David Mirkin
David Mirkin (born September 18, 1955) is an American feature film and television director, writer and producer. Mirkin grew up in Philadelphia and intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path in favor of studying film at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he became a stand-up comedian, and then moved into television writing. He wrote for the sitcoms "Three's Company", "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "The Larry Sanders Show" and served as showrunner on the series "Newhart". After an unsuccessful attempt to remake the British series "The Young Ones", Mirkin created "Get a Life" in 1990. The series starred comedian Chris Elliott and ran for two seasons, despite a lack of support from many Fox network executives, who disliked the show's dark and surreal humor. He moved on to create the sketch show "The Edge" starring his then-partner, actress Julie Brown.
David Mirkin
Ortved—using interviews with writers Bob Kushell and Brent Forrester and Mirkin's assistant Charleen Easton—describes Mirkin as an "outsider" on the show, with the writing staff, at least initially, divided with respect to Mirkin's comedy and leadership style. Forrester described the latter as "a little bit dictatorial". Mirkin conducted the show's writing sessions in one room, rather than splitting the writers into two groups, as later showrunners would do, and often worked late into the night. Some praised Mirkin's leadership, including Appel, who felt that "the shows were great under him." Others criticised him, including Kushell, who clashed with Mirkin over the episode "A Star is Burns", a crossover with "The Critic". In 2004, Mirkin stated that he "really wasn't at all intimidat[ed] to join [the show's writing] crew", because he "had worked with and written with" many of his fellow writers previously and concluded that, "[I took] this show in a direction that is more personal to me. I did that, had a great time doing that, and everyone was very receptive to that." Mirkin's era and style of humor are popular amongst the show's fans.