Executive producers James L. Brooks and Richard Sakai hired Mirkin following his exit from The Edge.

James Berardinelli wrote that Mirkin " brings a lot of energy to the production, always keeping things moving ," while Jack Matthews of The Los Angeles Times says Mirkin " knew exactly what he had here and composed it like frames in a comic strip, ordering cheerful snow-cone colors for everything from the girls ' childlike outfits to the decor of a Laundromat.

Mirkin is a fan of the musician James Taylor ; Taylor guest starred in " Deep Space Homer " and Mirkin directed the music videos for his songs " Enough to Be on Your Way " and " Sea Cruise ".

The idea for the episode came from James L. Brooks, who called David Mirkin and pitched the idea as traveling to the future and Lisa meeting the perfect guy, who in turn cannot stand her family.

Mirkin gave the idea to Collier to write it with the help of the show's executive producer, James L. Brooks.

The scene was directed by David Mirkin and was the first time a Simpsons character had been in the real world in the series.

The Simpsons writer David Mirkin said that one of his favorite jokes on the show is the one where Grampa cycles down the street in high speed and shouts that he feels young again, and is then knocked flying from his bicycle after a doll's head flies into the spokes and falls into an open grave.

Mirkin thinks it is hard to make a " boring " and " tedious " character, such as Grampa, funny.

The character's new addiction to coffee was suggested by writer-producer David Mirkin, who has friends who stopped drinking alcohol and became addicted to coffee.

Grammer usually joins the show's " table readings " ( wherein cast members read each script together for the first time ), and former executive producer David Mirkin described working with Grammer as very pleasant, due to his lively sense of humor.

Grammer, Mirkin says, is capable of perfect readings, but noted that the actor dislikes performing Sideshow Bob's evil laugh.

David Mirkin has noted that " he can do anything, and it fits perfectly.

Created by Brown, Charlie Coffey, and director and executive producer David Mirkin, it was a comedy about actress Julie Robbins ( Brown ), who in this initial story, goes to great lengths to land an interview with teen singer Kiki ( played by Kim Walker ) in the hopes of getting hired as a tabloid-TV celebrity journalist.

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 an unsuccessful attempt to remake the British series The Young Ones, Mirkin created Get a Life in 1990.

Mirkin left The Edge during its run and became the executive producer and showrunner of The Simpsons for its fifth and sixth seasons.

Mirkin has been cited as introducing a more surreal element to the show's humor, as shown by his sole writing credit for the show, " Deep Space Homer ", which sees Homer Simpson go to space as part of a NASA program to restore interest in space exploration.

Mirkin stood down as showrunner after season six, but produced several subsequent episodes, co-wrote The Simpsons Movie ( 2007 ) and remains on the show as a consultant.

Mirkin was born and raised in Philadelphia and graduated from Northeast High School in 1975.

Throughout his childhood, Mirkin had an interest in film, and explored both writing and filming.

Mirkin intended to pursue a career in electrical engineering, which he saw as a more stable employment opportunity than writing or film making.

Mirkin found the experience to be monotonous and unenjoyable and chose to abandon this career path.

Mirkin started out as a stand-up comedian in 1982 and performed across the United States, including at The Comedy Store, where he became a regular, and at The Improv.

" Mirkin considers the joke to be " an insight into the way writes.

" Stand-up comedy was the most profitable and easily accessible route Mirkin found into the comedy industry, but " it wasn't a lifestyle that particularly coveted ," especially due to the traveling required.

Through his cousin, Mirkin met writer George Tricker who became his mentor.

Tricker wrote for the Three's Company spin-off The Ropers so Mirkin wrote a spec script for an episode of The Ropers.

David Mirkin realized that Brooks was " dying to do the show " and asked him if he would be willing to do a guest part, and he agreed.

Mirkin was apprehensive about the job because he was aiming to work on Cheers, a show more focused on character-driven humor which Mirkin preferred writing, but felt he could not turn the opportunity down.

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.

Mirkin directed several of the Newhart episodes he wrote because he saw directing as " a means of protecting the writing.

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.

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.

In 2004, Mirkin stated that he " really wasn't at all intimidat to join show's writing crew ," because he " had worked with and written with " many of his fellow writers previously and concluded that, " took this show in a direction that is more personal to me.

The writers had particular fun writing over the top, melodramatic lines " tortured metaphors ," many of which were penned by producer David Mirkin.

" Deep Space Homer " was written by then-executive producer David Mirkin and is his only writing credit for The Simpsons.

" Mirkin felt the experience " taught a lot about structure " which greatly aided his later work on character-focused shows.

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 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.

" 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.

" Mirkin left Newhart in 1988, desiring to work on a single-camera sitcom.

Mirkin won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award for his work on The Simpsons.

Mirkin felt she was easy to work with because she was versatile and keen to do a lot of different things, and as Mirkin expressed it, " easily evil ".