https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSlphOETkIs
James Burrows is the most iconic director in television, so iconic that NBC is going to honor him February 21st with An All-Star Tribute to celebrate a huge milestone he recently accomplished. He has directed 1,000 episodes and casts from several of the shows he worked on will be there to honor him. Shows like Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory and the upcoming Crowded (where he reached that milestone) to name a few of the many many many great shows we have all watched at some point that are showing him their love.
There will be a lot of reunions during his special, but what does he think are the chances of Cheers and/or Friends ever having a reunion of their own? I was a conference call with him earlier in the week and he answered that question. Before he went into specifics, he said, “I don’t think you should ever go back. I firmly believe in that.” Then he talked about the most famous show about a bar, “You know I created Cheers along with the Charles Brothers. We’re co-creators. They were gracious enough to give me that credit. They’ve talked to us about a Cheers reunion for years. And we don’t want to do one. It’s just, we did that show. That was that show.”
Does he have a rosier outlook for Friends, a show he did not create? His feelings are, “I don’t think they’ll ever want to do a reunion again. It’s what it was. And it was a treasure in the history of television. And I don’t think you want to revisit that.”
I understand what he is saying, but I like reunions. Although, now that I think about it, most of them kind of stink. Can you ever think of one that was worth it? So maybe he is right.
