‘Cheers’ Co-Creator Says the Industry’s Sitcom Drought Is Forcing Him to Retire
Anyone who grew up believing that the TV was an immediate family member will likely be familiar with the name James Burrows.
The legendary sitcom director helmed episodes of iconic series like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Friends, Will & Grace and Frasier. Plus, he co-created Cheers, which explains why his name appears in the credits of every episode, along with that one photo of that old-timey guy with the bowler hat and the extremely punchable face.
But it turns out that work is drying up for the 84-year-old television veteran — not because he’s older than styrofoam, but because the industry just isn’t making TV shows like they used to.
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Burrows has earned 11 Emmy Awards, and been nominated 47 times. He was most recently nominated for his work directing the Nathan Lane-starring Mid-Century Modern. During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Burrows was asked if he has any plans to retire. “I don’t know,” he responded. “They’re trying to retire me with the fact that they don’t do the kind of shows I do anymore. In the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, all the comedies were multicamera comedies — except for M*A*S*H — and for some reason it’s become passé.”
It’s true that the multicamera sitcom — with a laugh track, and one wall that you never ever get to see — isn’t what it once was, having largely been replaced by single-camera comedies like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Abbott Elementary and the always hilarious The Bear.
In an interview with The Wrap, Burrows similarly mourned the end of the old-school sitcom. “I’ve been to the funeral for the multicamera comedy about nine times. And this time, I’m wearing a dark suit,” Burrows said of the upcoming Emmys.
“It’s really strange that this form has dissipated so much,” Burrows continued. “It’s cheaper to do than any other comedy, and you’ve got to be really funny because you have 300 people telling you whether your joke works or not, not a bunch of writers in front of a TV saying, ‘Oh, that’s hysterical!’ with no audience to corroborate it.”
That being said, there have been a number of multicam sitcoms in the last decade, including The Big Bang Theory, which a good chunk of America watched. But many of the more highly-publicized multicam shows from recent years were reboots of old properties, like The Conners, Frasier, Fuller House and Night Court. Similarly, Mid-Century Modern has been largely viewed as a throwback to The Golden Girls that happens to star three gay men.
So even in the case of these newer shows, the format is still being presented as something from the past. That doesn’t mean that a new multicam sitcom won’t be able to capture the public’s attention again, hopefully before James Burrows is in his 90s.
