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The fifth season of Newhart aired on CBS from September 29, 1986 to April 13, 1987.
Jun 16, 2022 · The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart is a 1960 live album by comedian Bob Newhart. Recorded at the Tidelands Club in Houston, Texas by recording engineer Bill Holford, Newhart's debut...
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The cast of The Bob Newhart Show; standing (from left): Bill Daily, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz; seated: Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette Newhart starred in two long-running sitcoms.
The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart is a 1960 live album by comedian Bob Newhart. Recorded at the Tidelands Club in Houston, Texas [4] by recording engineer Bill Holford, Newhart's debut album reached No. 1 on the Billboard Mono Action Albums chart (later the Billboard 200) on August 1, 1960, [5] and remained at the top for 14 weeks.
- Overview
- [edit]Early life
- [edit]Career
- [edit]Sitcoms
- [edit]Other TV appearances
- [edit]Personal comedic style
- [edit]Quotations
- [edit]Writings
- [edit]Honors
George Robert "Bob" Newhart (born September 5, 1929), is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide bestseller and reached #1 on the Billboard pop album chart—it remains the 20th best-selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! was also a massive success, and the two albums held the Billboard #1 and #2 spots simultaneously, a feat unequaled until the 1991 release of Use Your Illusion Iand Use Your Illusion II by hard rock band Guns N' Roses.
Newhart later went into acting, starring in two long-running and prize-winning situation comedies, first as psychologist Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show and then as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom Newhart. He also had a third, short-lived sitcom in the nineties titled Bob. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. One of his most recent roles is the library head Judson in The Librarian. In 2011, Newhart made a cameo in the film Horrible Bosses.
Bob Newhart (Jim Wallace, 2002)
Birth name George Robert Newhart
Born September 5, 1929 (age 83)
Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.
Newhart was born and raised in Austin, Chicago, Illinois, USA. His parents were Julia Pauline (née Burns; 1900–1993), a housewife, and George David Newhart, Sr. (1900–1985), a part-owner of a plumbing and heating-supply business. His mother was of Irish descent and his father had Irish, German, and English ancestry. One of his grandmothers was from St. Catharines, Canada. Newhart has three sisters, Virginia, Mary Joan (a nun, who taught at a Chicago high school), and Pauline.
He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the Chicago area, including St. Catherine of Siena grammar school in Oak Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep (high school), where he graduated in 1947. He then enrolled at Loyola University of Chicago where he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in business management.
After the war he got a job as an accountant for United States Gypsum. He later claimed that his motto, "That's close enough," and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money shows he didn't have the temperament to be an accountant. He also claimed to have been a clerk in the unemployment office who made $55 a week but who quit u...
[edit]The Bob Newhart Show
's most notable exposure on television came from two long-running programs that centered on him. In 1972, soon after Newhart guest-starred on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he was approached by his agent and his managers, producer Grant Tinker and actress Mary Tyler Moore (the husband/wife team who founded MTM Enterprises), to work on a pilot series called The Bob Newhart Show, to be written by Davis and Music. He was very interested in the starring role of dry psychologist Bob Hartley, withSuzanne Pleshette playing his wryly loving wife, Emily, and Bill Daily as neighbor and friend Howard Borden. faced heavy competition from the beginning, launching at the same time as the popular shows M*A*S*H, Maude, Sanford And Son, and The Waltons. Nevertheless, it was an immediate hit. The show eventually referenced what made Newhart's name in the first place—apart from the first few episodes, it used an opening-credits sequence featuring Newhart answering a telephone in his office. According to co-star Marcia Wallace, the entire cast got along well, and Newhart became close friends with both Wallace and co-star Suzanne Pleshette. The cast also included unfamiliar actors. Marcia Wallace as Bob's wisecracking, man-chasing receptionist, Carol Kester; Peter Bonerz as orthodontist Jerry Robinson, whose offices were on the same floor as Newhart's Hartley; Jack Riley as Elliot Carlin, the most misanthropic among members of Dr. Hartley's most frequently seen group therapy sessions; legendary character actor and voice artist, John Fiedler (the voice of Piglet); Florida Friebus (once the mother on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) as another group member; and, scattered over two seasons, Pat Finley as Hartley's sister, Ellen, a love interest for Howard Borden. Future Newhart regular Tom Poston had a briefly recurring role as Cliff Murdock; veteran stage actor Barnard Hughes appeared as Hartley's father for three episodes spread over two seasons, and studio film veteran Martha Scott appeared in several episodes as Hartley's mother. Actress Teri Garr appeared twice in the 1973-74 season. By 1977, the show was suffering lackluster ratings and Newhart wanted to end it, but was under contract to do one more season. The show's writers tried to rework the sitcom by adding a pregnancy, but Newhart objected: "I told the creators I didn't want any children, because I didn't want it to be a show about 'How stupid Daddy is, but we love him so much, let's get him out of the trouble he's gotten himself into'." Nevertheless, the staff wrote an episode that they hoped would change Newhart's mind. Newhart read the script and he agreed it was very funny. He then asked, "Who are you going to get to play Bob?" Ironically, Newhart's wife gave birth to their daughter Jenny late in the year, which caused him to miss several episodes. Marcia Wallace spoke of Newhart's amiable nature on set: "He's very low key, and he didn't want to cause trouble. I had a dog that I used to bring to the set by the name of Maggie. And whenever there was a line that Bob didn't like—he didn't want to complain too much—so, he'd go over, get down on his hands and knees, and repeat the line to the dog, who invariably yawned; and he'd say, 'See, I told you it's not funny!'" Wallace has also commented on the show's lack of Emmy recognition: "People think we were nominated for many an Emmy, people presume we won Emmys, all of us, and certainly Bob, and certainly the show. Nope, never!" finally pulled the plug on his own sitcom in 1978 after six seasons and 142 episodes. Wallace said of its ending, "It was much crying and sobbing. It was so sad. We really did get along. We really had great times together." Of Newhart's other long-running sitcom, Newhart, Wallace said, "But some of the other great comedic talents who had a brilliant show, when they tried to do it twice, it didn't always work. And that's what... but like Bob, as far as I'm concerned, Bob is like the Fred Astaire of comics. He just makes it looks so easy, and he's not as in-your-face as some might be. As so, you just kind of take it for granted, how extraordinarily funny and how he wears well." She was later reunited with Newhart twice, once in a reprise of her role as Carol on Murphy Brown in 1994, and on an episode of Newhart's short-lived sitcom, George & Leo, in 1997.
[edit]Newhart
By 1982, Newhart was interested in a new sitcom. After he had discussions with Barry Kemp and CBS, the show Newhart was created, in which Newhart played Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon. Inexperienced, struggling actress Mary Frann was cast as his wife, Joanna Loudon, and another unfamiliar prime-time actress and soap star (who had been a fan of Newhart's since she was 21), Julia Duffy joined the cast as Dick's inn maid and spoiled rich girl, Stephanie Vanderkellen. A familiar actor (who had been a fan of Newhart's since he was 17), Peter Scolari was also cast as Dick's manipulative TV producer, Michael Harris. Well known actor Tom Poston played the role of handyman George Utley on "Newhart" and received three Emmy Award Nominations for his role in "Newhart" as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, 1984, 1986 and 1987. Like The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart was an immediate hit, and like the show before that, it was also nominated for Emmys, but it didn't win any awards. During the time Newhart was working on this show, in 1985, his smoking habits finally caught up to him, and he was taken to the emergency room for polycythemia. The doctors ordered him to stop smoking. himself "warmed up" the studio audience with a five-to-eight-minute routine before the filming of every episode. In 1987, ratings began to drop. Newhart ended in 1990 after eight seasons and 182 episodes. The last episode ended with a scene in which Newhart wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, who had played Emily, his wife from The Bob Newhart Show. He realizes (in a satire of a famous plot element in the television series Dallas a few years earlier) that the entire eight-year Newhart series had been a single nightmare of Dr. Bob Hartley's, provoked by "eating too much Japanese food before going to bed." Recalling Mary Frann's buxom figure, Bob closes the segment and the series by telling Emily, "You really should wear more sweaters" before the typical closing notes of the old Bob Newhart Show theme played over the fadeout. The twist ending was later chosen by TV Guide as the best finale in television history. Julia Duffy, who played Stephanie Vanderkellen beginning in season two, said, "Well, he always had this hipness from not being him. I mean, during that time, when somewhat are overlooked, some frenzy for NBC's Thursday night shows, we were Letterman's favorite show. Talked about it all the time, Rolling Stone did a huge article on our show, unsolicited article, praising it. Time Magazine did as well, because they loved the timelessness of it, our jokes had absolutely nothing to do with anything current." The last thing Duffy said about the cancellation of Mr. Newhart's second TV series of the decade when she was ready to move onto other projects was, "It was really good for me to see that it got to him, as much as it got to me." After the series' cancellation, Duffy remained friends with Newhart. Peter Scolari, who played conniving, hyperactive TV producer, Michael Harris, for six of the eight seasons, said of his idol/future TV producer and friend, about looking for another woman who preceded Suzanne Pleshette (who died in 2008, a decade after Frann): "I think Bob was right to find a woman, who was, you know, a completely different kind of woman. I mean, I hate to say it, but demographically, you don't have this. You get the sense that Suzanne Pleshette, you know, had played some poker in her time, maybe knocked back a couple of cigarettes, in her life, and you'd be right to assume that Mary Frann did none of those things. Mary Frann was such a dedicated actor that this one, I don't think she missed a mark or screwed up a line in like 60 or 70 performances of her own, that were flawless." When Newhart's co-star had found out Newhart (himself) was trying to stop smoking was, "And the Pepsi was gone and the cigarettes were finally gone. And he did a great... you know, he would do a five- to eight-minute routine in front of our live audience, every single show night; every Friday night for eight years, he did excerpts and new material. And he did the smoking, and he would start playing the spotlight. The follow spot was on him. 'And I haven't had any of the problems that people usually talk about having with the... with the smoking—impatience, outbursts of anger, appetite. I haven't really... look, put it on me or get it off me! Just make up your mind!' And he'd freaked out on the follow spot guy. So, he did this for about eight to ten weeks." The last thing Peter also said despite of Mr. Newhart's second show not winning any Emmys, it also gained recognition for the eight seasons that stayed on the air, "I think Julia Duffy and I (at the Emmys), lost Bob and Tom, I think in 8 years, would collectively lost 15 Emmys, lost by 4 cast members, and we just couldn't get arrested, no matter how great a year, we had, it's great to be nominated, to lose again." After the series' cancellation, Scolari is still good friends with Newhart, who also plays golf with him.
[edit]Other TV series
In 1992, Newhart returned to television with a series called Bob, about a cartoonist. An ensemble cast included a pre-Friends Lisa Kudrow, but the show did not develop a strong audience and was canceled shortly after the start of its second season, despite good critical reviews. In 1997, Newhart returned again with George and Leo on CBS with Judd Hirsch and Jason Bateman; the show was canceled during its first season.
In 2001, Newhart made an appearance on MADtv (Season 6), playing a psychiatrist who yells "Stop it!" in a skit. Other television work includes:
•The Entertainers (regular performer in 1964)
•Thursday's Game (1974) (made-for-TV film)
•Marathon (1980)
•Ladies and Gentlemen... Bob Newhart (1980)
•Ladies and Gentlemen... Bob Newhart Part II (1981)
Newhart is known for his deadpan delivery and a slight stammer which early on he incorporated into the persona around which he built a successful career. On his TV shows, although he got his share of funny lines, often he worked in the Jack Benny tradition of being the "straight man" while the sometimes somewhat bizarre cast members surrounding him got the laughs.
Several of his routines involve hearing one half of a conversation as he speaks to someone over the phone. In a bit called King Kong, a rookie security guard at the Empire State Building seeks guidance as to how to deal with an ape who is "18 to 19 stories high, depending on whether we have a 13th floor or not". He assures his boss he has looked in the guards manual "under 'ape' and 'ape's toes'". Other famous routines include "The Driving Instructor," "The Mrs. Grace L. Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door Company)", "Introducing Tobacco To Civilization", "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue," "Defusing a Bomb" (in which an uneasy security division commander tries to walk a new and nervous security guard through defusing a live shell discovered on a California beach), "The Retirement Party," "A Neighbour's Dog," "Ledge Psychology," and "The Khrushchev Landing Rehearsal."
In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, comedian Shelley Berman accused Newhart of ripping off his improvisational telephone routine style, describing it as a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star." Berman later added, "I thought it was a rotten thing to do. I thought the agents who sold him - I thought they were just as guilty as everybody else. But, my God, to go into a town and do my show, and the critics saying that I borrowed some stuff from Newhart..."
When asked in interviews about the telephone issue Newhart noted that:
and
And
On pleasure: "All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!"
On his ritual: "This stammer got me a home in Beverly Hills, and I'm not about to screw with it now."
"Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on."
"It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves."
On drinking alcoholic beverages on airplanes: "I'm one of those passengers who arrives at the airport five or six hours early so I can throw back a few drinks and muster up the courage to board the plane. Apparently I'm not alone because I've never been in an empty airport bar. I don't care what time you get there. Even at 8:00 a.m. you have to fight your way to the bar. At that hour, everyone drinks Bloody Marys so no one can tell it's booze -- at least until they fall off their chair."
When asked to do a new sitcom: "My manager, I was surprised was one of the founders of MTM Enterprises, by Mary Tyler Moore and Grant Tinker, and Mary's show was such a big hit. He came to me and said, 'Would you like to do a sitcom?' I was traveling on the road a lot, so, the sitcom I could stay home, and said, yeah!"
On September 20, 2006, Hyperion Books released Newhart's first book, I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This. The book is primarily a memoir, but features comic bits by Newhart as well. As comedic actor David Hyde Pierce notes, "The only difference between Bob Newhart on stage and Bob Newhart offstage – is that there is no stage."
In addition to his Peabody Award and several Emmy nominations, Newhart's recognitions include:
•Three Grammy awards in 1961: Best New Artist, Best Comedy Performance (Spoken Word) and Album of the Year for The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (the first comedy record to be honored as Album of the Year).
•In 1993 Newhart was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.
•In 1996, Newhart was ranked # 17 on TV Guides "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time" list.
•In 1998, Billboard magazine recognized Newhart's first album as #20 on their list of most popular albums of the past 40 years, and the only comedy album on the list.
•On January 6, 1999 Newhart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Jul 3, 2024 · Newhart's recording career took flight with his groundbreaking comedy album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Released in 1960, it reached unparalleled heights by winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, a first for a comedy album.
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S5.E2 ∙ Caged Fury. Bob and Emily salute the Bicentennial locked in their storage room, when they go to haul up party goods. Their neighbor Howard's throwing the 4th of July costume party in his apartment, though the Hartleys are supplying everything.
