James Burrows was not a giant in sitcom directing. He was THE giant. The primary director of Cheers and Taxi. The only director (I believe) of Will & Grace. The director whose pilots for Friends, Third Rock, Frasier, and Big Bang Theory got them on the air. The king. RIP. people.com/james-burrow...
I was just looking for this last week and was baffled by its disappearance!
Alonso is not exaggerating. I would put this one next to Windows, the only film Gordon Willis ever directed, on a shelf labeled "We're just gonna forget that ever happened."
Yeah, only the highest-quality takes are getting posted.
A great detail!
I'm very touched by this. When I wrote the biography I didn't imagine younger artists would read it as a how-to manual about coping with success, failure, depression, fame, pride, humiliation, aging, ego. But books have a weird way of deciding what they're about. That one is about how to keep going.
Jimmy knew a joke could only surprise an audience once. If something was off en route to a great line he'd shout "Bup bup bup!" to cut the actors off, then go back so a big laugh wasn't wasted on a bad take. Writers loved him for that. And for lots of other reasons too. We will all miss him.
5/5
James Burrows has died at the age of 85. An 11-time Emmy winner, he co-created 'Cheers' and directed episodes of 'Will & Grace', 'Friends', 'The Big Bang Theory', 'Taxi' and many other TV sitcoms.
Or he may be influenced by things that were influenced by those movies--second-hand or trickle-down influence happens a lot with young filmmakers.
Firing hundreds of intelligence people doesn’t seem like a great move the week after you lost a war, but what do I know?
I hope someone does an oral history of Burrows' career, because multi-cam sitcom direction is an art that I don't profess to understand fully, and I'd love to hear from actors and writers about what he did and how. I do know he was reputed to have a famous ear for what worked and didn't in a script.
