 Still hoping to work on Cheers , Mirkin sent a spec script of an episode of Taxi to Cheers writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs . The two approved and offered Mirkin a freelance job writing one of the final nine episodes of the show 's first season , pending their commissioning by NBC . The episodes were commissioned , but Mirkin 's agent rejected the Cheers job without telling his client , failing to see why Mirkin would want to work on what was then the lowest @-@ rated comedy on television . Mirkin sacked the agent and signed on with Robb Rothman . Rothman knew Dan Wilcox , the executive producer of Newhart , which like Cheers was more character @-@ focused . Rothman persuaded Wilcox to hire Mirkin . Mirkin wrote a freelance script and in 1984 beat seven other writers to a staff position on the series . He served as a writer and supervising story editor , before being promoted to executive producer and showrunner after one and a half years . Mirkin " felt [ Newhart ] was where I belonged . I 'd finally come to a place in my life where everything I 'd ever wanted had come together . " In 1987 , he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Newhart . It was the first nomination the show had received in that category and for the first episode Mirkin wrote as the series ' showrunner . Mirkin directed several of the Newhart episodes he wrote because he saw directing as " a means of protecting the writing . " A philosophy he carried into his later work , Mirkin felt that " being the head writer ... was not enough ; you had to see the material through its execution – especially the weirder stuff . You had to be right there to make sure every sick idea didn 't lose any disturbing nuance . " Mirkin left Newhart in 1988 , desiring to work on a single @-@ camera sitcom . 
