James Burroughs

And the first three days are with actors and writers alone.

And the fourth day, the cameras come in.

And the fifth day, you shoot the show.

And for me, with actors and writers, I kind of got that.

It was when the cameras came in that it became daunting.

So I watched for...

Maybe two months straight, I watched the Newhart show.

Then I went over to the Mary Tyler Moore show and I watched Jay Sandrich, who to me is the true genius of this medium.

I watched him and became very good friends with him.

And so I kind of started to get a knowledge of what to do with cameras, how to figure them out.

And then they assigned me to a show called Friends and Lovers, which was the Paul Sand show.

And I would coach.

I was Paul Sand's dialogue coach.

I would help him run lines.

But in a time when I wasn't doing that, I would watch cameras.

And eventually they called me and they said, we're going to give you a shot.

And I figured it would be on the Paul Sand show.

And all of a sudden it was a Mary Tyler Moore show.

Do you remember that first show that you did?

I do, vividly.