Who Ever Said Comedy Had To Be Fun?

Ladies and gentlemen, today's top-10 list comes to you from the home office in Northvale, New Jersey, just outside of New York, where Rob Burnett, David Letterman's right-hand man, is hard at work directing an episode of Ed, the NBC series that he created with fellow Late Show alum Jon Beckerman.

Here are the top 10 reasons why Rob Burnett will probably be disappointed in the show.

10. This is the first episode of Ed that he has ever directed.
9. On the first day of shooting, he didn't know when to yell "Action!"
8. The episode can't be longer than 41 minutes. It's already 44 minutes long, and he's not finished yet.
7. Shooting was supposed to take eight days. This is day nine.
6. Before he can film one of the remaining scenes, he still has to write it.
5. Burnett hasn't slept since 1984.
4. There isn't enough time to do 99 rewrites.
3. Ed is up against American Idol.
2. What do you expect? This is television.
And the number-one reason why Rob Burnett will probably be disappointed in the show: He's Rob Burnett.

At the moment, though, he's trying to ignore any nagging doubts and avoid falling further behind. It's a frigid Wednesday in January, and Burnett is occupying a green-canvas director's chair on the set of Ed. The crew of 25 or so is crammed into Ed's office in Stuckeybowl, the bowling alley in Stuckeyville, Ohio, where Ed Stevens runs a law practice. Burnett hunches forward, studying the playback monitor as a camera crew perches over Ed's desk, filming a series of faded photos of Ed's great-grandfather -- kissing his bride as a young man, showing off a snowman with the kids. A stand-in sits behind Ed's desk, wearing Ed's blue shirt and holding a scrapbook in place. He looks nothing like Tom Cavanagh, the actor who plays Ed, but for this sequence, that doesn't matter. A hand double will do while Cavanagh is working elsewhere on the set.

This is Show 315: Ed's third season, 15th show. And although Burnett isn't quite finished, Show 316 began shooting today. Because the network shortened the hiatus between seasons last year, Burnett and Beckerman weren't able to outline all of the episodes ahead of time and have been struggling to keep up. The schedule leaves even less room for polishing, perfecting, and obsessing than before. Not that it stops Burnett.

"This is the money shot," he tells the crew. It's the photo montage before the big finale. The shot seems straightforward enough, but after a half-dozen takes, it still doesn't have the right feel.

"Close," Burnett says before another round of takes. Faster, slower, zooming in, pulling back. He resorts to talking the camera operator through it, photo by photo: "Moving . . . holding . . . and cut." Finally, Burnett gets the shot. "That's fantastic," he says. Then, sounding rather like Letterman, he jokes, "Someone's going to win an award for this."

Whenever Burnett and Beckerman write an episode, Burnett sees it played out in his head. He sees how each scene should look, how the music should feel, how the actors should speak their lines. If only he could make that show -- in this case, Show 315 -- a reality. The script, which he and Beckerman have labored over even more than usual, is "near and dear to our hearts," Burnett says.

Two days later, he watches the entire episode for the first time. He's aghast. "I looked at it and thought, 'How can this be?' The stuff I was laughing at on the set didn't work," he says. "I was so upset, I was beside myself. Here's this great aspiration of mine to direct, and I thought, 'That's gone.' It was one of the worst nights of my life."

Those who know Burnett no longer flinch. In anticipation of that very reaction, Wendy Stanzler, the editor working on the episode, instructed him to watch it twice. His wife, Eunice, who prefers not to see the show until it airs on TV (formerly on Wednesdays at 8 PM, now on Fridays at 9 PM), assures him that he'll feel better about things in a few days.

Burnett isn't so sure. And to make matters worse, the script deadline for Show 317 is looming. Shooting is scheduled to begin in less than a week -- the following Wednesday -- and he and Beckerman are starting from scratch. They have no story, no outline, no idea at all what Ed will be doing. All they know is that they have never been this far behind.