Legendary sitcom director James Burrows: How Carl Reiner inspired my work in TV comedy

The Hollywood Reporter

"I didn't know Carl that well — I met him a few times with Rob — but everyone who has ever worked in the sitcom world was amazed by him. Desi Arnaz, with Lucy, created the sitcom with I Love Lucy — he was the one who said, 'Let's have three cameras rolling and an audience!'" he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "And then Jackie Gleason did it. For me, growing up, the ultimate sitcom was The Phil Silvers Show — until The Dick Van Dyke Show came along. I loved the audience, the simplicity of it, the common problems, the innocence of the problems. For Dick Van Dyke, Carl assembled a cast of four that was just extraordinary — and I know from that, from Will & Grace, Cheers and Friends, you know? When your entire cast can do a joke, it's magical. Something that always amazed me was that in the first year of The Dick Van Dyke Show, there were 30 episodes, and Carl wrote nearly every one of them — and the writing was always unbelievable. That's extraordinary. So in the pantheon of great sitcoms, The Dick Van Dyke Show is absolutely in the top five, and I always sought to emulate the quality of his work in my own."