The spectre of celebrity death has been unrelenting this month, and we’re barely past the halfway point. Yesterday yet another legend left us when the revered Bob Newhart passed a couple of months short of 95, leaving legions of fans from multiple generations to both grieve and warmly remember him.
If you were around when he first rose to fame as a chart-topping recording artist of comedy albums such as THE BUTTON DOWN MIND, you knew him as a master of timing and listening. As THE NEW YORK TIMES’ Neil Genzlinger recalled in yesterday’s obituary:
Mr. Newhart…kept writing solo routines, many of them using a telephone as a partner: The audience would imagine the half of the conversation it wasn’t hearing. One memorable bit depicted a press agent talking by phone to Abraham Lincoln about the Gettysburg Address: “You what? You typed it! Abe, how many times have we told you — on the backs of envelopes. I understand it’s harder to read that way, but it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down.”
In 1959, some comic tapes he had made to amuse himself while working as an accountant in Chicago caught the ear of an executive at Warner Bros. Records, which in 1960 released the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.”
The record shot to No. 1 on the charts, and at the 1961 Grammy Awards it improbably captured the top prize, album of the year. Among the nominees Mr. Newhart bested: Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte and Frank Sinatra.
That persona translated ideally to the character of Dr. Robert Hartley which he portrayed for six marvelously written and acted seasons on the first of his two eponymous CBS sitcoms, THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. The opening credits where he’d reach for a telephone was a dogwhistle to his earlier success, and the masterclass writers of MTM took that skill to new levels by surrounding him with more exaggerated foils for him to react to. Both at home, where the impossibly beautiful Suzanne Pleshette was usually waiting and Bill Daily, fresh off his run as the lead’s best bud from I DREAM OF JEANNIE seamlessly slipping into the similar role as the simultaneously endearing and annoying neighbor Howard Borden, and at the office, where a series of over-the-top group therapy patients provided him a template for mock consternation.
Shortly after that ran its course, CBS and MTM followed that up with his most enduring effort, the sardonic and wacky NEWHART, in which he portrayed the ever-flabbergasted Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon, with yet another stunning and patient wife in Mary Frann, which produced one of the more memorable and inspired series finales in television history, again per Genzlinger:
As chaos envelops the inn, Dick is struck by a golf ball and knocked unconscious. To try to preserve secrecy, a fake ending was conceived in which Dick wakes up in heaven and meets God, who was to be played by either George Burns or George C. Scott. But the actual ending wasn’t set in heaven at all; it was set in the familiar bedroom of the Hartleys from Mr. Newhart’s earlier show. He wakes up next to not Ms. Frann but Ms. Pleshette. The entire second series had been a dream.
And if you’re slightly younger, you knew him best as Arthur Jeffries, aka Professor Proton, the childhood hero of THE BIG BANG THEORY’s Sheldon Cooper, yet another over-the-top counterpart to Newhart’s time-tested ability to wean laughs merely out of a reaction. Those guest starring roles, yet again on a CBS sitcom, endeared him to an entirely new generation of fans and at long last rewarded him with a long overdue Primetime Emmy Award, which somehow eluded him on his previous series, which also included the short-lived but critically acclaimed BOB and GEORGE AND LEO.
But is wasn’t just a gold statue that eluded Newhart despite a career of network success and seemingly universal praise from his peers and influences. Despite strong ratings on CBS for both of his longer-running shows, neither ever translated to significant numbers in reruns. Virtually every station executive who watched and adored his work was eager to sign up for the reruns of his first show when they were offered in the late 70s, many electing to play him in a block with his CBS Saturday night and corporate stablemate THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. But in city after city–yes, even his “hometown” of Chicago–the show frequently underdelivered on top-tier stations. Later rerun cycles were then relegated to nichier environments such as late night runs on fledgling independent stations, where it became fodder for thirsty college students to develop a drinking game where they’d take a sip or a chug (depending upon the school) every time somehow yelled “Hi, Bob!”. Turns out that was quite often. Might explain why few of those with diaries actually remembered watching it–even in those cases, ratings were still inexplicably low.
Low enough that when reruns of NEWHART were made available, it was received poorly. In an era where demand and prices for off-network comedies exploded, NEWHART never sold in New York and many other cities, and where it was sold it generally delivered subpar ratings. When I got to the Family Channel it was eagerly snapped up by executives who had first dibs on it as by that time MTM was under the same secular corporate umbrella, International Family Entertainment. Even with those modest expectations, it was a frustratingly disappointing underdeliverer.
I’ve never quite understood exactly why shows fronted by Newhart never seemed to connect even though you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t admire and revere his style of comedy. It might speak more to the level of sophisticated humor both embraced and the need to actually pay attention while watching. If nothing else, to know when to imbibe.
But I do know that anyone who has the capacity to appreciate comic timing and the ability to lift the appeal and performance of those around him would be hard-pressed to find a more exemplary ambassador of those skill sets than Bob Newhart. And, if nothing else, BIG BANG THEORY reruns are still quite popular, so at least the chance to easily experience his talents are still readily available.
If you’re among those who discovered him via that route, I would urge you to at some point dive into whatever archive is necessary to give his earlier works a sample. You’ll likely come away with similar feelings such as those expressed by USA TODAY’s Bill Keveney:
Obviously, we cherished his delivery of a line as well: the pauses, the stutters, the sudden bursts of exasperation as this gifted man – who always occupied the sane, quiet center – finally got pushed over the edge. But it was his mastery of a slow-burn silence that made him a TV star(.)
And when you do so choose to imbibe, be sure you have a cup or a glass of your favorite beverage close at hand, and whenever you are inclined to chuckle, imbibe in that matter as well. You won’t need a “Hi, Bob!” to be prompted. And don’t plan on driving anywhere when you do.
Until next time…