Who Ever Said Comedy Had To Be Fun?

When it's not, Burnett blames himself. He speaks of the cast and crew with a sense of awe, as if he doesn't understand their craft any more than they understand his idiosyncratic ways. Cavanagh's uncanny ability to duplicate his exact intonation and gestures in multiple takes. The day that Sabrina Lloyd, who plays Frankie, cried real tears on cue. Justin Long, who plays Warren Cheswick, an Ed-like high-school senior. "Justin's our atom bomb," says Burnett. "We drop him in a scene, and he explodes."

By early afternoon, Burnett is back on the set, still finishing up Show 315. In this scene, Cavanagh sits at Ed's desk, writing on a yellow legal pad. Despite sleep deprivation and an unforgiving schedule, Burnett is in a playful mood. He jokes with Cavanagh and the crew until the production hits a snag: The notepad that they're using doesn't match the one that was used in earlier footage, and for some reason, no one seems to be able to rectify the problem. Burnett explains the shot for the umpteenth time. What exasperates him is that he held a morning meeting so that everyone would be prepared. Now this. "If I have to say it again, you're going to see a man have a heart attack," he says. His chuckle can't mask the edge in his voice.

"Ed is like their child," says Nellie Stevens, Burnett's assistant. Like any first-time parents, Burnett and Beckerman have a hard time letting go. As one crew member says, "Other writers are afraid to come to this show because they know how involved the creators are."

The writers on Ed usually don't last for more than a season. Part of the reason is the show's distinctive voice. "We want to delegate, and we try to delegate," Burnett says. "You have to when you're doing 22 episodes a season. But when we do, it's not the same. It's like a signature. We sign our names a certain way."

Burnett faults himself for not developing the writing staff and lightening his workload. "It's my own deficiency," he says. "For me, writing is a very personal experience, and I haven't found anyone other than Jon with whom I can sit in a room and be productive. He and I are shooting at the same target."

What they're aiming for is an offbeat romantic comedy, or, to put it in Late Show terms, what Burnett calls "Viewer Mail with kissing." After CBS passed on a half-hour sitcom pilot of Ed in 1998, the network let Worldwide Pants pitch it elsewhere. That's when NBC stepped in. The fact that Letterman had left NBC in a much-publicized rift back in 1993 didn't prevent the network from teaming up with his production company. Karey Burke, executive vice president of prime-time series at NBC, had known about the project for years and was intrigued. The show was unconventional, funny, and "surprisingly sweet coming from a couple of Letterman cynics," she says. With the network's help, Burnett and Beckerman developed it into their first show, a one-hour comedy series, which is a rarity on television. Despite modest ratings, NBC signed the duo to a development deal in November. "They're at the top of the list in terms of people you'd want to develop prime-time comedies," Burke says. For their next show, they'd prefer a shorter format. Maybe eight minutes long, suggests Burnett.

Ed Stevens is a charmingly goofy lawyer who returns to his hometown of Stuckeyville to start fresh after his life in New York falls apart in a single day: After getting fired (he left a comma out of a brief, costing his firm around $2 million), he comes home early to discover his wife receiving a rather personal delivery from the mailman. Back in Ohio, Ed buys Stuckeybowl, resumes his law practice, and vacillates between igniting and extinguishing the torch that he holds for Carol. If the premise sounds familiar -- New York professional moves to quirky small town -- that's because Burnett was inspired by Northern Exposure, another unconventional, well-written ensemble show.

The Ed episodes often grow out of Burnett and Beckerman's friendship, which grew out of long hours collaborating on The Late Show. Not surprisingly, the humor on Ed is Lettermanesque. In fact, during the first season, Letterman, whom Burnett asked to be an executive producer, would read the scripts and occasionally add jokes. In one episode, Phil Stubbs, Stuckeybowl's imaginative and impractical huckster, decides to start a new catchphrase, which Letterman provided: "Shave my poodle." The silly $10 dares between Ed and Mike trace back to a cross-country plane ride in which Beckerman dared Burnett to meow like a cat until an older passenger turned around. Burnett meowed. Practically everyone on the plane turned around -- except the intended target. "We said, 'Oh, man, that's gotta go in the show,' " says Beckerman.