ON A JUNE afternoon in Austin, a clip reel of scenes from comedies like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne & Shirley, Cheers and Friends has an audience at the annual ATX Television Festival howling with laughter. But one person watches with tears in his eyes: TV veteran James Burrows (below), who, over the span of a five-decade career, directed all these famous faces—Moore, Ted Danson and Shelley Long, Kelsey Grammer and Jennifer Aniston—and helped shaped their now-classic sitcoms into the shows we know and love.
As ATX honored Burrows, 82, with the festival’s Achievement in Television Excellence award, TV GUIDE MAGAZINE’s West Coast bureau chief moderated a discussion with the 11-time (!) Emmy winner. It was a walk down memory lane that included everything from his first big break to the secret of his directing success to whether we’ll ever see a Cheers reboot.
Your career started in the theater with your writer-director father, Abe Burrows. How much did that impact you being a TV director?
What I do, the multi-camera situational comedy in front of a live audience, is theater; it’s not television. Everything has to do with staging a play and the reaction of the actors. Then the last two days, I bring in cameras to cover the play. It’s all about pleasing the audience, and you’ve got to make them laugh. We never had fake laughter on Cheers because if a joke didn’t work, [the writers] changed the joke.
This story is from the August 14 - September 03, 2023 edition of TV Guide Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 14 - September 03, 2023 edition of TV Guide Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE MASKED SINGER
It’s no shock that the over-the-top competition featuring mystery celebrities in masks and elaborate costumes would go all out for Halloween.
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
FIRST SHOWN LIVE on TV as part of Ford Star Jubilee in 1955, then filmed by Robert Altman in 1988, Herman Wouk’s courtroom classic (adapted from his 1951 novel) is of special interest in its latest version as the final film directed by Oscar winner William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist).
Lessons in Chemistry
PART JULIA CHILD, part Marie Curie, with the movie-star glow of a Kim Novak, brilliant chemist Elizabeth Zott (the luminous Brie Larson) is ahead of her 1950s times.
POST-STRIKE UPDATE
THE JOKES FLEW fast and furious on Monday, October 2, from late-night hosts back at work after the 148-day writers’ strike had come to an end.
QUIZ MASTER! THE REAL AMY SCHNEIDER STORY
AFTER HER APPEARANCES in 40 Jeopardy! episodes, Tournament of Champions and Jeopardy! Masters, fans may think they know Amy Schneider.
FRASIER IS IN THE BUILDING!
Kelsey Grammer's famous psychiatrist moves back to Boston to hang out with a whole new TV family. (But there's still a bar!)
DAVID MCCALLUM
WHEN MARK HARMON first met David McCallum in 2003 while filming the backdoor pilot for NCIS (which aired on JAG), he gushed, “I can’t imagine I’m shaking the hand of Illya Kuryakin.”
Harry Wild
We're just wild about Harry...and so are viewers. They've turned this Dublin-set series-about a rambunctious retired literature professor (Jane Seymour) who solves mysteries-into a success, and its star couldn't be happier.
Bosch: Legacy
In Bosch: Legacy’s first season finale, private eye Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) was enjoying success after saving a mogul’s young heir from an assassin and solving a murder.
Upload
The sly sci-fi comedy about murdered tech bro Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), whose consciousness was uploaded to a luxurious virtual-afterlife resort called Lakeview, is back after a year and a half for Season 3, and things are getting trickier than remembering your passwords!