The Schmooze: October

For 50 years, TV director James Burrows has been responsible for a big percentage of the laughs in homes across America.

Burrows has been delighting viewers since the ’70s with some of the most beloved sitcoms in TV history. He is best known as co-creator, executive producer, and director of the iconic show Cheers , but he also has directed more than 1,000 episodes of some of TV’s most successful sitcoms, including Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Friends, Will & Grace, and Frasier.

Almost 20 years after signing off, Frasier–chronicling a psychiatrist (Kelsey Grammar) and his brother and father in Seattle–is making a comeback. Burrows directs the first two episodes of the reboot, which launches Oct. 12 on Paramount+.

Burrows recently published his memoir Directed by James Burrows (Balantine Books), in which he reflects on his prolific career and its hilarious cast of characters.

1) What was the last book you read?  

The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller , by John Grisham

2) What’s your all-time favorite movie?  

The Godfather

3)What’s your favorite Jewish food?  

Matzoh ball soup

4) What are you listening to these days?   

Bob Dylan’s old [music]

5) Who was the last person you texted?   

My agent

6) If you could invite 3 people, famous or not, to a Shabbat dinner, who would they be? 

John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and George Bernard Shaw

7) If you could have any other occupation, what would it be?  

Pro golfer!

8) Who are two of your biggest role models?  

[Fellow sitcom director] Jay Sandrich and my father

9) What are you currently binging on TV? 

Painkiller and Ken Burns’ The U.S. and the Holocaust

10) If you could offer the teen version of yourself one piece of wisdom, what would it be?  

Be ready for the job when the opportunity presents itself.