TV Legend James Burrows Discusses the Durability of 'Pompous Ass' Frasier Crane and the New Reboot

Television director James Burrows has left his mark on some of the most popular, critically praised, and influential sitcoms of the last five decades. Along with short stints on just about every major series in the genre, he's helmed multiple episodes of seminal sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Laverne & Shirley, Friends, Mike & Molly, 75 episodes of Taxi, 246 episodes of Will & Grace (in both its incarnations, which he also executive produced), and 237 episodes of Cheers, which he co-created. 

Still the reigning master of the multicamera format — he's been nominated for 43 Emmys and taken home 11 — a significant portion of Burrows' storied history includes a singular character, the pompous but lovable psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane, as portrayed by a similarly singular performer, Kelsey Grammer. 

The director had hands-on involvement with Grammer's casting and directed Frasier's debut appearance in Cheers' two-part third season opener back in 1984; the producers quickly recognized the extraordinary comic potential of both character and actor, and Frasier became an integral member of the Cheers ensemble through the rest of its run. Burrows was also at the helm of the 1993 pilot for Frasier, launching a remarkable eleven-season run, with Burrows behind the camera for 32 episodes.

And now, 39 years after introducing him to the viewing public, Burrows is reuniting with Grammer to direct the first two episodes of a unique Frasier revival on Paramount+, one that finds the character 20 years after the conclusion of his Seattle-based series. In the new take, Frasier is mourning the death of his father and he's inevitably single again, returning to his former home in Boston to pursue both a new career path and a closer relationship with his increasingly estranged son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott). And who better to help lay the foundation of Frasier's newest paradigm than Burrows, the director who not only specializes in helping top-flight sitcoms find their footing out of the gate, but who's been with the good doctor for so much of his journey? TV Guide chatted with Burrows about Frasier's lasting legacy, how the new show came together, the multi-camera format, and more.

You were there at the introduction of Frasier Crane and so many of those pivotal Frasier episodes in Cheers, and then you helmed the pilot of the spinoff series, Frasier. What was the most exciting thing about working with Kelsey again? And what was daunting about it?
James Burrows: There was nothing daunting about it. He and I, we're like a pair of old shoes — with the laces gone, however! We've known each other… next year will be 40 years, so it was not daunting. 

It's always exciting to work with Kelsey because he's so good; he plays a pompous character with vulnerability that is exquisite. I was in essence there to make sure that the character of Frasier Crane stayed the character of Frasier Crane. I know Kelsey can do that. Now you have new writers, and the script was really good, but I wanted to make sure that in the rehearsal process and the whole process of doing the show, that the character maintained his integrity and his humor.

Anecdotally, are there some things that you remember doing to ensure that?
Burrows: No. Once we got that script on its feet, it was pretty smooth sailing. But before that, I didn't know. It's an unknown. But Kelsey, he can do anything. It was an easy process.

It's clear from the episodes that I've seen that Kelsey has not skipped a beat at all and just slips right back into this character so perfectly, even after two decades. Tell me about bringing Frasier into this brand-new environment, while still keeping him Frasier.
Burrows: I was not worried about his character. The people I was worried about were the other characters: how they react with Kelsey, how they react with Frasier Crane, what is their dynamic? In a scene between Kelsey and the other character, are they capable of holding their own? 

Kelsey is a huge presence in a scene, and you're going to disappear unless you can find a way to compete on his level. You don't have to be as loud as him, you don't have to have antics, but you have to be able to act it, play the part, react to his jokes, and be able to give as much as you take. And so that's the key thing in working with Kelsey. It's this well-established character that is now going to be dealing with people you've never seen before.

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You have worked with some of the greatest ensembles in television history. Tell me what you loved about this group of actors and this group of characters that they play.
Burrows: As with most of the shows I do, they're [part of an] ensemble where you don't know anybody. In this one, you do know Kelsey, you do know a character, Frasier. But most of the other shows I've ever done, you've never seen these people before, so you have to mold them into an ensemble that looks like they like one another, dare I say love one another, because that'll come across on the screen.

And with this show, it was the same thing. Although Kelsey's the coxswain of the boat, the other people have to be able to pull an oar. So that was my job. My job was to make them into an ensemble, and that is pretty much in my wheelhouse as long as you have the right people. I've tried to make ensembles on other shows where I have a guy who's rowing the other way, and that becomes difficult. But in this show, everybody was pulling the right way.

So I think you see an ensemble. You see a show where people are comfortable with one another. They're funny. They have tits and they have tats, they have fights, they have stuff like that, but they still, at the end of the day, like one another.

In the first two episodes it's remarkable how quickly this show hits a high gear. Each of these characters come off as so distinctive, and then the actors portray them so strongly. Tell me what you love about working out all those kinks, because you've been there at the beginning of many shows. What's the fun of it for you as you're helping a show find itself?
Burrows: If it does find itself, that's where the fun is. You don't know right away because it's rudimentary right away. You say, "Kelsey, you come in the door, and Jack, you be over here, and Nicholas, you'll be here." So it's like you are handed this lump of clay and then you have to mold it into a sculpture that people want to see. So the fun is molding that clay, trying different pieces of business, trying different ways to say lines, trying to say a joke in one position or in another position. 

The first episode has a farce in it in one scene: rehearsing that over and over again to make sure that it's seamless, because that's what you want to show an audience. So those are the fun things I've had. I've failed a couple of times, but I've also succeeded a couple of times. And at this point in my life, I like to be able to succeed. [Laughs]

Tell me a little bit about the experience of directing the pilot episode of the original Frasier series, "The Good Son," and making this almost a sort of inverted, mirror image of that with this pilot, "The Good Father," and finding those little grace notes that connected those two thoughts.
Burrows: From the original pilot, again it's similar in the fact that you have a character you've known. You know the character Frasier, so you're putting this gentleman in both these shows. And again, on the first show I was handed the superb cast of other actors, and it didn't take much to mold them. It didn't take much. As with the reboot, it didn't take much. 

I was involved in the casting much more on the reboot than I was in the original show because they were casting when we were finishing up Cheers. So I knew on the reboot from the auditions that we had people who could play with Kelsey and things like that. But to show it to an audience… I remember the first time we showed the Frasier show to an audience. I always do a test audience before I do a pilot. They went crazy. That's when the reward happens, and that's when I begin to smile and let out my belt buckle by one loop.

What do you remember about those early encounters with Kelsey as you were casting Frasier Crane way back when? What stood out about him in your mind?
Burrows: Well, we saw a lot of people. We saw a lot of people. We saw people in L.A. Then we got this tape from New York and we watched it. It was videotaped then. We watched it and people are reading and everything like that, and then Kelsey's face comes on the screen because he's going to be the next reader, and we all started laughing just from his punim, his face. He read the scene. We brought him out — I don't remember exactly; I think he may have read when he came out — and we cast him, and he was only a four-show arc. He was a device to get Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) back in the bar, because she had flipped out and gone to a loony bin. And the doctor at the loony bin was Frasier Crane, who told her, "You've got to go back and confront your demons."

So if you remember the first episode of that show, Frasier's sitting at the bar and you don't know he's there until he makes his appearance. And from that first show, from him getting off that stool and coming over to Sam, we knew that this was something special. So he may have had a four-show arc when we hired him, but after that we hired him for the rest of the series. And the great thing about that is when Shelley [Long] left, that character Frasier did all the Diane jokes. He could do them. And so Glen and Les [Charles] and I have a fondness for Kelsey that goes to the heavens.

For Frasier to have lasted this long through so many episodes of television, and to have people so excited for his return, and to see how well executed the new show is, it's astonishing to me. What has Frasier's durability meant to you?
Burrows: I think it's great. I think it's wonderful. Glen and Les created the character, and it's an endurable character, but it's endurable because Frasier Crane is a pompous ass, everybody knows that. However, Kelsey plays the character with a vulnerability that makes you love him, and that's really, really difficult to do. It's Archie Bunker. Archie was that way too. He was reprehensible, but you loved him because of how Carroll [O'Connor] played him. [Taxi's] Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) — there are a few characters, the evil characters, who last because of the vulnerability and empathy you feel for their soul. And Kelsey has that.

One of the things I really was reminded of while watching these epiodes is the vitality of the multi-camera format, which of course you've specialized in throughout your career. We don't see as much of it as we used to. Do you believe that multi-cam still has a bright future?
Burrows: I do. I'm not sure the networks do or the streamers do. I've attended the funeral of the multi-camera sitcom three or four times, and we've never gone this far. I think they closed the casket. They haven't buried it yet. It's economical; it's cheaper to shoot a multi-camera [show] than it is a single camera [show]. I have no idea what's going on in the development process of the networks. I used to get 10 scripts a year back in the '80s and the '90s for pilots, and now I get one every two years. And it's sad.

There's such an unending appeal to it. People have turned to shows like Cheers and Frasier and Friends and I Love Lucy over and over and over again. There's a timeless quality to that format that really makes the comedy sing in a way that it doesn't in other forms, I think. I've been taking in a lot of your work lately, and I'm really curious how you feel you've maintained your own sort of timeless quality, because your work doesn't really age, other than costumes and set decoration. Tell me what you do, maybe unconsciously, to keep that timeless feel to everything.
Burrows: Well, as I may have said before, I try to take this group of disparate people and mold them into a homogeneous group that on the stage before the audience — they like one another, dare I say love one another, and then that comes across on the screen. I've been able to do that. I haven't changed my ways. I don't do shows that proselytize — although somehow Will & Grace slipped into that category. But it's just, that's the way I work. 

I'm a tailor who knows how to make a suit. I was trained by my dad. I started in the theater. And what we do, multi-camera sitcom, is theater that's filmed. Audiences are good when they're in the same room together. A single guy at home laughing is harder because you don't feed off of other people, so a studio audience is something that makes laughter more communal. And you laugh hard because the person next to you is laughing hard. It's what I love. And unfortunately, I don't know why there aren't more multi-cams.

Well, hopefully you'll get more opportunities with this show in particular. What do you want to do next?
Burrows: I'm semi-retired. Doing the two Frasier shows in February really invigorated me. I've done two of the Norman Lear Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials — which although you have a studio audience, it's really scary for me because I have to cut the show in a control room and it goes out live, which I was not trained that way. I'm getting better at it. But I can hear the audience laugh and I enjoy that, but I can't enjoy it as much as I can, as much as I do when I'm doing a filmed show which is going to be edited later because I have to be aware of where my next cut is and everything like that. 

So hopefully Norman will do another one of those and I'll be able to do it. It's nice to work with somebody who's older than me — that you don't get very often. And somebody who knew my dad; I don't get that a lot anymore.

The Frasier revival premieres Thursday, Oct. 13 on Paramount+. Cheers and the original run of Frasier are streaming on Hulu and Paramount+.