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Ken had a brilliant idea on Friday afternoon – make Bob Newhart the subject of Medium Cool this week.
And TaMara told me about this:
The new Entertainment Tonight special Bob Newhart: A Legacy of Laughter, celebrating the late actor, will air Monday, July 22 at 8 pm on CBS.
So let’s talk about the great Bob Newhart. He was his own man, and I loved him for his style. And talent. So let’s share stories and links to our favorite scenes, and bonus points for anyone who finds a video clip of the “sit, Whitey” scene.
RedDirtGirl
No funny stories, but I loved him. When I was in college in NYC in the mid-80s, late night tv ran 3 Mary Tyler Moore shows, followed by 2 Bob Newhart episodes. Many nights were spent in the company of Mary Mary Mary Bob Bob!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Back in the early days of the internet, there was a chat room forum, Live Universe I think, lotsa chat rooms.
One was called The Stratford Inn. The guys who ran it also put up Bob’s first web site, I still have a tshirt from that. On the back it say “H…H…H…Hello?” and on the front the website.
The guys also knew Bob’s youngest son who was another IT person. He and I would swap stories about running Cat 5 cable and such.
One time, the guys, in the chat room, had Tony Papenfuss and John Voldstad on for a chat session. They answered questions “You didn’t have speaking roles but did you get paid as if you did?” Answer was “Yes”.
We played the “Bob Game” in college, then the “Dick Game” out of college since nobody was playing Bob Newhart show reruns but they said “Dick” in “Newhart” as much if not more than in the first series. I’d record it on Monday night and we’d have people over on the weekend to play because we were still young and stupid, only with more disposable income.
Great article on how ‘Newhart’ was given a lot of time to find it’s way:
https://www.avclub.com/how-the-second-season-of-newhart-proves-sitcoms-need-ti-1798266087
Mr. Bemused Senior
Stop it.
Good advice for so many problems.
[ETA timely, too 😁]
Joy in FL
I don’t know which season it was, but in 1975-76 when I was a freshman at Emory Universtiy, I made sure I had my weekly laundry done in time to watch Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart at 9 o’clock. I had a very small B&W TV in my dorm room. I looked forward to those shows so much.
Later I got Newhart’s LP The Buttoned-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. By the time I wore it out, I probably had it memorized. I loved the wit and creativity. I love thinking that some of that rubbed off on my own mind.
RIP Bob Newhart.
NeenerNeener
My favorite Newhart scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrubGTIrlk4
Tom Q
Old enough that my father bought the Button Down Mind albums, which I listened to incessantly at the age of 8. Probably didn’t understand all of it, but I can recall sketches like The Krushchev Landing Rehearsal, The Driving Instructor, and Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball and laugh at the mere memory.
Never actually much watched either of his shows — those were my young adult/”I don’t do TV” years — but continued to love him over the years.
Mr. Prosser
I always take the day off on St. Swithin’s Day. If I ever have a cat it will be named Arbogast. I will have the Darrells over for dinner, maybe.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Here’s another little factoid I learned from the chat room years and talking with Bob’s youngest son:
He was on the Carson show a *lot*, typically with nothing to plug. Why was he on so much? He lived nearby, remained close friends with Carson until Carson’s death and was a reliable last-minute substitute when a booked guest cancelled.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Some of his oldies were evergreen and he kept doing them for decades. We heard him live at Wolftrap (in the DC suburbs) in the 90s and he did the driving instructor, and he may have also done Abe Lincoln’s PR guy.
So I was reading about his amazing overnight success with his first comedy album, “The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart”, which included those two and several I’d never heard, and we listened to the whole thing. I’ll probably try to chase down more of those sketches from the other albums over the next week or so.
There’s a clip I’ve seen of him doing a skit on Dean Martin’s show, and Martin can’t keep it together. “Didn’t you work with Jerry Lewis?” Newhart asks. “Yeah,” responds Martin, “but you’re funnier.”
karen gail
I enjoyed the role that he played in the “Librarians:” he still brought his twisted sense of humor to the role.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I have his memoir in my Audible, read by himself. He tells a story of being on a panel of some sort with Buddy Hackett, when it comes out that Newhart is a CPA and could (and once did) earn a living as an accountant. Newhart does a dead-accurate Buddy Hackett impression, saying “you mean you don’t hafta do dis?”
I have a fondness for these showbiz biographies read by the star. Carl Reiner’s was also excellent. Currently working our way through Mel Brooks and Patrick Stewart.
SpaceUnit
I had a good story to tell about Bob Newhart. Back in the early 2000’s I was technical director for a live one-man, one-night show that he did at the local performing arts center.
But instead I just want to say fuck you to everyone, here on the blog and elsewhere, who stabbed Joe Biden in the back. Seriously, fuck you. He deserved better. I’m going for a walk. Fuck your respite threads.
ETA: The same people will be taking shots at KH in less than 24 hours.
Ohio Mom
Clearly the appeal of Newhart’s two sitcoms was his character — the only grounded, sane person in a land of people all missing cards from their decks. Yes, his wife wasn’t wacky but she was always very much in background and didn’t seem to notice how unhinged everyone else was.
I think we all have moments in our lives like that.
RaflW
Even when I was probably too young to get some of the jokes and plot lines, I loved the Bob Newhart Show (watching in the mid to late 70s).
I wanted to live in that apartment so bad, too. Though I didn’t understand the architecture (since of course that many steps inside a highrise floor plate makes no sense, but it does work great for live filmed three-camera sit coms, very much like a stage set).
The show holds up pretty well decades later, too.
I can’t say I was captured much by Newhart, though. Only ever watched a couple episodes.
Jay
The “Sit, Whitey” episode is Season 2, Episode 12 and is titled “the Blues for Mr. Borden”.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55p623
Bob Newhart said that episode got the largest amount of studio audience laughter in the show’s history.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ohio Mom:
That’s how I describe the Australian show, ‘Deadloch’ to people. It’s basically Bob in ‘Newhart’ if he were the lead detective in a Nordic Noir crime procedural.
CaseyL
His Sir Walter Raleigh sketch can still reduce me to tears of laughter. I need to find versions of his first two albums I can play.
Loved the first sitcom, “The Bob Newhart Show,” didn’t care for the second. Either “Newhart” was too zany and contrived, or my tolerance for those sitcom tropes had evaporated at some point. But I did watch the Newhart series finale, because that got SO MUCH attention.
Thanks for the laughs, Bob.
Eyeroller
@NeenerNeener: Back when there was a “we,” we used to watch that episode nearly every Thanksgiving. It was a tradition.
I recently saw an outtake from the filming of his “Newhart” series in which he called the actress playing his wife “Emily.” The studio audience went wild. The ending scene of that series was probably the greatest in television history. It was supposedly Bob’s wife’s idea, based on the Dallas season opener where “it was all a dream.”
CliosFanBoy
In Junior High (this would be about 1972) our English teacher had everyone do a comedy routine as part of a lesson on public speaking. Most of the class did Cheech and Chong. I did Bob Newhart’s “Lincoln’s Agent.” The class was very, very confused.
japa21
The shows were good, the stand up comedy was better. Nobody handled a telephone like he did.
Eyeroller
@RaflW: The topology of that apartment was almost impossible as an actual apartment (especially considering how it would have to be connected to the neighboring apartments), but it did work as a stage set.
RaflW
As a kid, I thought I wanted a wife like Suzanne Pleshette. Fast forward to the very early 90s and I discovered I actually wanted a Bob Newhart.
And indeed, my BF is bald, smart, sensitive, very funny, and often the sane person in a swirl of nuttiness.
BethanyAnne
One of Newhart’s first standup gigs (maybe his very first) was in Houston. He had 2 bits prepared, and they got a much better reception than anyone had planned. He got called for an encore, and came out and told the audience he only had the 2 – which did they want to hear again? They picked one, and he did that as an encore :)
Scout211
Posted by the Smothers Brothers in loving memory:
Bob Newhart Air Traffic Controller.
BethanyAnne
@CaseyL: “I don’t know if you know it, Walt, but we have plenty of leaves here in London.”
Torrey
Here’s a bit with Newhart as Judson in The Librarians. It is not entirely inappropriate to our present moment.
CliosFanBoy
@NeenerNeener:
More MOOOO GOO GAIII PAN.
Fair Economist
The Bob Newhart show was one of the Saturday evening CBS comedy stretch I would have died to watch when I was a kid. Fortunately my parents let me watch the whole thing even though part of it was past my bedtime. I was pretty young for a lot of the jokes but I still loved it. He will be missed.
Eyeroller
@Ohio Mom: Emily Hartley was a role model. Her character started as a ditz but Suzanne Pleshette insisted that she should be a real person with her own life and Bob supported that fully. Maybe the wife in the second series was more conventional but I never watched that show.
RaflW
@Eyeroller: Yeah at some point in my teens I was like, Ohh now I get it. It’s like Mary Tyler Moore’s first apartment. Great for making an entrance.
David_C
@Tom Q: “Can someone powder Ike’s head? I’m getting a glare.”
And the USS Codfish: https://youtu.be/P0SICqoBevs?si=r2tyfqTdOL6g9AUT
piratedan
I really liked Bob because he was in a way, comedy for “smart people” dealing with the insane world around us, noting the absurdity of life and just finding a way thru it.
You can see that he believed in punching up, based on his subject matter and dealing with authority (done a completely different way by the Monty Python troupe).
Wyatt Salamanca
Despite their vastly different styles, Bob Newhart and Richard Pryor had deep mutual respect for each other
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruvDAeWtZWU
Torrey
@Torrey:
And the Sir Walter Raleigh sketch (no visuals, alas).
Fake Irishman
Mom and Dad had the old albums, which I listened to. Given what air travel has become, the “Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company” has a spot in my heart. The one sided conversations were a great comedic innovation.
David_C
@CliosFanBoy: My brother had the albums and I listened to all the routines. Lincoln, Baseball, the Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company.
SiubhanDuinne
Newhart was such a generous actor. He always made room for everyone else in the ensemble to be funny as hell. That, paradoxically, made him all the funnier. An Irish-German mensch. Loved his solo standup routines, loved his sitcoms, loved his appearances on Carson. A lovely man. I’m glad he and I were on the same earth for so many years.
Scout211
That reminded me of the episode when Bob found out Emily’s IQ was much higher than his.
Bob takes an IQ test
CaseyL
@BethanyAnne:
“Y’see, Walt, we’ve been a little worried about you…”
Fake Irishman
@Torrey:
The part where the agent is trying to understand the concept of smoking tobacco is howl-inducing.
Nancy
@NeenerNeener:
Me, too, me, too. I always order moo goo gai pan. I like it but I also like to think about the sketch as I order.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Now I feel less guilty about never getting into his second sitcom. It seems to be a consensus.
As I said upthread, we heard Newhart perform live. He ended the show with that famous last scene, and it was the first I’d ever heard of it, let alone seen it.
Nancy
@karen gail: Yes, I liked him in that and in Big Bang, in Sheldon’s head.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Bob was a really good psychiatrist
Eyeroller
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Psychologist. I always thought it was just a joke but he was actually sort of practicing as a Rogerian psychotherapist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person-centered_therapy
Eliza, one of the earliest “AI” programs, emulated a Rogerian psychotherapist.
Craig
I was a kid and the contrast of the SNL/Python craziness with The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart really stuck with me. Bob’s deadpan payoff after a complex setup really impressed me. He was so great. I knew Elf was special when he showed up. Very Special Talent.
Kristine
@karen gail: I remember that! It was good.
Old School
@Eyeroller:
It can be seen here for those interested.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Eyeroller:
Eliza: “Tell me more about your mother”
Well, a simple natural language processor anyway. Didn’t take me long playing with Eliza to figure out the small set of keywords that would get it “interested” in followup questions.
Seemed to me to be about on par with the text-based adventure games, language-wise.
Geoduck
I didn’t like the second series much, not because it was badly made, it wasn’t, but because every week you witness this poor guy trapped in a nightmare in a town full of lunatics. So, yes, the ending was perfect. And Bob was always one of the greats.
Eyeroller
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The amazing thing–though perhaps not–is that people who interacted with this very simple program (we are talking late 1960s technology here) were convinced they were talking to a human psychologist. That, among other things, made me realize that the Turing Test is useless.
Citizen Dave
I was a tv kid during the first show and loved it. Second series, sometimes watched it. I read once that what is so irritating about loud cellphone talkers is that your mind can’t help but fill in the other half of the conversation ( so you are preoccupied). Newhart used this same thing as his genius, in our landline world
This is a touching 20 minute Judd Apatow doc on Bob and Don Rickles’ (and wives) long friendship. And very funny. https://youtu.be/o3cs7PyXPsU?si=QwR2b6NhDwm7siXi
Craig
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention the genius of the to last scene of Newhart where Bob wakes up from ‘a dream’ with Suzanne Pleshette as Emily pulling a funny gag on Patrick Duffy’s waking up in the shower in Dallas. Genius stuff.
NotMax
(For any among the three dozen or so who stuck it out for the entirety of the ill-fated Bob.)
Mad Dog mourns. Also too, for grins, WOOF.
Switching gears, the only time the two Darryls spoke on Newhart. (Background on the genesis of Larry, Darryl and Darryl.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Wyatt Salamanca:
Newhart’s best friend was, of all people, Don Rickles. That still perplexes and amuses me, and gladdens my heart.
bbleh
and I gotta admit, casting him in Elf was brilliant.
Also, of course, the Carol Burnett Show. Watched that as a kid and even then I howled.
Ken
Those were my favorite tracks in his Button Down Mind and other records. They christened the TV Trope after him.
I think my favorites were the ones for tobacco, baseball, etc. where you realized that, yes, it really is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Mr. Carlin must be inconsolable
NotMax
@Fake Irishman
Strictly for the record, and not to take anything away from Newhart’s masterful delivery, the one-sided telephone shtick was being used by comedians long before.
karen gail
Personally; what I enjoyed most about Newhart was his comedy didn’t rely on putting others down. So much of what is now called comedy is just put-downs and ridicules of other people. I saw Don Rickles live and left before seeing the whole show; I was very pregnant and became the butt of his jokes since MIL had gotten us a front table seating.
Newhart, Carlin and Phyillis Diller; were highly enjoyable even in adult club settings.
Fake Irishman
@NotMax:
fair enough, I don’t know the history of the trope. Sometimes there are masters and exemplars of commonly employed devices, as you note.
NotMax
@Fake Irishman
Here’s an example from over a hundred years ago.
;)
dexwood
About 1990, a guy rented the house across the street from us. A modest, blue collar neighborhood. He was always home and I was working a 3 to 11 shift so we began having coffee together 3 or 4 mornings a week. One morning, Bob Newhart came up in our conversation and I told him how much I loved the “more goo to go” Thanksgiving episode. He excused himself, returned shortly with some Newhart scripts. He had been a writer on the show. He ended up in Albuquerque to find a way to heal from tragedy. His coked up son died in a car wreck followed by his wife’s suicide months later. Cocaine, living large, took its toll on all three of them. He left about 6 months later promising to stay in touch, but I never heard from him again.
Delk
5901 N Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60660
SiubhanDuinne
Funny to me (funny-peculiar, not funny-haha) that quite a few folks on this and earlier Newhart threads didn’t care all that much for the second (Vermont inn) series but had a huge love for the earlier Bob the Psychiatrist series. I’m just the opposite: I loved Newhart and tried to catch every episode. I was aware that he had an earlier unrelated show but never actually watched it until it started being shown on Nick at Nite; not sure to this day that I’ve seen all the episodes. It was good, and I enjoyed and admired it, but I never had the same visceral connection to that show as I did to the later series. Might be generational.
wjca
Exactly. He was, especially in his earliest stuff, poking gentle fun at himself, and at the social milieu he lived in. Which also happened to be the one most of his audience lived in. He was helping us laugh at our own foibles and situations.
NotMax
BTW, 8 seasons of Newhart currently on Prime.
Citizen Alan
My funniest memory of bob newhart is an obscure one. It was from an episode of Newhart in which bob agreed to sponsor larry, darrell and daryl in a walkathon at five dollars a mile. Two days later, they called him from a gas station where they had stopped to use the bathroom and told them they had each walked over three hundred miles, and we’re still going. Bob simply hang up the phone and with a shudder of horror said “they have to be stopped.” When my teenage self saw that episode, Bob’s perfect delivery of that simple line had me in hysterics. Truly a master of timing and infliction.
Paul in KY
One of the titans of comedy. Any form, he whooped ass on em all. Had the greatest instinct for comedic timing.