James Burrows slips away but leaves behind a million laughs. They arrived out of thousands of episodes of TV shows across five decades and stayed with us so long they’ve become part of the American vernacular.
Who didn’t love “Taxi,” “Cheers,” “Will & Grace,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Frasier,” “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory”?
How many of us still regale friends with “Taxi’s” Jim Ignatowski, taking his test to become a cab driver, stage-whispering, “What does a yellow light mean?”
“Slow down,” he’s told.
“OK,” he says, slowing down. “What … does … a … yellow … light … mean?”
And then repeats the give-and-take several more agonizing times, with the punch line getting slower and the laughs getting larger and longer.
As director of so many of television’s great situation comedies, back when the three network TV stations were our national gathering places, Jim Burrows brought laughter to several generations of viewers.
When he died last Friday, June 19, at 85, he was remembered as “the Steven Spielberg of sitcoms,” winner of 11 Emmy Awards and 47 nominations. He directed the pilot episodes for an astonishing 75 different shows that became sitcom series.
His laughs were a mix of sophistication and absurdity — and plenty of varieties of “family.”
“Will & Grace” was about extended family – gays and straights in such warm and hilarious relationships that they made Americans feels more comfortable than ever with sexuality that wasn’t necessarily their own.
“Cheers,” which Burrows helped create, gave us an extended family that just happened to live most of their lives in a bar.
When Burrows moved on to direct such classics as “Rhoda” and “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Laverne & Shirley,” they weren’t necessarily about the traditional nuclear family, but it was still the family ties they brought into our homes every week.
When George Wendt entered the “Cheers” bar every week and responded to a chorus of “Hey Norm, whattaya know?” he always had a ready answer.
As Burrows told Entertainment Weekly, “The studio audience would erupt in laughter. I said, ‘They know who this guy is. They’re not laughing at a joke, they’re laughing at an attitude.’”
The “Cheers” cast was as comfortable to viewers as their own families. And Burrows could create family familiarity out of the most oddball crews.
Take “Taxi.” Were there more oddball characters than Andy Kaufman’s Latka Gravas, with his roots in some unnamed foreign country, and Christopher Lloyd’s loopy, burned-out Reverend Jim Ignatowski?
Their pairing led to Latka inviting the entire “Taxi” crew to his apartment.
“We’re going to have a party,” he says. “We’re going to play some games from my country. We’re going to play Bobbing for Fish Parts.”
“OK,” says Jim, “but I have to warn you, I’ve done that professionally.”
As the son of show biz royalty, Burrows grew up learning how to get a laugh. His father, Abe Burrows (born Abram Borowitz), was a legendary Broadway playwright, composer and director who helped create “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
In his autobiography, “Directed by James Burrows,” he wrote, “I’m concerned about believability and the economy of comedy, the shortest distance between the character and the laughter.”
How about the time on “Frasier” when Kelsey Grammer pays respects at a shiva for a radio colleague who’s died? When he meets the grieving widow, he tells her to carry on bravely, that each new day brings fresh promise, that the sun will one day shine again. He’s full of hope and optimism.
To which the widow looks him over and drily replies, “You’re not Jewish, are you?”
No, but he had the Jewish James Burrows directing the show and bringing laughter into lots of people’s lives.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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