Burrows ran a small theater in San Diego before switching to TV directing. He began his career with The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1974 and directed a slew of episodes of comedy shows such as The Bob Newhart Show and Laverne & Shirley early on.
He went on set the tone and help assemble the casts of some of the biggest sitcoms of the last five decades by directing the pilots of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly, Two Broke Girls, The Big Bang Theory and The Neighborhood.
Burrows directed 246 episodes of Will & Grace (including the revival), 236 episode of Cheers, 75 episodes of Taxi, 49 episodes of Mike & Molly, 36 episodes of Frasier (including the revival), 21 episode of Caroline In the City and 15 episodes of Friends. Burrows served as executive producer on Cheers, Will & Grace and Mike & Molly, among many others.
The prolific director never slowed down. In 2015, Burrows marked his 1,000th episode as a director. He worked on both the Will & Grace and Frasier recent revivals and also executive produced and directed all 10 episodes of Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan’s 2025 Hulu comedy series Mid-Century Modern, which landed him his 28th Emmy directing nomination at age 84 last year and 47th overall.
