” Abe also mentored Nat Hiken and Dick Martin.

I got to meet George Kaufman. He was very tall, surly, and acerbically witty. For over a decade he was the drama editor for The New York Times, while his shows ran simultaneously on Broadway. He avoided a conflict of interest by not having his shows reviewed by the Times. According to legend, a press agent once asked, “How do I get our leading lady’s name in the Times?” Kaufman replied, “Shoot her.” He hated love scenes and would exit the theater during the scenes in Guys and Dolls between Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown, leaving Dad to direct them. Kaufman was known for being blunt. During that show’s run, he once wrote a note to Stubby Kaye, who was overdoing his scenes: “I’m watching your performance in the back of the theater. Wish you were here.”

In my teens, I would go to rehearsals with Dad, including for Guys and Dolls. I’d like to say that I absorbed every creative moment that I was exposed to. I did not. I was a kid. This was my dad at work. During the rehearsals of Guys and Dolls, I snuck up to the empty balcony section and ran around. When you’re a kid, your dad’s fame doesn’t mean that much. I had no “eureka” moment or any epiphany that theater or television was what I wanted to do with my life. If anything, the more I became aware of my father’s legendary reputation and abilities, the more I knew that the theater was the one arena I did not want to go into. Abe cast a long shadow.

Frank Loesser began collaborating with him in the 1940s. Their Broadway alliance resulted in Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. (In what is now part of show-business lore, Frank’s first wife, the temperamental Lynn Garland, was referred to as “the evil of the two Loessers,” a play on “the lesser of two evils.” Apparently, Lynn once asked someone, “Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?” The immediate rejoinder was “It saves time.”)

Dad was once asked, “Abe, why don’t you direct drama?” His response was “I do direct drama—they just happen to be funny.” I feel the same way about sitcoms. In their best incarnation, they are dramas that just happen to be funny, and the comedy is character-driven. Abe taught me about the comedy “rule of threes,” that the reaction is just as important as the joke, and how to shave.

Second Golden Age of Television. In 1971, Norman Lear’s All in the Family had premiered. It was the show that broke the mold. Before Norman, sitcoms were largely idealized and homogenized portrayals of how America was supposed to look. Rather than follow this formula, Norman created shows where the characters looked and sounded like most of the people who were watching them. They represented a cross section of America, including race, class, and gender. Norman almost single-handedly revolutionized the format. He turned the mirror around and showed America as it was, with all its differences, biases, and hopes. Norman’s sitcoms, including All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, and One Day at a Time, offered characters on American television that began an important ongoing dialogue around social and political issues. Like most people, I was becoming aware of the changes both in America and its reflection on television. As an up-and-coming director, I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat for that experience.

When I started out in sitcoms, CBS had a number of successful ones, including The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. While popular, they failed to appeal to a younger audience. They were eventually canceled all at once to make room for a lineup that had cross-generational appeal. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TMTMS) premiered a week after Petticoat Junction was canceled, in its coveted Saturday-night time slot.

The legacy of MTM Productions was impressive. Not since Sid Caesar’s writers’ room—which included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, and Woody Allen—had there been such an impressive incubator for future talent. At MTM, in addition to James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, David Lloyd, Steve Bochco, and Glen and Les Charles, the family tree included Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, Gary David Goldberg (Family Ties, Brooklyn Bridge), and Hugh Wilson (Frank’s Place, WKRP in Cincinnati). The latter two and I were brought out to L.A. as interns.

Originally, the character of Mary was a divorcée, but there was concern that the audience would think she was divorced from Dick Van Dyke. In the early 1970s, divorce wasn’t taken lightly, by either the couple or the audience. The theme song, “Love Is All Around,” which played during the opening credits, ended with Mary tossing her hat in the air—a metaphor for emancipation, self-actualization, and the optimism of a bright future.

For a center, trusting a character is a significant part of believing in them and is crucial to a sitcom’s development and evolution. Alex Reiger was flawed and vulnerable but a very decent person. You want a friend like Alex. You need to touch on that in a show, on the character who’s got the eyes that become the windows into the soul of the show. Alex, like Will Truman, is a character of amazing integrity. Sam Malone could talk to a Martian, and if Sam believes he’s real, so will the audience. Your center can also be subtly benevolent or sympathetic: Two and a Half Men’s Charlie Harper is a perpetually drunk womanizer, but, with little hesitation, he opens his beach home to his newly divorced brother and nephew. On The Big Bang Theory, Leonard Hofstadter is a socially awkward scientist who has trouble communicating feelings, but he protects his roommate and best friend, the even more socially awkward and brilliant Sheldon Cooper. Some shows have no center at all. In 3rd Rock from the Sun, all the characters are eccentric and play off one another.

Word traveled fast about how I turned the episode around, and, soon after, I started to get a lot of TV work, including two episodes of The Bob Newhart Show and episodes of Rhoda, The Bob Crane Show, and Phyllis. I was able to turn a B- script into a B+. Another first-time director was brought on to do an episode of TMTMS, and it won an Emmy. Despite that, he was never asked back. When I talk to aspiring directors, I always use that example. In my mind, the other director was not asked back because they didn’t like the quality of the work he did. He had a great script and I had a terrible one, but they liked what I did with mine and how I did it. When you get your shot, you have to be ready for it. If you’re not ready, the second shot is much harder to get. You have to work hard and show skill in order to earn the right to be asked back.

These directors do what the writers and actors tell them to do. There are five life lessons Jay Sandrich left me with: First, express yourself, say what you feel. Second, don’t be intimidated. Third, do not worry about your next job; if you’re good at what you do, the jobs will find you. Fourth, good sitcom directors are not traffic cops; we have stuff to say and things to do. And fifth, and most important, is the lesson that became the cornerstone of my directing philosophy for my entire career and what I have tried to teach other directors: Die with your boots on.

Gavin, Ted, and Ed had never done comedy. They all played heavies on The Untouchables and other dramatic shows.

Betty White was fabulous, particularly in the couch struggle. There was a scene where Sue Ann comes into Lou’s office. Most of the time when a character went into Lou’s office, they’d go upstage of the desk, around to the right. I had Sue Ann come downstage and go left, where you were able to see all of her. It felt more seductive. Jay told me I was the first one to do that move. He was always watching.

Despite her talent, Phyllis never really worked as a spin-off, for the same reason that, later on, Frasier did work. The self-absorbed, narcissistic character that worked on TMTMS wasn’t realigned for a starring role, whereas Frasier’s creators rewrote the Frasier character to enable him to play the lead and deliver the comedy as well as the pathos. They filled the gap with a brother character, Niles, who resembled the Cheers version of Frasier. With Cloris, they never augmented the character and centered her the way they did for Frasier.

During the pilot, the show was running a little long. When producer Lorenzo Music came over to him and said, “Bob, could you stammer a little less?” Bob’s now-legendary reply was “That stammer paid for my house in Beverly Hills.”

Bob eventually retired that parrot joke and put a new one in his repertoire: There’s this magician on a cruise ship, and he does the same show every night in front of a different audience. But the captain has a parrot. And the parrot’s seen the magician’s act 100 times, and he’d be giving all of the secrets away to the audience. The magician would do a trick in front of the audience and the parrot would yell out, “How come the deck is all the ace of spades? The flowers are under the table! It’s a new hat!” The cruise ship hits a storm. It gets really bad and the ship sinks. The magician is in the ocean, hanging on to this piece of wood and the parrot is hanging on to the same piece of wood. And they don’t talk for four days. Finally, the parrot turns to the magician and says, “Okay, I give up. Where’s the ship?”

’80s, where actors and writers learned to create sitcoms and then moved on and created other shows: the MTM school, which begat Taxi, Frasier, Cheers, Wings, and Family Ties, and the Garry Marshall school, which begat The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Mork & Mindy. To be MTM-pedigreed in those years was a seal of approval. You still had to prove yourself, but it helped you get in the door. There was also a shorthand between people who worked together on similar projects.

The gift of Laverne & Shirley was Penny and Cindy, specifically their rapport and their ability to do schtick. It was a sillier, more juvenile show. The two women were not the most advanced when it came to relationships with men. It was a lower-class comedy than Taxi. Penny and Debra Messing are the two greatest physical comedians I have ever worked with.

was there for a lot of the auditions. Judd Hirsch was on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two and was first choice for Alex. Judd had become a successful theater actor and was hesitant to go back to television, where he’d had limited success. He initially turned down the role but then agreed to do it. Judd was one of the greatest sitcom centers; his eyes and persona were the windows through which the audience saw and processed everything. Alex is the warden, sitting with all the lunatics in the garage. He is sympathetic to their problems and issues and tries to help them, which gives the characters credibility. He especially has to deal with the lunacy of Louie. I told Stan Daniels, “We need to find a scene between Louie and Alex about Louie’s inability to make friends.”

On Taxi, the original incarnation of the character Louie De Palma, the angry cab dispatcher, was someone who would never have left the dispatcher’s cage, just announcing his lines, barking orders to the cabbies. Danny DeVito made the part a lot larger. When Danny came in to read for the network, he walked in, threw the script on the table, and said, “Who wrote this shit?” We knew we had found our Louie.

The part of Bobby was originally offered to Robin Williams, who was still busy with Mork & Mindy. Had he taken it, I could have directed Robin, Andy Kaufman, and Chris Lloyd, all on the same stage. If I had, I’m sure I would have liked my stay in the Directors’ Home. They also wanted Mandy Patinkin, whom Jim Brooks knew but who didn’t want to get tied to a series at the time. I’ve always adored his beautiful lyric tenor voice.

You cannot describe to somebody who’s not in the process what that moment is like, when you know that the actor is not only right for the part but is often the only one who can play it. I was there when Christopher Lloyd came in to read for Reverend Jim. We had similar responses on Cheers, when Nicky Colasanto came in to play Coach; Dan Hedaya came in to read for Nick Tortelli, Carla’s husband; and Woody Harrelson read for Woody Boyd; and on Will & Grace, when Sean Hayes read for Jack McFarland. There’s an instant spark and you can’t imagine anyone else in the role.

The superstitious Louie is drawn in, but the pragmatic Alex refuses to have his life determined by anything other than his own free will. Louie goes to Alex’s apartment on Thursday night to protect him. “I’m not gonna tempt fate, Louie, I’m gonna beg fate!” The defiant Alex puts on a green shirt and catcher’s mask and dances the cancan. The grandfather clock strikes seven, and nothing happens. Then a knock on the door comes. Louie won’t let Alex answer it. “Death is on the other side of the door, Reiger!” When Alex opens the door, it’s a young girl (Kiva Dawson) selling sugar cookies. (We couldn’t refer to her as a Girl Scout without permission, which we never would have gotten.) Louie starts screaming in horror. So does the girl, who throws the cookies in the air and runs. I won my third Emmy for that episode. The cookies were good too. I had never

was trying to stay afloat and influence shows in any way I could while still treading water. I was now almost forty. I had skills, but I still felt less than. I was subjected to a lot of criticism because I wasn’t the head honcho. There are nine ways to see a joke, and while all nine can be funny, if your way is different from that of the person who is most powerful, the most powerful person’s vision will prevail. I realized that I needed control over the product I was working on as well as my destiny. I was like millions of people who are never completely comfortable working for others. I needed to own the business. It came with the big risk that if the business failed, I’d have no job, but it also came with the immeasurable satisfaction that I was building something and executing my vision.

The original Bull and Finch patrons hated us. We ruined their watering hole by making it famous and a place you had to visit when in Boston. Eddie Doyle was the bartender. Finally, he said, “Screw it, we’re doing great business.” Tom Kershaw owned the Hampshire House, the restaurant above. We had never asked him if we could use it for the exteriors. Tom was a Harvard MBA and owned the entire building. When we finally asked, he said, “Yes, on one condition—that you pay me a dollar a year.” He knew what the merchandising revenue would be if the show was a hit. He changed the name of the Bull and Finch to Cheers, and he sold shirts. He was careful to put “Boston” under the Cheers logo, so as not to run afoul of Paramount’s copyright. The bar is still open under the Cheers name. We realized that we

The other unsung hero of Cheers was Brandon Tartikoff. He was the youngest entertainment president of a major network when he took over the NBC reins in 1980 at thirty. NBC was dead last behind its network competitors when Brandon got the job. In a three-way network race for audience, the joke was that NBC was number four. Even Johnny Carson, whose Tonight Show generated a third of NBC’s revenue, was reportedly in talks to move to ABC. Brandon’s work was cut out for him.

There are archetypal characters that become staples in sitcom casts. You have the sweet, dull-witted character who supports the center, ranging from Ted Baxter and Reverend Jim to Coach and Woody. The character who is different from everyone else—the alien—gets the same response as the center. The alien is also a way to tell a story. In the Taxi pilot, John is in the cab with Alex as he explains the backstory of the characters. In Cheers, Diane is the alien, often above the other characters. Her lofty attitude fosters interactions and revelations. That’s called “laying pipe.” You have to tell the story without looking like you’re telling the story. You’re not supposed to see the strings. I marvel at that skill writers possess. When I was writing, you not only saw the strings, you saw the entire ball of twine. I wasn’t able to disguise the story or the plot.

The smartest, most insightful thing Coach ever said was in “Peterson Crusoe,” where Norm drops everything and announces that he’s going off to live in Bora Bora. When Diane says, “You know, it took a great deal of courage for Norman to do what he did. I admire and envy him. He has heeded Thoreau, who admonished us that, quote, ‘Life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.’ ” Coach says, “Why didn’t he just say one ‘simplify’?”

Rhea’s father, Philip Perlman, a retired factory manager, also started out as an extra but became a regular. He looked like a barfly. He was eighty-five at the time and Rhea wanted him to get out of the house, so we made him one of the supernumeraries.

knocked our socks off immediately. It was the epitome of what our show was about. Today, theme songs on shows are virtually nonexistent: Because episodes run for twenty-one and a half minutes, there’s no time. But Cheers was in the era where TV theme songs became chart-toppers. The song was a megahit, reaching number five on the pop charts. It was positioned to go to number one—then Michael Jackson’s Thriller album came out. Between “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” our theme song was knocked out of the top ten. We definitely made the right choice.

undersell the joke so you’d have to meet us halfway. That was attributable to Teddy Danson, whose best skill was that he could throw away a joke as part of another action, like pouring a beer. That’s the way a bar actually is. People have conversations. They don’t scream or yell unless there’s a problem.

Throwing away jokes is a particular style of comedy. The jokes become more like subtle comments. Henny Youngman didn’t toss off comedy (Woman: Too late for the garbage? Garbage Man: No, ma’am, jump right in). Chris Rock screams his comedy and you’re already on board. Dave Chappelle underplays his pieces; he waits for you to get on board. Steven Wright and Woody Allen never hit anything hard. That subtlety is as important now as it ever was, given the rise of comedy podcasts and new generations of audiences getting their laughs from people they are only listening to.

Kelsey had been doing Sunday in the Park with George with Mandy Patinkin. Mandy had recommended Kelsey to Paramount’s New York casting director. We started to see people, and we got a tape from New York with four actors. Up came Kelsey’s face, and we all started laughing when we saw his audition. We hired Kelsey for four episodes. He drove out from New York and for a time was living in his car on the Paramount lot.

Early on, it became clear to us that Kelsey was perfect for the part. The precision with which he could deliver his lines was like the creative blending of a surgeon and a concert pianist. After the first episode, we said, “You’re going to stay with us for the year.” According to Kelsey, we never called him to tell him that he got the part. He went back to the hotel room we’d got him at the Holiday Inn on Vine and Hollywood Boulevard, and on the table in the room was a green box he didn’t recognize. Inside was a bottle of Dom Perignon, and on a little card it said, “Welcome to Cheers.”

We set up the storyline that Woody and Coach were pen pals. They didn’t exchange letters—they exchanged actual pens. Nicky and Woody were great in different ways. Woody played the innocent perfectly. Woody not only replaced Coach, he infused the show with a much-needed youthful energy, which is necessary for any cast that has worked together for a while. As a director, you have to make sure the cast is having fun rehearsing and, just as important, when they’re not rehearsing. Woody had an immediate rapport with the rest of the cast. We were thankful.

The best toast, hands down, was from Jerry Belson, whom we had gotten to work with us as a punch-up guy on scripts. As everyone went around the room toasting, Jerry got up and said, “I’ve worked on a lot of shows,” and then sat down. The place went crazy. I’ve stolen it and used that toast at least ten times since. Thanks, Jerry. There was a time where it was de rigueur for

After Cheers, I had a deal with NBC where we were partners on pilots. Don Ohlmeyer agreed to send me all their scripts, but I wasn’t precluded from looking at other networks’ scripts. I was able to direct pilots for other networks, as long as I continued to do shows for NBC. Friends, Will & Grace, Caroline in the City, and NewsRadio were all under that deal.

Cheers ended in May of 1993 and Frasier debuted in September. Kelsey’s twenty years as this evolving and enduring character was a credit to the combination of great writing and the quality of the actor who played him. The series opened with Frasier sharing his story with his radio audience: “Six months ago, I was living in Boston. My wife had left me, which was very painful. Then she came back to me, which was excruciating. On top of that, my practice had grown stagnant, and my social life consisted of hanging around a bar night after night. I was clinging to a life that wasn’t working anymore, and I knew I had to do something…anything. So, I ended the marriage once and for all, packed up my things, and moved back here to my hometown of Seattle.” From the first insightful and introspective paragraph, which had the truth in jest of Frasier and Lilith, Kelsey was a new version of Sam Malone.

The key to Kelsey’s final maturation into Frasier was creating the Niles Crane character to play the old Frasier-like character from Cheers. Niles became Frasier, and Kelsey became Sam Malone. Angell, Casey, and Lee wrote up, just as the Charles Brothers did on Cheers. They didn’t care what the audience expected—they elevated the comedy with upscale jokes, humor, and farce, and the audience met them more than halfway.

characters. Frasier and Niles were brothers who clearly loved each other. Despite that, or because of that, Frasier thought Niles was a fool and Niles thought Frasier was a pompous ass. They bickered like a married couple and had the subsidiary relationship with their blue-collar father, who provided grounding for their highbrow attitude. That formula worked consistently for eleven seasons because of incredibly well-written scripts and a gifted cast that acted within that construct.

FRASIER Niles, you’re a psychiatrist—you know what it’s like hearing people prattle on about their endless lives. NILES Touché. And on that subject, I heard your show today. FRASIER And? NILES You know what I think about pop psychiatry. FRASIER I know what you think about everything. When was the last time you had an unexpressed thought? NILES I’m having one now.

We were trying to figure who to cast for Ronny’s part. I had seen John Mahoney on Broadway in The House of Blue Leaves, so I knew he played the piano. We hired him. He came out and we shot a few scenes, then I said, “John, now you have to play the piano.” John said, “I don’t play the piano.” We had actually killed Frasier’s father off in the ninth season of Cheers. Frasier walked in with a stuffed owl and said his father was a famous professor and the owl was his prized possession. He asked Sam if he wanted to keep it in the bar. Sam said, “Hell, no.” Frasier told him, “Toss it.” That was the end of his sentiment about his dad. The continuity aspect was fixed on Frasier in an episode when Sam visited Frasier and said, “You told me your dad was dead,” and Frasier replied, “I lied.”

When Niles refers to a restaurant’s menu as “to die for,” Marty replies, “Your country and your family are to die for. Food is to eat.” That’s where Frasier came from. That was his childhood. That’s why you could sympathize and understand him. As pompous as he was, he came from decent, hardworking stock, which is also why he was so comfortable at the bar on Cheers.

(Their attempts at home repair result in the toilet overflowing.) NILES The plumber has been called, the wine is properly chilled, suddenly my world makes sense again. FRASIER We’ve had a tough day, tangled with a little pipe and porcelain. Now it’s Montrachet time. NILES Oh, when you think about it, our only mistake today was trying to fix that toilet ourselves. FRASIER Yes, we tampered with the natural order of things. NILES But now order has been restored. By hiring a plumber, that plumber can now afford, say, a Dolly Parton album. His part in it can finance a national tour, which will, of course, come to Seattle, allowing some local promoter to make enough money to send his cross-dressing teenage son to us for 150-dollar-an-hour therapy. FRASIER To the circle of life!

The scripts were fabulous. Like Cheers, it was a really funny and evolving show, especially because of the Ross and Rachel romance. These were the original character descriptions: MONICA: Smart. Cynical. Defended. Very attractive. Had to work for everything she had. An assistant chef for a chic uptown restaurant. And a romantic disaster area. RACHEL: Spoiled. Adorable. Courageous. Terrified. Monica’s best friend from high school. Has worked for none of what she has. On her own for the first time. And equipped to do nothing. PHOEBE: Sweet. Flaky. New Age waif. Monica’s former roommate. Sells barrettes on the street and plays guitar on the subway. A good soul. ROSS: Intelligent. Emotional. Romantic. Monica’s brother. Suddenly divorced. Facing singlehood with phenomenal reluctance. A paleontologist. Not that it matters. JOEY: Handsome. Macho. Smug. Lives across the hall from Monica and Rachel. Wants to be an actor. Actually, wants to be the next Al Pacino. Loves women, sports, women, New York, women, and, most of all, Joey. CHANDLER: Droll. A wry observer of everyone’s life. And his own. Works in front of a computer doing something tedious in a claustrophobic cubicle in a nondescript office building. Survives by way of his sense of humor. And snacks.

None of them had any money at that point either, so I gave each of them a couple of hundred bucks to go gamble. I laid out fourteen hundred dollars. If the math doesn’t seem right, it’s because LeBlanc had no idea how to play craps and he lost his two hundred dollars in seconds, so I gave him another two hundred. They went back to Los Angeles, the show premiered, they’ve never had a shot at anonymity since, and they each wrote me reimbursement checks for the money I gave them. I am very proud and humbled by what some people have called the Jimmy Burrows Curse, turning unknown actors into stars.