Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - James Burrows

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson are finally joined by their “papa,” Cheers co-creator and legendary director James Burrows! They’re talking about Jimmy’s theater beginnings, how he taught Ted how to play Sam Malone with swagger, what Woody joining Cheers did for the show, Jimmy's approach to directing comedy, and more.  To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

I like to say in Thanksgiving, we were the 72nd show out of 71. But true. 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 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, Frasier, Will & Grace, and the Big Bang Theory. And in the process, he made the multi-cam 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 them yourself. Meet Jimmy Burroughs. So this is who we're talking to. Jimmy, hi Jimmy.

Hi boys. Yeah, I wanna talk about you, but I wanna 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, cause I don't wanna get ahead of it cause of all you've accomplished, but to look back at your childhood, it's just so interesting to me because you know, your dad being, A, 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, somehow you did, oh, I know what it was.

He got you to be stage manager for something, but that was later, but I wanna talk about your school first, yeah? Okay, sure. So tell me a little bit about your early school. Are you educated? One, two, four, five. Yes, good. I went to public school in New York City. In the sixth grade, I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera Boys Chorus, which I got in

because I could sing My Country Tis of Thee, 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 in a Metropolitan Opera and singing in Carmen and singing in La Boheme with a group of kids and then being a super, which is extra in other operas. And so, you know, that was my first taste

of being in front of an audience. And where was that? What building? The Metropolitan Opera in New York. Yeah, I got, if we sang, we got $3 of performance. If we were super numeraries, we got $2 of performance. But that must have seemed like a lot for you. It was a lot, you know, and some of the opera singers that, you know,

would talk to us before they went on, Richard Tucker and Risa Stevens, and you know, people like that. So we, so it was a thrill. And then music and art, I, I graduated and 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. Right, totally don't know. You were thinking maybe eventually president. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, because my thesis was on gerrymandering. An old-fashioned idea that never caught on. You can see in my directorial skills of how I gerrymandered, 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 that old Vietnam War was happening. And I didn't wanna do that. So I applied to the Yale School of Drama and I got in as a writer. 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, you know, my old man, my old man, my old man helped in that area. I'm not ashamed to admit it. He knew some people up there.

So I was gonna go to some graduate school, any graduate school, because I was not going to. Yeah, yeah. And so I went to Yale School of Drama. And then I had a course in directing that was taught by Nikos Sakaropoulos. You know, he was the, he started Williamstown. Oh, oh.

Yeah, the Nikos 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 down for a physical, 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, 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 how weird that is. Anyway, so, and then I started, I drove a truck for a summer stock theater, a circuit. I would take the scenery, I was a show tech,

I'd take the scenery from 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 the sword. It is. I would sit up there during rehearsals and watch the director and go, 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 at Tiffany's, 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 gonna say, stage manager.

I know. That sounds like going out for coffee. Yeah, even lower. Tea, no, water. Lower, filling the sugar packets. Oh. 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, making sure they made their cues, showing them, making sure there are hotel rooms. So I was literally in charge of them. And then during the show, I was, I remember Charlie Blackwell was-

I worked with him. Yeah, he's- Black Sea 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, you know, and then a piece of scenery kind of got stuck on stage and Charlie says to me, dance out and move it.

Dance out. 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 Mester's. Let's go. And then everybody would run off. And I burst through the door at the end of the number, there was a huge applause. And I thought it was for me. And I said, hey, every Pearl is a Mr. Pearl. So, so anyway, so that was, that was it. And then they, 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 replaced my father. And so he replaced my father with a man, a writer who's won multiple awards for musical comedy, Edward Albee. Yeah, funny man. What?

Very funny man. To direct? No, Joe Anthony directed. Oh, to rewrite. Funny man. What? Very funny man. Yes. To direct. No. Joe Anthony directed. 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 the zoo story and then I went to opening night of Virginia Woolf and there was no more memorable night in the theater. Not none. Holy shit, that must have been incredible. I took my dad, who, you know, my dad was fidgety and everything. He, he, he stood perfectly, he sat perfectly still for three and three and a quarter hours.

Yeah. Nobody knew what to expect. That was what so, so did that. 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 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, if Holly was not doing well, he could take, he could somehow rewrite her on stage. So, you know, we were doing that 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, 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, do you keep going, and then what happened next?

So then I was... I got a job as stage managing on Broadway of 40 Carrots. Actual stage manager. Actual stage manager with Julie Harris. Which means you're running rehearsals. I'm running the show. Yeah. I'm calling the queues 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 Zsa Zsa Gabor came in. Oh my gosh. What was that like? Training for the rest of your life? I had to wrangle Zsa Zsa. And she was a big boost in my career because she listened to me because I knew what was going on.

I knew what she had to do, where 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 were silence on stage. Oh, jeez.

And I'd have to run up to her room and drag her out, throw her on stage. This is familiar. Yeah. And so anyway, we became friends. You know, she really liked me and she was going to do a 40 carats in a theater in San Diego. And they hired me to direct it and she bailed and they brought in Marjorie Lord, who was Danny Thomas's wife on Make Room for Daddy.

Right. And I did it with her and the owner of the theater liked it and he made me artistic director. Wow. La Jolla Playhouse? No, it was called the Off-Broadway Theater in San Diego in Old Town, which was kind of decrepit there. What year are we roughly?

71. Is what he born yet? Vietnam War still going on. I don't know if what he 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's only a two hour drive then. And so I would come up and I had a couple of friends up here and I would go see, I went to see the Paul Lin 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 a TV slash theater. And those were 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 went back to dinner theater and regional theater. I was directing Joan Fontaine in 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 cards is a two hour show. I could put it on scene 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 Mary Talamor 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, 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 aspects. 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. 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, 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, what is this shit? Should we even be doing this? Or something like that, right? Yeah, it was rough rough because in those days, when we read the script around the table like we did in Cheers, 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 bitchin'. You know, and I said, well, let's see, let's see what we can do. 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, and it's, you know, it's maybe, 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 it looks, if we set up the route, maybe it can be applied to the rewrite. So I did that and- Did they hear that? Did they? Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure. I was- That's smart though. applied to the rewrite. So I did that and- Did they hear that? Did they? Yeah, I'm not sure. 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 and, but there was a wonderful cast and I, it was a show about Lou moving into Rhoda's apartment because Rhoda had left. And so Lou and Mary were living together and working together.

And the last scene is when Lou decides to move out. out and I had, I told them, you know, I said, let's, let's play it like, like it's the cherry orchard. You know, there, you know, checkoff is funny there. It's funny. Let's play like Jerry. 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. It's, yeah, 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. 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 rehearsed with you guys, where we can become creative, we can 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, uh, because that's what I do. I wet my pants. I like to tell people from my tears, they roll down and wet my bed. And I shot the show.

It was maybe a C plus show. But the next day my phone rang and the Newhart Show wanted me, because that was MTM and the Paul Sand Show wanted me. 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, but when you went over there,

obviously in a whole different environment, what was that like? Oh, Bob was testing. Bob is Bob. He's maybe 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 a 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. I mean, it's so funny to think of someone who's like, can you do less stammer to Bob Newhart? So I went over there and he tested me and he at least, he liked, he was a standup 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. Yeah.

What a 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 Les and Glenn Charles at that point? The second year, I was assigned to be the resident director

of the Phyllis show. So I got a chance to work with Cloris full time. And that taught me a lot. She was, Cloris was tough, not mean-spirited, but just tough. And, you know, as you know, she was a big vegan. And they're the worst. Yeah. Aren't they?

Oh, horrible. That's the first time I heard about Spirulina. Spirulina. Not from him. Not from her. But at least she didn't fart on stage. Yeah, exactly. 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. We all farts? Yeah, we all farts, but we're still back, we're on to Phillips. 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. Yeah. And I did 20 shows the first year. It was not a great show. The character Phyllis is not a center. Right. 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 Penney, Meathead and Laverne. They were 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. So it was 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, you know, he can pick it up and, you know,

cutaways and stuff like that. And I rolled 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 less in glance. 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.

Which you know was Sam Malone's backstory. I just. Yeah. That's backstory. That's funny. Yeah, so, no, you stuck in my head. I remember I really wanted you to, I was outvoted on that. Ed liked Joel Higgins because he was more Western. Yeah.

You know, so. Than the kid from Arizona, but nevermind. Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know. Sedona, right? Flagstaff. Flagstaff, yeah. Yeah. But I remember walking in, I'll do my little story,

and then we have to talk about Woody's entrance into your life. But I remember, 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, it doesn't mean that. But just check before you take something. And I walked out the door, and 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. Right. So, you know, we knew, you didn't read with Shelley before that. No, but not before that, but then you started pairing people up. Yeah. And I say this and it sounds like I'm being humble, but I got Cheers because I happened to work well with Shelley Long.

Shelley was 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. He was good, but the chemistry, you and Shelly just blew everybody away. So the first season, like literally the bottom of the, of the 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 night but we were we were desperate. You guys were great. I have to say even when 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 onto the cast. Well, you,, 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,

right, you know, because doing in front of a live audiences, they loved the show. Yeah. They left. They left the Georgie, they left the Johnny, they left the Ria, they left the Teddy and they left the Shelley. They just, they love those characters and they've 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 and such? Yeah, it was 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 of the Emmys. Shelly won. Shelly won, I won, the show won, the Charles Roses won.

Oh. Rhea? Probably, I think it was everybody but me. I think it was how it was phrased. On purpose. 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. But you know, it's so weird as you, by about the seventh time I lost, but people said, yeah, but I'm sorry you didn't win,

but what if you won like three of them already? Because no one is paying attention to anything except their own little world, you know? 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 the baseball game.

See, I still haven't figured that out. Sam Malone was a relief pitcher and he'd never been to a baseball game. Yeah. Yeah. And you taught me also, just if you want to get into the character, just touch your crotch and rearrange yourself.

Well, watch Freddie. I told you, remember when Freddie Dreier was on the show, I said, watch him. Yeah, and he did touch himself periodically, but you know, before Michael Jackson, he was touching himself a lot. And I did that. And I also discovered you got a closeup 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 far surfer, Carnegie Mellon. Yes, I was. And you, and you, 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, you better have something better to do, your character, in your little world you're in, you better, your character

better have something more important than the joke, because if the joke fails, and 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 you make the joke, secondly, important to whatever it is you're doing. Yeah, you cut lemons for how long? Yeah.

Until I got bored and I 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 acting community are both very fragile ego creative souls. And a lot of times if you don't have a Jimmy Burrows 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 Shears 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. Yeah. ["The Heart and Soul of the Show"]

Coach. Coach. Nicky Colasanto. Nicky 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 gonna do, because we just lost that innocence

in the heart and soul of a show. Then what did you start doing as soon as you realized you were gonna have to? Well, we thought a lot about it. And then the thing that influenced us for another bartender, for casting another bartender was the fact that the show that preceded us was Family Ties. And Family Ties had a huge star in Michael J. Fox.

Right. So we figured we should go younger. So we, they wrote a part, I think Charles brother 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 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- Oh, this is real. You found an actor named John- I think his name was John Pilgrim. He was, he looked a little bit like. Oh, this is real. You found an actor named John.

Yes, we found this guy. We love this guy named John Pilgrim. He would look like a scarecrow. Do you know this story? What do you? Yeah. Oh, wow. 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 burly and big and thank God he was dumb. And he read and he blew us away. And that was one Mr. Harrelson. And I think we then brought you in to read with him. And you, what was your opinion of him? Same. You never read with John Pilgrim, did you? No.

No. Just effortlessly. Yes. One of us kind of feeling. Blew his nose, right? Yeah, I think so. Well, I don't think you were there. That was when I first walked into the,

Laurie opened them, you know? Yeah. 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, Luxie Blues. 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 when we were open, when she opened that door, I didn't know the next door was where everybody was and I just happened to be blowing my nose. And the whole room lapsed.

It was like the perfect entrance, but I didn't even plan it. And Jimmy said, I knew you had the part right then. That's great. Effortless is a good word for him. Yeah. It was a godsend. We were on that, on Cheers, as you know, when we're placing people, we were extraordinary.

Yeah. I mean, we were extraordinary. And even with the characters, we brought in just for one or two episodes. Not to replace anybody, they expanded like one Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey, yeah. You know, 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. Third year. And then you only had him on for four. You had him playing for four. Yeah, to get Diane, 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 at the bar and you don't know it. And all of a sudden he pops up. So, but the minute he spoke. Yeah, he's so talented and he was so good.

Oh my gosh. Classically trained. Yeah, 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. 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, no, maybe. That drove him crazy. Didn't we, we turned my jump over the bar into a comedic bit because I couldn't jump over it. So 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.

Still do, bud. But thanks for bringing it up. We really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean. There are creams now, though. Yeah. There's not enough cream for you, honey. Oh, okay.

Cause I use it all. Oh, okay, that's good, good save, good save. 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 soul onto the stage who created havoc.

Right. And the best havoc a director of that show could ever want because it kept you guys amused, it kept you 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're not gonna do it. So, I mean, he introduced a challenge. A challenge and a way of life that was just great for the show. Yeah, it's true. We would wait.

We were all the guys returning 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 him when it became blatantly clear we couldn't beat him at 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, 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.

I can't imagine a better experience for an actor, period. No, me too. We were blessed. It was great, Jimmy, and you're just the greatest leader, Papa, to all of us. And you just, you made it so fun, you know? And it wasn't, you know, like you were never stripped. You know, you'd let us kind of get a little out of hand,

but you know, as long as we delivered on the Tuesday, you know what I mean? We shout on Tuesday. You used to call us like comedy commandos. You just have to go in and do it right once. Right. In front of the cameras. Right, right. Yeah.

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 harvest his apples up on Vachon.

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

eh, it's funny, don't worry about it, it'll be all right. Yeah, because 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.

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 night, on the Tuesday night, and you'd see all the writers

and you gather around in a circle and just say, oh, what about this? And then boom, get a joke. Like, it might take, you know, 10 minutes. Okay, we got the joke, 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 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 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, I think. Yeah, 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 wedding. No, your first year, two parter, where Sam's brother comes and he's got the 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 him, except for you, and each one comes out and has a scene with you independently, right? And it was a two parter, comes out and has a scene with you. Yeah. Independently, right? And it was a two parter and the evening lasted two hours and 15 minutes. Wow. Wow is right. That's a wow you.

No, that's a wow you. That's incredible. All right, 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 actually. It was like a door to the kitchen.

And we had a door. No, it's swinging doors this way to the living room. Swinging doors to the kitchen. And we had every, every, every, uh, uh, 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, took the entire audience, walked them over

to another stage where Kelly's kitchen was, the kitchen for... Really? Yes. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. I do remember that. We went to another stage? We went to another stage because we couldn't fit that whole set on... Oh.

And you guys... You guys bitched at me during that show because I rehearsed you a lot. Yeah. Because it was a farce. But it was exciting. Yeah. It was exciting. No, it was exciting.

And I don't think that took forever to shoot either. No. Because the timing of it was so precise with the farce, I guess it's always like that. You gotta, 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 gonna tank here? What is this gonna mean? You all were probably up against it a little bit, but tell me how you got into Kirsty

and how that all came to be. Well, we were a C too. We were brokenhearted. Yeah. You know, you're breaking up Sam and Diane, which has become in the vernacular of the television business now. Yeah.

You know, people talk about doing Sam Diane relationships. So it's in the vernacular. We were stunned. We, you know, 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, 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. Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. 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 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 kindette mode. Right. That kind of woman. Yeah. So, the boys wrote the script and they created the character for Rebecca and we told Jeff Greenberg, we need this character.

A great casting director. And Jeff Greenberg said, curse the 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, Boa! Which is your line when you first see her. And I never got that right. You did get it right.

Really? Oh, I practiced and practiced. Because Glenn pitched it. Yeah. That was Glenn's line. Yeah. So she walks in, we go, Boa. She reads, I don't think she read with you. No. 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 read on stage with you and Rhea and her, right? I think so. Do we have another actress? We just had her. I don't remember that.

No, no, I never read for any, I thought she had it by the time I read. Well, you read with her, right? Yeah. And you read with her on stage and 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 wanna hug her.

Which was, you know, the antithesis of the character that we created, that the boys created. And so we hired her and then, I think I got the story right, in the first, in the rehearsals for the first show with her, she walks into Barabua 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. Kirsty the actress. Kirsty 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're 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. We wrote to that. Yeah. We wrote to that. We wrote, and we wrote, uh, 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. That's my favorite physical. You tell it. I'm finally going to gonna better 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, pry it open, you know? You know? She was a marvel.

She was a marvel. She really was. Hey, I know that every damn near every actor in town who's worked with you, it feels exact same we do, which just kind of pisses me off because you so effortlessly left us and went on to make 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. Jimmy, I love you. You've made such an enormous impact on my life and all those times back then, I cherish them and I cherish the way you looked after everybody and made, and just always made it fun and great, you know, and 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 it, you're listening. You were very acoustic about it sometimes and then just see you come over to one of the cameras and just push it forward like two feet. You know how you do that? And you know when we're just fucking up a job, up, up, up, up, up,

you know, so that the audience wasn't gonna hear the punchline before it was ready to be. And 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 all of that, dude.

Well, thank you for the compliment. You guys were my first too. I mean, I had done taxi before, but this was our baby, Glen Lesen 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 have a, 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. I can't work on a show where everybody is not a family, where 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. 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 Your Name.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leal. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Graal. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Battista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Genn, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne. We'll have more for you next time

where everybody knows your name.