James Burrows, who died on June 19th at age 85, was a sitcom savant. He directed more than 1,000 episodes of television, including such iconic series as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, and Friends. He also directed the pilots for The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, among scores of others that made it to series. Over the course of a career that spanned five decades, he received 47 Emmy nominations and won 11.