History, Popular Culture

Bob Newhart

8 Comments

RIP. He was a very funny guy, with a deadpan delivery that couldn’t be beat. A great straight man as well. And not just visually. He was famous for his hilarious phone calls, in which you only heard his side. We had one of his albums when I was a kid in the 60s. It was called “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.” Here’s an example:

It’s funny, but I recently saw a rerun of the 80s show, and I’ve had the theme song (which was by Henry Mancini!) getting stuck in my head periodically since. The last episode might have been one of the most brilliant endings of any television series, if you were a fan of the show in the seventies. It was part of one of the best Saturday-night prime-time comedy lineups in television history, with All in the Family, and Mary Tyler Moore. Oh, and Mash.

8 thoughts on “Bob Newhart”

  1. The series finale of Newhart reprisingThe Bob Newhart Show format of a decade earlier is a TV Hall of Fame episode. Glad I caught it when it aired.

    I always thought Steven Wright’s humor was pretty much identical to Bib Newhart without the narrative. More of a free association session. Along with the Mr. Carlin character it would have been awesome to have had Mr. Wright on Bob’s analysis sofa in at least one episode.

  2. It was part of one of the best Saturday-night prime-time comedy lineups in television history, with All in the Family, and Mary Tyler Moore. Oh, and Mash.

    CBS’s famous “murderer’s row”.

  3. Another classic bit is the phone conversation with Sir Walter Raleigh explaining the uses of tobacco.

  4. My late brother’s name was Darrell, and we used to joke with each other that “this is my brother Darrell, and my other brother Darrell”.

  5. My parents had all of Newhart’s albums when I was a kid, and I loved them. One of my favorite quotes of his was from “The Button Down Mind on TV”. Imagining that Roman chariot builders had the same problems as modern automobile companies, he conjured op a sales meeting of the General Chariot Corporation. The manager said that they were stuck in their thinking, and that people didn’t want the same chariots year after year. And then “So after all fellas, we’ve gotta modernize our thinking. Now this is 421 BC. We’re gona have to look ahead to 420.”

    The cadence of his delivery often turned the mundane into really memorable humor. I loved his TV shows, too, and saw the “Newhart” finale first run. A friend who lived a time zone east of us had seen it, and notified my wife that we had to be sure to watch it. Wow. It was a masterpiece.

    After “Newhart” he got a short-lived TV series called “Bob.” In an appearance on the “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” to plug the series, Carson noted that he had started with “The Bob Newhart Show”, then had “Newhart”, and now “Bob.” He then looked quizzically at Newhart, who nodded with a somber look, and replied “The next show will just be called ‘Bhh.'”

    RIP, one of my all time favorite entertainers.

  6. “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.” is one of the albums that shares the most weeks at number one based on sales or something crazy like that.

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