In “Inside the Episode,” writers and directors reflect on the making of their Emmy-winning episodes. Michael Lembeck was a seasoned stage performer well before he won the 1996 comedy directing Emmy for the “Friends” double-header “The One After the Super Bowl,” Parts 1 and 2 — the first, and only, time the NBC stalwart ever won in that category. Lembeck had seen stars explode into the zeitgeist before, such as when some guy named John Travolta — with whom he’d worked on the national Broadway tour of “Grease” — spent a year sleeping on Lembeck’s floor before booking a few commercials and finally landing a breakout role in the sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter.
” But, Lembeck says, it was “extraordinary” being with the “Friends” cast and crew from what he initially thought was a “tepid” show through the first season and into the second when the cast “became the Beatles” and then beyond that. So it’s a bit kismet that Lembeck’s Emmy win wasn’t just for directing the six biggest TV stars in the world — it was also for directing two back-to-back episodes jampacked with guest stars (as the episodes’ title suggests, they aired after the 1996 Super Bowl and the show decided to go big). The nominated directors Lembeck beat that year? Andy Ackerman, who’d directed “Seinfeld’s” now-iconic “The Soup Nazi” episode; TV directing legend James Burrows, who’d helmed the pilot of “3rd Rock From the Sun”; and two different “L.