James Burrows

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I like to say in Thanksgiving, we were the 72nd show out of 71.

But true.

Oh, true.

Yeah.

Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name.

Today, Woody and I are talking to someone who means the world to us, the legendary director, James Burroughs.

You know know him as the co-creator and executive producer of Cheers.

Of the 275 episodes that we shot over 11 years, he directed all but 35.

Beyond Cheers, he directed hundreds of episodes over his storied career, among them the pilots for Taxi, Friends, Frazier, Will and Grace, and the Big Bang Theory.

And in the process, he made the multicam sitcom an art form.

It's hard to describe the impact he's had on pop culture and on the way we laugh.

So I'll let you hear from him yourself.

Meet Jimmy Burroughs.

So this is who we're talking to, Jimmy.

Hi, Jimmy.

Hi, boys.

Yeah, I want to talk about you, but I want to start from early on.

I read your book, which I fucking

love.

Your book.

I love it.

And what it's called.

Directed by.

Directed by, yeah.

And of course,

you know, because I don't want to get ahead of it because of all you've, you know, accomplished, but

to look back at your childhood, it's just so interesting to me because, you know, your dad being Abe, being the great fixer, what they call him the doctor.

The doctor.

The doctor.

Like he would come in and fix like Abe Burroughs.

He'd come in and fix like 42nd Street or, you know, big things that became humongous hits and that were just maybe not going well before he came along.

And

so you had that kind of the shadow of your father, which maybe meant, it seems to me like you said, you were not thinking at all about getting into any kind of into show business at all, right?

No,

never crossed my mind.

And then, so when you were in school, you somehow you did, oh, I know what it was.

he got you to be stage manager for something but that was later but i want to talk about your school first yeah okay sure tell me tell me a little bit about your you know your early school are you educated

uh one two four five yes good good

um

i was uh i went to public school in new york city I,

in the sixth grade, I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera Boys Chorus,

which I got in because I could sing my country Tis of the

and I had a high soprano and right now you see what it's become.

Yeah, you know, a nice soprano right now.

So I spent five years in a boys' chorus, going down to the Metropolitan Opera and

singing in Carmen and singing in La Bohem with a group of kids and then being a super, which is extra in other operas.

And so, you know, that was was my first taste of being in front of an audience.

And where was that?

At the Metro Bond Opera in New York.

Yeah.

I got, if we sang, we got $3 a performance.

If we were supernumeraries, we got $2 a performance.

But that must have seemed like a lot for you guys.

It was a lot, you know, and some of the opera singers, you know, would

talk to us before they went on, Richard Tucker and Reese Stevens, and, you know, people like that.

So we,

so it was it was a thrill and then I music and art I graduated I went to Oberlin College and

I was not involved in the theater there at all not even I was not going to be in the theater my father was a legend and I was not going to try to compete I was a government major which means I don't know what I'm going to do so you're going to totally don't know my you were thinking maybe eventually president yeah I was thinking you know because my my uh thesis was on gerrymandering.

An old-fashioned idea that never caught on.

You can see in my directorial skills how I gerrymander, right?

I arrange actors in this kind of weird shape,

you know, where they have no choice.

And so I got out of college and the,

that, that old Vietnam War was happening.

And

I didn't want to do that.

So I applied to the yale school of drama and i got in as a writer i i'm not a writer but hold on hold on hold on you were saying you don't want anything to do with it and then suddenly you're applying to the yale school of drama so you must have something piqued your interest because

uh you know

my old man my old man going to my old man helped in that area i'm not ashamed to admit it he knew some people up there so

I was going to go to some graduate school, any graduate school, because I was not going to

And so I went to the Yale School of Drama, and then I had a course in directing

that was taught by Nico Sakaropoulos.

You know, he was the, he started Williamstown.

Oh, oh.

Yeah, the Nico stage of Williamstown is named after him.

And so I said, oh,

that seems interesting, you know.

And so I went through three years and then I got out I was 25.

I still had to go down for an exam for a draft.

I went went down for a

1965.

And

somehow they didn't take me, which was lucky.

Did you play crazy?

No, I didn't play crazy.

I went down with, I had a doctor's note that somehow influenced them, and I didn't have to go luckily, you know.

I always think about

what Bruce Springsteen said about the guy who went in my place,

you know, and

weird that that is.

Anyway, so, and then I

started,

I drove a truck for a Summerstock theater, a circuit.

I would take the scenery.

I was a show tech.

I'd take the scenery

after the Saturday night show and drive it to the next place and unload it and teach the apprentices how to

run the furniture up and down the aisle because it was always in the round.

Oh, so that's direction of a sort.

It is.

I would sit up there during rehearsals and watch the director and go, hmm,

not funny.

That's not funny.

It was my fair lady.

There are wonderful jokes in that show, but

and then

that collapsed and

I

got a job working for my father as the second assistant stage manager on a show called Holly Go Lightly, a musical he wrote based on Breakfast Etiphanes, which was prophetic because that's where I met Mary Tyler Moore, because she was the star along with Richard Chamberlain.

Laura Petrie and Dr.

Kildare were coming to Broadway.

So

and you were the stage manager.

I was the assistant to the assistant.

Oh, I was going to say stage manager.

I know.

That sounds like going out for coffee.

Yeah.

Even lower.

Tea.

No.

Water.

Lower.

Filling the sugar packets.

So I, but my job was to be in charge of Mary and Dick because

they were coming from California, had never, I think Mary was in a chorus when she was growing up of a Broadway show, but Chamberlain had never been on Broadway.

So I was responsible for keeping them fed, you know, making sure they made their cues, showing them, you know, making sure there are hotel rooms.

So I was literally in charge of them.

And then during the show, I was, you know,

I remember Charlie Blackwell was.

I worked with him.

Yeah.

Yeah, Blexi Blues.

Yeah, he's an amazing.

He was a dancer for, you know, Alvin Ailey Company.

He became a stage manager.

And he...

You know, I was doing anything backstage I could because, you know, and then a piece of scenery kind of got stuck on stage and Charlie says to me dance out and move it

did you

I did

and then there was one scene where

there was one scene where there was this big party number a big dance and they had no way to get into the next scene So my dad said to me, okay, I want you to come in the door upstage and say, hey, everybody, there's a party at Pearl Mesta's.

Let's go.

And then everybody would run off.

And

I burst through the door at the end of the number and there was a huge applause.

And I thought it was for me.

And I said, hey, every Pearl, there's a Mester at Pearl.

So anyway, so

that was it.

And then

what happened is David Merrick, who was a producer and the preeminent producer of Broadway shows back then, decided that the show was not that good, although it was sold out because of Mary and Dick.

And so he wanted, he replaced my father.

And

so he replaced my father with a man, a writer who's won multiple awards for musical comedy, Edward Alby.

Funny man?

Yes.

To direct.

No, Joe Anthony.

To rewrite.

To rewrite.

And the first thing Edward did was put back Holly's miscarriage into the musical.

So God love it.

I loved Edward.

I would go down.

There was no fax machines back then.

I would go down to his house.

He had a beautiful brownstone on 10th Street, and I would pick up the pages that he wrote, and I would take them uptown.

And I was always, I saw.

I saw the Zeus story, and then I went to opening night of Virginia Wolf, and there was no more memorable night in the theater.

Holy shit, that must have been incredible.

I took my dad,

who, you know, my dad was fidgety and everything like that.

He stood perfectly, he sat perfectly still for three, three and a quarter hours.

Nobody knew what to expect.

That was what's so, so dramatic.

Anyway, so Edward came in and I said to my dad,

can I stay on?

And my father said, yes, you can.

So I stayed on.

We rehearsed the new pages in New York.

And rather than go back out of town, they decided to to play previews in New York.

So

we previewed on a Monday and

it was awful.

The audience.

Edward had created

the conceit that

Richard Chamberlain, who was the Truman Capote character, had written his book.

And that he could, he could, if Holly was not doing well, he could take,

he could somehow rewrite her on stage yeah so you know we were doing that and and chamberlain said you know to holly don't worry i'll fix it i'll write it and the audience goes why don't you write a better play oh yeah

oh boy

wow and so every night after the show monday night mary would come off after the show and collapse into my arms crying And it happened four nights in a row.

And Merrick was smart enough to close it.

And there was a wake on Wednesday night

because we closed.

And I sat with Mary in

Sardis until Grant Tinker flew in from California, who was her husband.

And so that's how that bond was formed.

Two people who made a huge difference in your career.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Well, so I guess we get to that part.

I mean, well, no, you keep going.

And then what happened next?

So then I was

I got a job as stage managing on Broadway of

40 carats.

Actual stage manager.

Actual stage manager with Julie Harris.

And

which means you're running rehearsals.

I'm

running the show.

Yeah.

You know, I'm calling the cues and everything like that.

And then she left after a year.

It was a big hit.

And June Allison came in, so I put her in the show.

And then

June left and Josh Agabor came in

oh my gosh

what was that like training for the rest of your life

i was i i

i had to wrangle jaja

and

she was she was a big boost in my career because i you know she listened to me because i knew what was going on

I knew what she had to do, what she had to be.

I rehearsed and then my dad came in and he would see the final rehearsals and everything like that.

But the Josh's situation was she didn't care where the play was.

If she didn't look good, she didn't make an entrance.

Right.

So there were many times there was silence on stage.

Oh, geez.

And I'd have to run up to her room and drag her out and throw her on stage.

This is familiar.

Yes.

And so anyway.

We became friends.

You know, she really liked me and she was going to do 40 carats in

a theater in San Diego.

And they hired me to direct it.

And she bailed.

And they brought in Marjorie Lorde, who was Danny Thomas's wife on Make Room for Daddy.

And I did it with her.

And the owner of the theater liked it.

And he made me artistic director.

Wow.

So

no, it was called the Off-Broadway Theater in San Diego.

in old in Old Town, which was kind of decrepit there.

And

what year are we, roughly?

71.

Is Woody born yet still going on?

I don't know if Woody was born yet.

Yeah, go on.

We'll catch up to when he's born.

And so

at that point, I would come up to LA to cast,

you know, because it was only a two-hour drive then.

And so I come up, and I would, I had a couple of friends up here, and I would go see.

I went to see the Paul Lynn show once,

you know, and then I went to see

Chico and the Man.

Oh, yeah.

So I got a sense of, you know.

Half hour.

Half hour is

those multi-cameras.

They were multi-cameras, yeah.

But three cameras back then.

Yes, three cameras.

And so I was in Wallingford, Connecticut.

Then I then went back to dinner theater and regional theater.

I was directing Joan Fontaine and 40 Carrots.

And I went home one night and I turned on the television.

There was a Mary Tyler Moore show on on a Saturday night.

And it was a half-hour show.

They were doing 20, actually 25 minutes of show in a week.

And I was doing a two-hour show, like 40 characters a two-hour show.

I could put it on its feet in a week.

And I did Never Too Late with Bob Cummings for, you know, in a week, like stuff like that.

And I wrote a letter to Mary Tyler Moore.

And I said, you remember me?

I've been running dinner theaters.

I ran a theater in San Diego.

I'm a theatrical director.

I would love to be able to come out.

And I got a call from Grant Tinker about two weeks later and said, we'd like you to come out to do one show.

So because of the bond at breakfast at Tiffany's, I had the balls to write Mary.

Balls, but you also had gotten a lot of directing experience under your belt by then.

I did.

They didn't, you know, I'm not Marion Grant.

I'm not sure we're aware of it, but they were smart enough to know that the form that we do, the form of Cheers,

is a play that is filmed.

Right.

Right.

So they were smart enough to know that a director who's a theatrical director can learn the cameras.

You can learn the technical aspect.

You can't learn how to be funny.

You can't learn how to talk to an actor.

So they were smart enough.

They hired a few theatrical directors that year, and I was one of them.

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So let's talk about that first episode you directed because I guess it was a little bit of a

disaster at first.

The script.

Yeah.

The script.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it just wasn't coming together.

And there's something in your book, which really, I told you about this last time I saw you, but it was just like, great, because

you're sitting there.

And I think Mary said something like, I mean,

this,

what is this shit?

Should we even be doing this or something like that, right?

Yeah, it was, it was rough because in those days,

we read the script around the table like we did in Shears.

And then we would go rehearse right away.

We wouldn't wait for the rewrite.

So we read the script and I said to Grant Tinker, in a sea of Danish, I get a bagel.

So I had to go downstage and rehearse stuff I knew would change.

And I had these actors, I had Mary and Ed and Gavin and Ted and Valerie and Cloris, and they were bitching.

You know, and I said, well, let's let's see, let's see what we can do.

Let's let's rehearse it.

You know, and it's, you know, it's maybe a lot won't change.

And, you know, the old adage of, you know, if you have a mailman, he knows where to go

on each route.

And even though there might not be a letter for that person, you know, he'll pass that.

So, so at least if we set up the route, maybe it can be replied, applied to the rewrite.

So, I did that.

And did they hear that?

Did they?

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I was, I was.

That's smart, though.

I was, you know, I was not, I had no credentials or anything.

I was brought in by Mary, and I'm sure the cast knew that, but I had, you know, and they were bitching.

But there was a wonderful cast.

And

I,

it was a show about

Lou moving into Rhoda's apartment.

And because Rhoda had left.

And so Lou and Mary were living together and working together.

So, and the last scene is when Lou decides to move out.

And

I had, I told him,

you know, I said, let's let's play it like it's the cherry orchard.

you know i

there you know check off is funny there it's funny let's play like jerry hose both of you sit on suitcases like you're moving out of the house going to moscow which i think is the end of the cherry orchard i it's yeah i think so i think so and so i did that i had invoked shakespeare earlier in the week i just did anything I could to make the piece better because I knew this was my chance.

I only had this one chance.

I was not worried about getting my next job because I knew this was it.

So

I died with my boots on.

I did.

As a guest director on this show, you have to play by the rules of the show.

You have to listen to the actors and listen to the writers and everything like that.

But you have those moments, as you know, when I rehearse with you guys.

where we can become creative and we can, you know, feel a part of the piece.

So

I was somewhat active in those areas.

And then I was walking out

to the front of the stage to begin the shoot.

And Mary came out of her trailer.

And she came over to me, put her hands on my shoulder, and said, We feel our investment in you has worked out.

This was before I shot the show.

So I burst into tears

because that's what I do.

I wet my pants.

I like to tell people from my tears, they roll down and wet my pants.

And

I shot the show.

It was

maybe a C plus show.

But the next day my phone rang and the New Heart show wanted me because that was MTM and the Paul Sand show wanted me.

Wow.

So

that was the beginning.

And so then when you went and did,

then your next show was New Heart?

Yeah, I did a couple of New Hearts.

Yeah, and so, but when you went over there, obviously in a whole different environment,

what was that like?

Well, Bob was, Bob was testing.

You know, Bob is

Bob is Bob.

He's maybe the funniest, one of the funniest men I ever knew.

Just with,

you know, this is a great story.

There's a great story about

during the pilot of New Heart show, because Bob has the

stammer, you know, when he's delivering the line.

And

it's apocryphal, but I think it's true that

one of the writers went over to him and said, can you kind of do less of the stammer?

And he said, that stammer built me a house in Beverly Hills.

It's so funny to think of someone's like, can you do less stammer

to Bob Newhart?

So I went over there and you know, he tested me and

he at least he liked, he was a stand-up comic, so he liked to, we rehearsed everything twice and then showed it to the guys, to the producers.

And Susie Plachette, I had known because she was in one of my dad's plays.

Magnificent.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Filthiest mouth in the world.

You know, wonderful,

wonderful, wonderful lady.

I treasured her.

And so then, you know, I did a couple of those and then I got another Mary show.

And

I was often running at MTM.

And that took you, how much closer are you getting to Lesson Glenn Charles at that point?

The second year, I was assigned to be the resident director of the Filler Show.

So I got a chance to work with Cloris full time.

And that taught me a lot.

She was,

she was, she was, Cloris was tough, not mean spirited, but but just tough.

And, you know, as you know, she was a big vegan.

They're the worst.

Aren't they?

Oh, horrible.

That's the first time I heard about Spirulina.

Spirulina.

Not from him.

No.

Not from her.

But at least she didn't fart on stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

You know?

Thank you.

Thank you, Jimmy.

So far, during the podcast, this is a very closed room.

He's been very good.

He has?

He's been very considerate.

Well, I chew my food now.

Well, actually, I haven't been eating lately, but you know what I mean.

I chew it up good now.

Are we all farts?

Yeah, we're all farts, but we're still back.

We're on the Phillips.

So, so

she was an actress who could do a joke nine ways, and they were all funny.

So, when I started, I had to sit through nine ways, and then I figured out,

after the third way, I'm going to say,

that's pretty good.

Let's do that.

Just to move on.

And

I did 20 shows the first year.

It was not a great show.

The character Phyllis is not a center.

There was no center on that show.

Then I got a job doing a movie of the week with Robin Penny, Meadhead and Laverne.

They were, you know, both huge stars then, Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall.

And it was a story about a relationship in the Bronx in New York between Rob and Penny.

And I,

so it was my, really my first one-camera venture,

which was scary for me.

I mean, I tell the story about

the first scene,

I'm shooting just

wild shots of a baseball being hit to Rob so he can pick it up and, you know, cutaways and stuff like that.

And I roll the camera and, you know, the guy starts hitting the ball.

And Rob hollered, you didn't say action.

But you learned.

I learned.

I never, I never not said action after that.

I remember meeting you on True.

Was it True?

Not True West.

Best of the West.

Best of the West.

And I auditioned.

I have a little snapshot like you do in your mind.

And

I remember auditioning for it and didn't get it.

But I think

you said that you remembered me from that.

So when it came time, I was doing a taxi and I remember going downstairs to meet with you, Les and Glenn.

Yeah, we all came down to watch you.

Yeah.

You were playing a character that was perfect for Sam Malone.

Yeah.

A gay hairdresser.

Right.

Yeah.

Which you know

was Sam Malone's backstory.

That's funny.

Yeah.

So

no, that I, you, you stuck stuck in my head.

I remember I really wanted you to,

I was outvoted on that.

You know, Ed liked.

Thank God.

Ed liked Joel Higgins because he was more Western.

Yeah.

You know, so than the kid from Arizona.

But

never mind.

Believe me, I know.

Sedona, right?

Flagstaff.

Flagstaff, yeah.

Yeah.

But I remember walking, and I'll do my little story, and then

we have to talk about Woody's entrance into your life.

But I remember one, I maybe had met twice, and maybe the third time I read for you and everything, you all said,

don't take another job without checking us first.

And I went, my heart pounding.

So does this

mean I've got the part?

And you went, no, no, just, it doesn't mean that, but just check with us before you take something.

And I walked out the door.

There were two doors in your office back then.

I walked out the back door and looked to my left, and there was like every actor in Hollywood was lined up coming up the stairs to meet you guys.

We couldn't, we didn't have the ability to hire.

We had the ability to take it in front of NBC.

So

we knew.

You didn't read with Shelley before that.

No, not before that, but then you started pairing people up.

Yeah.

And I say this, and i it sounds like i'm being humble but i got cheers because i happened to work well with shelly long shelly was in my in my mind the way besides every wonderful actor and character and the writing and all of that stuff shelley was unlike any character you'd seen on tv since maybe i love lucy i think and she really kind of

was a magic spice to that show.

She really was.

Yeah, you're right.

I mean, without her, we don't get to year two.

two yeah he was good but the the the chemistry was you and shelly just blew everybody away so the first season like you literally the bottom of the

of the uh

ratings pyramid on the ratings i like to say in thanksgiving we were the 72nd show out of 71

but true true yeah i don't remember what show we put on that that night but we were we were desperate.

You guys were great.

I have to say, even when we were

not even, we didn't even know what ratings meant, meaning we could lose our job or something, but you all would talk to the cast going, you're doing great.

Just focus on what you're doing.

The work is great.

And you never let us worry about ratings.

It was, you know, I'm sure you all did, but you never passed that on to the cast.

Well, you.

When we said you were doing great, we had backup.

The fact that the audiences, audiences,

you know, because doing it in front of a live audiences, they loved the show.

Yeah.

They laughed.

They laughed at Georgie.

They left at Johnny.

They left at Rhea.

They laughed at Teddy and they left at Shelly.

They just

loved those characters and they had never seen them before.

That's when you know you have something special.

But when you started the second season,

was it then popular because of the reruns?

Yeah, kind of popular.

Kind of popular, not like.

It just started creeping up the ratings or something?

Because the Emmys helped.

Oh, I see.

The first year,

the beginning of the second year in September, the Emmys.

Shelley won.

Shelley won.

I won.

The show won.

The Charles Roses won.

Oh.

Rhea?

Probably.

I think it was everybody but me.

I think

it was phrased.

On purpose.

You didn't win till the ninth year.

Was it the ninth year?

Yeah.

I was nominated nine times.

My phone calls home in the car to my kids.

No, no, didn't, didn't, didn't, no, I'm sorry, but I'm fine.

Things are great.

Love you.

You know, like,

but you know, it's so weird is you

by about the seventh time I lost.

But people said, yeah, but I'm sorry you didn't win, but what have you won?

Like three of them already?

Because no one is paying attention to anything except their own little world.

That's all that you think about.

You really are and were and are my daddy in show business.

You were so amazing.

You took me to my first football game.

You introduced me to

a baseball game.

See, I still haven't figured that out.

Sam Malone was a relief pitcher and he had never been to a baseball game.

Yeah.

And you taught me also, just if you want to get into the character, just touch your crotch and rearrange your character.

Watch Freddie.

I told you, remember when Freddie Dreyer was on the show?

I said, watch him.

Yeah, and he did touch himself periodically, you know, before Michael Jackson.

He was touching himself a lot.

And I did that.

And I also discovered you got a close-up that way because you couldn't use the shot of me touching myself.

But it did help.

No, because you were.

There was this inner athlete trying to get out.

You know, I mean, you, you, you know, you were a farceur for Carnegie Mellon.

Yes, I was.

But you had the ability, your great ability was to throw away a joke.

Yeah.

Which was so important for Sam Malone.

I think shooting in front of a live audience teaches you how you better have something better to do.

Your character in your little world you're in.

Your character better have something more important than the joke.

Because if the joke fails and you're sitting around waiting to see how the joke did, you're screwed.

Right.

So So you make the joke secondly important to whatever it is you're doing.

Yeah, you cut lemons for how long?

Until I got bored and just washed shot glasses.

But being in an action is so important.

Yeah.

Because, you know, the joke is a surprise, so much of a surprise coming out of the action.

Before we get to Woody, one more thing that I think you...

we've all experienced anyone who's worked with you as an actor is that the writing community and the the acting community are both very fragile, ego, creative souls.

And a lot of times, if you don't have a Jimmy Burroughs between

those two camps, then feelings can get hurt very easily.

And you were able to tell the actors, hey, this is what the writers need and you need to respect that.

And you were able to tell the writers, you know, don't worry, the actors have got it.

It'll be okay.

You are a great translator to both camps that I think made our tenure on SHERES just incredibly pleasant with writers.

Yeah, I mean, it is a writer's medium.

Yeah.

And I do break down those walls, which is so important.

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Coach.

Coach.

Nikki Conisanto.

Nikki died at the end of our third year,

and it felt like the heart and soul, because he was the kind of heart and soul, his character of the show.

What are we going to do because we just lost that innocence and the heart and soul of a show?

Then, what did you start doing as soon as you realized you were going to have to?

Well, we

thought a lot about it.

And then

the thing that influenced us for another bartender, for Cassie, another bartender, was the fact that the show that preceded us was Family Ties.

And Family Ties had a huge star in Michael with Jay Fox.

So we figured we should go younger.

So we

they wrote a part.

I think the Charles Brothers wrote the script.

I don't remember.

I thought it was

Holly Perlman.

Heidi?

Heidi Perlman, yeah.

Maybe Heidi wrote it.

But anyway, the Charles Brothers were involved in creating this kind of wide-eyed Iowa kid that looked like a scarecrow.

And

they named him Woody.

and uh

we found a guy we found a guy we loved a guy named I think his name was John Pilgrim.

He was he looked a little bit like uh oh this is real you found

this guy we loved this guy named John Pilgrim.

He would look like a scarecrow.

Do you know this story?

Woody yeah he looked like a scarecrow and then

we did more auditions.

I'm not sure why,

but you know, we did more auditions.

And then

all of a sudden a guy walked in the room

and he was not a scarecrow.

He was kind of burly and big and

thank God he was dumb.

That was, you know,

and he read

and

He blew us away.

And that was one, Mr.

Harrelson.

and uh i think we then brought you in yeah to read with him yeah

and you what was what was your opinion of him same yeah

yeah you never read with john pilgrim did you no no

no just just effortlessly yes

one of us kind of feeling blew his nose right Yeah, I think so.

I don't think you were there.

That was when I first walked into the, Lori opened them, you know.

She, she, I read for, you know, and I didn't, I'm not worried about anything.

I'm going back to do the Neil Simon play in Broadway, Bluxy Blues.

Bluxy Buzz, yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't, I'm fine if I don't get this.

I'm going back to, that was my dream.

So I was kind of relaxed, but I was following.

It seemed more labyrinthian then, but I felt like I was following her through a couple of doors.

And I don't know, I guess it wasn't, but open when we were open that, when she opened that door, door i didn't know the next door was where everybody was and i just happened to be blowing my nose

and the whole walk and room laughed

it's like the perfect entrance but i didn't even plan it and uh and jimmy said i knew you had the part right then

that's great effort effortless is a good word for him yeah

It was a godsend.

On Cheers, as you know, when replacing people.

We were extraordinary.

Yep.

I mean, we were extraordinary.

And even with the characters we, you know, we brought in just for one or two episodes.

Not to replace anybody, they expanded like one Kelsey Grammar.

Kelsey.

Yeah.

You know, it was a four-show.

It was a four-show arc to get Diane back in the bar.

Right.

And what was that?

The second or third?

Third year.

Third year.

And then

you only had him on for four.

Art planned for four.

Yeah,

he was the guy who said to Diane, go back and confront your demons.

Go back to the bar and face Sam.

And so, you know, he had one of the great entrances ever on cheers because he's sitting on the bar at the bar and you don't know it.

And all of a sudden he pops up.

So, but the minute he spoke,

he's so talented and he was so good.

Oh, my gosh.

Classically trained.

Yeah.

And then, and then Mr.

Woodhead in the fourth year,

I had him jump over the bar.

Was that episode one?

I think it was episode one.

I remember you saying, can you jump over the bar?

And I said, well, maybe.

That drove him crazy.

Didn't we

turn my jump over the bar into a comedic bit

because

I couldn't jump over it.

Yeah, it kind of drove Sam crazy.

That was my relationship with Woody for a long time, trying to outdo him at anything and failing miserably.

Well, you had less testosterone.

I still do, but

thanks for bringing it up.

We really appreciate it.

Yeah.

I mean, there are creams now, though.

There's not enough cream for you, honey.

Oh,

okay.

Because I use it all.

Okay, that's good.

Good save.

Good safe.

No, he

jumped over the bar and that was a light to us all, you know, and not only in the show,

but in the behavior of everybody in the show, the cast.

We brought a young, we brought a young soul onto the stage

who created havoc.

Right.

And the best havoc any, the best havoc a director of that show could ever want, because it kept you guys amused.

Yeah.

It kept you guys happy.

Because my job in year four.

You mean Woody himself, not Woody, the character.

Yeah, Woody himself.

Oh, my God.

Yes, it's true.

Because in year four,

my job is

not to tell you how to do the jokes or anything like that, but it's to stop you from being bored.

Yeah.

Because if you guys are bored, you know, you're not going to do it.

So,

I mean,

he introduced

a challenge and a way of life that was just.

you know, great

for the show.

Yeah, it's true.

We would wait.

We were, all the guys were turning 37 and you were like 24 or 25.

And 37 is when you realize you're no longer 25 as a man.

So we were just, first off, first off, we wanted to beat them.

When it became blatantly clear, we couldn't beat him in anything, basketball, leg, arm wrestling, whatever, chess.

All of a sudden it was like, well, practical jokes, you know.

If you had a good practical joke and George and John and Kelsey were sitting there, you'd go, No, this is too good.

I have to wait for Woody.

I have to try to fuck Woody up.

And

it was that kind of energy, you know, that you brought into the bar.

You really did.

To still, in my memory, it was the most idyllic, amazing experience.

You know, like, I can't imagine a better experience for an actor.

Yeah.

Period.

You know, me too.

We were blessed.

It was great, Jimmy.

And you just, you're just the greatest leader or papa, you know, to all of us.

And

you just, you made it so fun, you know, and it wasn't, you know, like you were never, you were, you were never strict, you know, you'd let us kind of get a little out of hand, but you, you know, you'd, as long as we delivered on the Tuesday.

You know what I mean?

We shot on Tuesday.

You used to call us like comedy commandos.

You just have to go in and do it right once in front of of the camera.

Right, right.

But you also had to do it in front of in the run-throughs.

Well, a little bit because towards the end, yes, in the beginning, but by the eighth, ninth year, so many people were out of town.

Woody would call up and be in Berlin because the wall's coming down.

John Ratzenberger would be pissed.

He'd go up and harvard his, harvest his apples up on Vachon, you know.

And so most of the run-throughs would have second and third ADs reading the script to just be a body on the brain.

Yeah, Brian.

And I remember

some new writers turning to you and going, how the fuck?

How do we know if this works?

And you were able to say, it's funny.

Don't worry about it.

It'll be all right.

Yeah, because if

with you guys, if a joke didn't work, it was not your fault.

It was the joke's fault.

And

to be on a show, which I've been on a few where that's the situation is the greatest gift in the world.

To know that

you have actors who, if the joke is right,

they'll be able to deliver it.

And so

it makes it more difficult for the writers because the joke has to be better.

But

it's great to hear that feedback from the audience.

Yeah.

We were spoiled because

You know, the worst thing you can hear, I think, as an actor is, no, no, just say it.

It's funny.

But also, i loved when the joke didn't work on the on the night on the tuesday night and you'd see all the writers and you gather around in a circle and just like

what about this you know and then boom get a joke like yeah it might take you know 10 minutes okay we got the joke please let's try it again yeah the interesting thing about cheers is We shot it on film.

So we had four film cameras rolling simultaneously.

So we never did every scene twice.

We never did that on Cheers.

I would go back and get a shot I missed, but just a little section, or I would go back and get a joke.

Now, when you were on

Will and Grace, we were not using film anymore.

It was cards.

So we could do the scene twice.

They would change the jokes that didn't work, but you do the scene twice.

It didn't cost anything.

But on Cheers,

we had to be economical because they were always harping on us for for using too much film.

I think the first five or six years, we were almost

all of us were on our toes and it was like, we're doing a play.

You know, don't don't mess up your lines.

Just really work hard so you can do it like a play.

And then as time went on, we started messing up lines more and more and more to the audience's delight.

Yeah.

I think.

Yes.

And I would just back you up.

And, you know,

and I mean, the end of the first year,

we did a two-parter.

You remember the two-parter with your brother, who we never see?

Is it the wedding?

No, it's not the best.

No, your first year, two-parter, where

Sam's brother comes and he's got the big crowd around him.

Yeah.

Big crowd around him.

And you never see him.

He goes in the back room.

And

all the whole cast goes in the back room with except for you.

And each one comes out and has a scene with you

independently right

and uh

it was a two-parter and the evening lasted two hours and 15 minutes wow wow it was rough that that's a wow you i mean no that's a wow you it's incredible i'll take the wow me yeah but then then you're didn't you have a two-parter wedding woody's wedding oh my god yeah yeah and that was like a farce french farce that was farce yeah that was great you had the doors that i know remember

we had it's like a door to the kitchen.

We had a door,

swinging doors this way to the living room, swinging doors to the kitchen.

And we had every, every, every

cliche of farce.

We had a drunk minister, we had dogs, we had a dumb waiter.

And that was a show.

We shot the first half on the Cheers Bar.

Right.

Took the entire audience, walked them over to another stage where the uh kelly's kitchen was the kitchen for uh really yes

i don't do you remember that yeah i do i do remember we went to another stage

because we couldn't fit we couldn't fit that whole set on on

and you guys i i you guys bitched at me during that show because i rehearsed you a lot yeah because it was

exciting yeah yeah it was exciting it was exciting and i don't think that took forever to shoot either because the timing of it was so precise

with the farce, I guess.

It's always like that.

The joke is you come through the door at this moment.

You can't miss your.

Yeah.

Hey, can we talk?

We haven't been able to talk to Shelly yet, and we hope to.

Shelly Long, who played Diane, but

she was astounding.

When she decided to move on, I remember thinking, oh my God, my dance partner just left.

Does that mean, you know, I'm going to tank here?

What is this going to mean?

You all were probably

up against it a little bit, but

tell me how you got into Kirstie and how that all came to be.

Well,

we were a C2.

We were brokenhearted.

You know, you're breaking up

Sam and Diane, which has become in the vernacular of the television business now.

You know, people talk about doing Sam-Diane relationships.

So

it's in the vernacular.

We were stunned.

We didn't know quite what to do, but

believe it or not, we went back to the original conception of the show.

And

when I was pitching the show with the Charles brothers, before we ever shot the first episode,

We decided that it would be good to, we love the character of Sam Malone, an athlete.

and we love the fact that this guy, Sam Malone, would work for a woman.

So we love the fact that Sam would work for a woman.

Sam would have to work for a woman.

Sam would have to work for a woman.

And so we went back to

that concept.

And

Glenn and Les.

went off the right.

And we, you know,

they they came back with the character of rebecca which was literally because when we talked about doing cheers originally we talked about sam working for a woman in the suzanne plachette mode right

that kind of woman yeah

so the boys wrote the script and they created the character of rebecca and

we told jeff greenberg we need this character a great casting director and jeff greenberg said kirsty alley oh wow right away

He knew right away.

That's what he said.

And so she came in.

She came in to read.

And she walked in the door.

And Glenn Less and I all went, Boo,

which is your line when you first see her.

And I never got that right.

You did get it right.

Really?

I practiced it.

Because Glenn pitched it.

That was Glenn's line.

Yeah.

So she walks in.

We go, Boo.

She reads.

I don't think she read with you

because she was stunning yeah

and so

we then

you know with when you're house hunting the first house you see yeah

so we went and looked at a couple other people like that and then we

we read on stage with you and ria and her right i think so did did we have another actress we just had her remember that no no i never read for any i thought she had it for the time i read You read with her, right?

Yeah.

And

you read with her, you read with her on stage.

Then we all went up to the room after that.

And you came in the room and Rhea came in the room.

And I remember you saying, I want to hug her,

which was, you know, the antithesis of the character.

that we we created, that the boys created.

And so we hired her.

And then

I think I got this story right.

In the first,

in the rehearsals for the first show with her,

she walks in the bar, booer, you know, and

she's so mean.

You know, she's so mean to you.

You know, it was not funny.

And, you know, it was crazy and not funny.

And so

we rewrote it the second day.

We made her a little less mean.

We had a rehearsal.

You know, still wasn't funny.

And then she tried to go in the office door

and it wouldn't work.

She turned it like this.

Kirstie the actress.

Kirstie the actress.

Right.

And she started crying.

And everybody went, oh my God.

There you are.

There you are.

Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

At all times.

The happy accident.

The happy accident.

You jumping over the bar.

And

that was it.

You know, I get teared up when I think about it because it was a seminal moment in my life.

And we wrote to that.

Yeah.

We wrote to that.

We wrote and we wrote a relationship where you were never going to get her into bed.

Right.

And it was always a triangle.

She was always, she was interested in somebody rich.

I was trying to get her into bed.

Right.

And then there's that great moment where you, you know,

where you take the fire out of her.

That's my favorite physical.

I'm finally going to bet her.

And she says, yes, we're in her apartment.

She goes in to change something more comfortable.

And

as I try to take my pants off,

my zipper or something is stuck and I can't get my pants off.

So I grab a fire poker, stick it down my pants, and sit there trying to jack it, fry it open, you know.

She was a marvel.

She was a marvel.

She really was.

Unbelievable.

Hey, I know that every damn near every actor in town who's worked with you, it feels exact the same we do, which just kind of pisses me off because you so effortlessly left us and went on and made new best friends.

But I never left you.

I love you so much.

I'm so grateful for everything you did for me.

And it wasn't just cheers.

You introduced me into such a high level of,

you know, how to be in this business.

And I cherish you forever.

You're so sweet.

Your turn, Woody.

Ditto?

No.

No, Jimmy, I love you.

You've made such an enormous impact on my life.

And

all those times back then,

I cherished them, you know, and I cherished the way you looked after everybody and made, and just always made it fun and

great, you know, and just just to watch you do your thing, you know, like I used to be amazed to watch you like when you're doing the filming, a lot of times you look down.

You're not even looking at the, you're listening.

You were very acoustic about it sometimes.

And you'd, and then just see you come over to one of the

you know, one of the cameras and just push it forward like two feet.

You know how you do that.

And

you know, when we're, when we're just fucking up, it's up, up, up, up, up, you know, so that the audience wasn't going to hear the punchline before it was ready to be.

And but just

the overall just genius of how you did that and did it so seemingly effortlessly, but also making us all just feel great and like a family.

You made a family.

You were the patriarchal figure in this family.

And thank you for, thank you for for all of that, dude.

Well, thank you for the compliments.

You guys were my first too.

I mean, I had done taxi before, but

this was

our baby, Glenn Lesson, and

my baby.

And so it was a first for us, for the three of us, and for you guys too, and for everybody in that show.

And it was, you know, to

create a child like Cheers and have it go on and live on is just

amazing to me.

And

to have a family like I had on that show, which set

the predicate for all my shows.

You know,

I can't work on a show where everybody is not a family, where, you know, the fish stinks from the head and...

the head is sitting here to my right, but there was no stink coming out of them.

And so I can't be on a show where that happens.

I can't be on a show where there's crabbing and everything like that, because that's not how I work or how for me, the way to make the best show is for everybody to be on board and don't care about anything.

And I think,

you know, especially you two guys were.

You're seminal in my life.

The relationship I have with you, it still goes on.

Obviously, you didn't lose my number.

I'm on this podcast.

But

I have such fond memories and

I love you both.

Yeah, love you too, Jimmy.

Love you, buddy.

That was the one and only Jimmy Burroughs.

Thank you, Jimmy, for spending that time with us.

We love you very much.

That's it for this week.

Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco.

If you enjoyed this episode, send it to a loved one.

You can always watch full-length video by visiting youtube.com slash Team Cocoa.

As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts

if you'd like.

See you next time.

Where everybody knows.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Dancing and Woody Harrelson sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leow.

Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself.

Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.

Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka.

Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Grawl.

Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.

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This week, we're diving into the brand new War of the Worlds reboot, starring Ice Cube.

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