James Burrows: The Audience Roared (Re-release)

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1:30Rob Lowe:hey everybody today we are going to do a re-release of a conversation we had with someone who just passed who we are going to miss dearly throughout show business the fantastic television comedy genius James Burroughs, responsible for Cheers, Taxi, Will and Grace, Big Bang Theory. This man literally created the modern sitcom as an art form, and we will miss him. Here is a taste of some of his genius.

2:13Rob Lowe:so a new kind of family was the was my first big job and the only reason i got it was i'd been shipped off to ohio to be with my father as the divorce things go you'd be with your dad in the summers and i liked it it was fine i loved being my dad and everything but i'd just fallen in love for the first time puppy love really with me not yet that that of course happens as all actors fall in love with you. But so I got to Ohio and I was like, my agents called and said, there's a TV show you could audition for. And I used it as an excuse to come back to see The Girlfriend. And lo and behold, I got the TV show, A New Kind of Family.

2:49Rob Lowe:And that's where you and I first met because you directed. Do you remember anything about it? I remember Eileen Brennan. Yep, the star. She was so great. I remember Jane Eisner and Larry Gordon. Marjorie Gordon. Right. They were the producers. So that meant Michael and Larry were around. Yes. Now, Michael. So Michael Eisner. Yes. Most of you listening probably know the titan of show business. And then so it's his wife. And then Marjorie Gordon, her husband was Larry Gordon, who ran Fox. So we were on the hot seat. Those guys were watching over our shoulders. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's I don't remember a lot about it, but I do remember.

3:33and who was the co-star with Eileen? Do you remember? Gwen Guilford. Oh, right. Chris Pine's mother. Oh, my God. Crazy. Right?

3:44Rob Lowe:Well, you know the great thing. So you come in and you direct the first episode and, you know, you start your magic streak of getting every show you ever touch on the air and the show promptly craters. It literally is the lowest rated show on TV. Literally, I'm not kidding. It was opposite 60 Minutes. So no one is watching and the network decides the fix, because the show's concept was two single women living together, pooling their resources. By the way, it doesn't sound like a new kind of family. Sounds like a kind of family we've seen a lot of, frankly. Would have been a better title. And their fix was to fire the other family and bring in a new African-American family and never explain what happened to the family previously.

4:35Rob Lowe:That happened. I don't remember that at all. You were long gone. But that was the fix. And guess who played the young, wisecracking daughter in the new family? I have no idea. You ready for this? Yeah. Janet Jackson. Oh, my God. And it still didn't work. And then, get this, Jim. So then there was someone on the show who was an associate producer who then took the idea and went to a different network and made a show that ran for 100 years. And I can't remember what the name of the show is. Anyway, that's where we first met. Was I a terrible actor then? Do you remember? You weren't fired, so obviously not.

5:21Rob Lowe:How many people have you fired off of pilots? Well, I don't like to say fire. I like to say they weren't right for the role. That's right, which is right. The two infamous ones who I don't know what happened to them after I got rid of them was on the pilot of Frasier. Lisa Kudrow played his producer in the booth. unfortunately the final scene before he goes to confront his dad uh she has to be really strong and tough with him and that that was not lisa's colors so we let her go and i'm not sure what happened to her yeah well i'm gonna look i'm gonna check imdb and the other famous one was on the pilot of news radio after the pilot or i think maybe during the pilot we fired some actor named Ray Romano.

6:12Rob Lowe:Oh, that guy. Yeah. What a hack. So we let him go because he wasn't right. And again, I have, uh, I'm sure, uh, they're pissed at me, but that didn't last very long. But considering the amount of pilots and shows you've done, the fact that it's only two is kind of a miracle. Yeah. Well, there've been others, but not with the, not, there's no feel good story on the other end. coming off of a show with maybe one of the least evocative interesting titles in the world a new kind of family i'm obsessed with titles and as i was looking at your uh credits i look and i go oh that great title great title great title network title network title great title and i'm i've always been obsessed with everybody loves raymond because that title is really something because yeah because you can just read the review everybody doesn't love raymond like you know what i'm saying right And I asked Phil Rosenthal how they came up with that title.

7:13And he said it was really simple that Ray, growing up, was the favorite son.

7:19Rob Lowe:And his brother used to say, everybody loves Raymond. And that's how I just love. Titles are important, don't you think? Or no? No. I mean, it may get you to the dance. Right. It may, people may tune in, but you got to deliver the goods once they tune in. Well, you have a quote that I love, which is great. And I try to explain this to my wife, who's always pitching me ideas for a show. Ideas are not important. It's the writing. It's the execution of the idea. Yeah, well, that's how I've been successful. I don't look for high concept ideas at all. the only the only one I ever did real well I guess Will and Grace is a high concept show in a strange kind of way but the only outrageous one I ever did I did uh Third Rock from the Sun and I uh I did that because I wanted to work with John Lithgow I would have never uh Bonnie and Terry wrote a really funny script but I it just was you know it's not the kind of show I do but um but for me It's, you know, what's a show, if I came to pitch you a show about taxi drivers, wow.

8:35That's not a very high upscale idea, but it was the execution, a bar, execution, a coffee house with six people sitting around, execution. That's to me, that's what I look for. I look for the execution of the idea, not the idea. Well, all of those shows that you mentioned are just the Mount Rushmore of comedies.

9:00Rob Lowe:I wish those kind of comedies were on today. I don't know why they're not. I think that the three camera, multi, multi camera, they call them live audience shows today are in a tough period where is it that the smart comedy writers of which there's a very limited number don't want to work in that genre? That's sort of what I'm thinking is they feel like they want to make movies. They want to make single camera, which they perceive as more prestigious. What is the deal? Because in that era that you just described that you were a part of, all of those shows were not only funny and well-received, but there was no notion that they were less than.

9:38Rob Lowe:No. These were prestigious shows. They were. I mean, in the 70s and the 80s, it was all sitcom-driven. When I started out, it was a three-network world. There was ABC, CBS, and NBC, and there was 30 great comedy writers. Now we're in a 500 network world, and there are still 30 great comedy writers. So people don't have to, they don't talk about shows anymore. When a show's a hit now, it would have been canceled with that number when there were three networks. So it's more diverse. You don't need as much of an audience. that people are doing stuff who are not qualified to do stuff and it gets on the air.

10:23And so, you know, I've attended the funeral for the sitcom three or four times. And all of the times I've been there, we've closed the coffin and swept it off stage. This time, I'm not so sure. I mean, the man who was keeping sitcom alive for a while was Chuck Lorre, and they just canceled two of his multi-camera shows. So I don't know what's going on. I have no idea.

10:49Rob Lowe:I mean, is it as simple as the laugh track? I mean, is it the kind of thing where like I watch vaudeville and go, people were entertained by that at one point? Is it that? Like the contemporary audiences go, where are the people that are laughing in that living room? Is it that? That was never a problem before. I know. You know, so I don't know. I'm not sure what it is because laughter is contagious. And although there is a laugh track, it does help. you know we've in in the shows i've done the laugh track was used to bridge a cut or something like that on cheers we never there was never a laugh track it was just you know that was if the audience didn't laugh at the joke you went back and got you wrote another joke so that the studio audience would respond to it and then you put that out on the air so i think with the lack of lately there's been no studio audiences so they have to put a laugh track in right that's a good point.

11:46Rob Lowe:Did, of all of the iconic shows that you, and this is not to date you, I was going to say grandfathered. You didn't grandfather them, you fathered. Let's go with fathered, shepherd. I know which one I think is the most, what's the word, not only iconic, but informed the rest of the business for so many years has to be Cheers for me. Yeah, for me too, because the Charles brothers, Gunn and Les, who were my co-producers on the show, they were gracious enough to give me a created by credit. And it will always be because I was in the room when that show was birthed, the three of us talking about what kind of show we wanted to do and everything like that.

12:32they went off and wrote this unbelievable script uh it's just my favorite and it will always be so the original script the pilot script showed up great oh my god i uh we discussed doing the show and we they we talked about the characters they went off and about a month later i received the script and i read it and i said you guys have brought radio back to television because it was so literate, so smart, so upscale. And we ran with it right from that point.

13:11Rob Lowe:But see, that's the thing is the shows that we love, Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, Frasier, there are a few other ones that were highly literate. And there were jokes in them, for sure, set up punchline jokes, but they didn't live and die on that. I mean, there's a whole other genre of sitcom that is nothing but set up joke punch. And I'm not a fan of that. But the ones that were character driven, story driven, that were funny coming from that area, which those were, I just don't understand why we can't have... I would give my flippin' eye teeth to be on a show like that. Like, if I could go back in time and be on Frasier, I'd be the happiest clam that ever clammed anywhere.

14:00Rob Lowe:Because it's just words and verbiage and being literate and attitude. It's so fun. I mean, Frasier might be my favorite of yours. Might be. In the beginnings of Cheers, we did Kierkegaard jokes, we did Schopenhauer jokes, and the network would call us and say, nobody knows who those people are. And we'd say, we don't care, because it's the intent of Diane Chambers saying those names, which is what is important to us. And then when and then when Fraser entered the scene, the character on Cheers in the third year, it became more and more of that verbiage. And then when Lilith came, it became more and more.

14:48And the audience roared at it. They they didn't understand. You know, it was it was no coward. The two of them, we did a show on Cheers called Dinner at Eight, where they invite Sam and Diane over Lilith and Fraser for dinner. and it's total Noel Coward. It's high-end comedy. And the great thing about it was you had Teddy there who, you know, was Sam Malone. And while they were talking and arguing, all he did was sit at the table and eat and react. And so it let the audience, if Sam doesn't understand it, it's okay that we don't understand it.

15:28Rob Lowe:That's right. Yeah. Well, I read, I didn't realize this, Not only did Sam not understand that conversation, but apparently Ted Danson had never heard of baseball, basically. He heard of it, but he never – I don't think Teddy ever went to a game. Sam Malone was originally a character called Sam Harrison who was a wide receiver for the Patriots. And when we cast Teddy, he didn't look like a football player. He looked like a baseball pitcher. So we based it on Bill Lee, the famous reliever. Oh, my God. Yes, spaceman Bill Lee. He's a spaceman. And so, you know, Teddy was a farseer from Carnegie Mellon.

16:08He was not a sports guy. I took him to his first baseball game. And then one of the finalists for the character of Sam Malone was Fred Dreyer, who later became Hunter. But Fred was a defensive end for the L.A. Rams. Of course. So I said to Teddy, we hired Fred to do a couple of shows to play Sam's buddy, Dave, who did sports at 11 o 'clock for a television station. It was called Eye on Sports. So I said to Teddy, watch this guy. This is who Sam Malone is. He's a peacock, and that's what Sam Malone is.

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19:56Rob Lowe:When you did Taxi, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd had done Cuckoo's Nest? Yeah. No, they were in the play in the early 70s. in Cuckoo's Nest off Broadway. Wow, that explains a lot. It's amazing to go back and look at Taxi and to see that lineup. How crazy was Andy Kaufman? He wasn't crazy at all. He wasn't crazy at all. I love it. Tell me more. He was a Jewish kid from Great Neck, Long Island. Grew up in a home that was, you know, somewhat had some money. He was the bravest comic I had ever seen in my life because he would come out, he never told jokes. He would come out on stage and do a routine until you laughed.

20:47I saw him come out once and read Gone with the Wind. He started reading Gone with the Wind. And it was, he kept reading 10 minutes going on and on. And finally the audience started to laugh and he got what he wanted. So he was more of a performance artist. and uh he was he was amazing as latke he was uh amazing he was he had a photographic memory he he had day night reversal as most comics do because they're up performing at comedy clubs so he would come in at one o 'clock the rest of the cast would come in at nine and he he knew his lines and he was he was interspersed uh in the show occasionally when he was heavy in a show, he would come in earlier because I needed to rehearse him more.

21:38But he was amazing as a character. And the whole Tony Clifton incident, which now goes down in history, but is immortalized because Milos Forman made that movie Man in the Moon.

21:52Rob Lowe:Now, so Tony Clifton was his alter ego, but from what I'm gathering from you, it was just a a performance artist character that he was interested in. Right. Not a lot of people knew Andy was Tony in the beginning. And he would, if he had an evening, if Andy Kaufman had an evening, Andy would come out as Tony Clifton as the opening act. And he would, he had prosthetics on his face. He had a big belly. He had a brocade tuxedo. He had a ruffled shirt. He had a terrible wig. he had sunglasses and he would start singing songs from a Vegas act and he was horrible and the audience would boo him get off, get off, we want Andy Kaufman we want Andy Kaufman and you know he would do what, 15 minutes and he would go off change his costume take off all the prosthetics and he would come back as Andy and it was amazing Occasionally, you know, we all knew that Andy Kaufman was Tony Clifton, but occasionally he had a partner named Bob Zamuda.

23:02And Bob Zamuda would dress as Tony Clifton and walk around with Andy to try to confuse people.

23:11Rob Lowe:That's so interesting. So the notion that he lost the plot is an additive that history has put on that whole thing. Andy knew what he was doing at every moment. And Danny DeVito, would you have ever known? People forget what Danny has accomplished. Danny is an amazing actor. He's in Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi, all of the great movies he's done. Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I think is probably the best comedy of the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years. And Danny made it happen. Not only did he produce it, but it wasn't going anywhere until he decided to be in it. and um you know his directing i think hoffa is a great movie that he directed people forget would you ever have known that he was capable of such things no danny had made a couple of short films but he always wanted to direct he has that sensibility i mean look at taxi who would you expect would be the movie star at a taxi right uh and cheers who would you expect to be the movie star out of Cheers, Woody.

24:19Rob Lowe:You never know. Well, listen, people say, go watch The Outsiders. And the guy with no teeth in it, who has five lines, becomes the world's biggest movie star, Tom Cruise. You just don't know. Right. The Mary Tyler Moore show, which is your first, that was your first sort of big show, right? No, that was my first show. First show, period. Period. Jesus Christ. I mean I don't know about you when I hear the Mary Tyler Moore theme I am transported still it just it just takes me back to a certain age and time and and I would have been you know pretty young and I loved that show so much I mean they are so great in it I mean it's I was watching the show the other day where um Maury was so excited that Ted was about to read one of his stories and he says, uh, and the, the dogs were, he confused which dogs they were, the doctor, because he was not, he was a vegetarian instead of veterinarian, just a stupid joke, but so funny.

25:25Um, what was Mary like?

25:28Rob Lowe:I never got to meet her. Uh, she was wonderful. Uh, she's the reason I've, I got into television. I was a theater stage manager and my dad was, a Broadway playwright. He wrote How to Succeed in Business and Guys and Dolls and directed How to Succeed and directed Cactus Flower and 40 Carats and Can Can. And so I was kind of born in a trunk. And in 65, when I got out of grad school, before you were born, I got a job as an assistant to the assistant stage manager on a musical my dad was doing called Breakfast at Tiffany's, based on Truman Capote's novel. And the stars were Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Chamberlain.

26:16So you had Laura Petrie and Dr. Kildare. Jesus. So the advance was huge because people in New York wanted to see them. And it was not my dad's best work. He was let go. And I said to my dad, can I stay on the Titanic? And he said, sure. so I stayed on and the man who replaced my father didn't help much and the audience we only played four previews in New York City we never went out of town the audience hoot and hollered and yelled at the actors because it was so horrible and Mary would come off and I would always meet her when she exited a scene she would come off and wrap her arms around me and start crying because it was so painful for her to endure, to endure this, you know, this, this nastiness.

27:13Rob Lowe:Why was it so bad? The show my dad wrote was okay. You know, it had a big advance, but they brought in Edward Albee to replace my dad, who's not really known for his musical comedy. And he, I'd say. Yeah. And he introduced Mary's, I mean, Holly's miscarriage into the show. Oh, hilarious. Yeah, I know. And he also had the character Dick Chamberlain played be able to take if a character was in trouble, he could the dialogue for the character. He could crush it and throw it away and she would be fine. I remember one one point he said, Mary, I'll write I'll write you a better scene. And from the audience you hear, why don't you write a better play?

27:54The final moment of the show, all there's all the scenery pulled back and there was one piece of paper on the stage. And Dick Chamberlain came out, crushed it like that, threw it down, and the cat, there's a famous cat in Breakfast Attivity, came out and played with it. So in order to get a cat to play with a piece of paper, you have to put catnip on it. So Chamberlain, Dick picked up this piece of paper, went like, crushed it, and the catnip went everywhere, including down his arm. And he threw the paper out, down on the ground. the cat came out and went right for his arm so you can't win for losing so that's how i knew her and then uh i had run a theater in san diego and i had done a lot of summer stock and i had seen i had tuned in one night and saw the mary tyler moore show on i say they're doing 25 minutes in a week and i'm doing two hour play in a week i think i can do that so i wrote her a letter and Grant Tinker responded to me, who was then married to her, the late Grant Tinker, and said, we're very interested in theatrical directors.