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Still hoping to work on Cheers, Mirkin sent a spec script of an episode of Taxi to Cheers writers Ken Levine and David Sacks.

The two approved and offered Mirkin a freelance job writing one of the final nine episodes of 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 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 in to 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.