Bob Newhart

My friends and I wouldn't leave their mother's place on 55th Street on Saturday night to go play pool and have several at the nearby Spotlight Bar until we watched Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore and Archie Bunker. I forget the order. After viewing that trio of shows, I think that released us to set out at about 10 o'clock, which was perfect to be out and about in Manhattan on a Saturday night.

I never watched the show where Bob was an inn keeper in Vermont. Although, it was good to know Tom Poston was doing something after being one of the three "Man in the Street" people Steve Allen made part of his show as he "interviewed" Tom, Don Knotts and Louie Nye in the alleyway outside the Hudson Theater. TV always has a Golden Age of Television for someone, and that was my Golden Age.

Newhart was drier than Sahara sand, but incredible funny as he paused, stammered slightly, blinked his eyes a few times (Morse code?) and made a reply to something. 

There was one episode that I so distinctly remember that I've tried to invoke its humor when it fits. Bob is in his Lake Shore high rise living room with wife Suzanne Pleshette, maybe a few others, and Saul Rubinek, perhaps playing his lawyer. 

The subject of how much does Bob make a year comes up, and Bob gracefully declines to provide an answer. Saul, takes out a pocket calculator and starts to waltz around the living room, entering numbers based on how much he thinks the place is worth overlooking Lake Michigan from such a height; how much the carpeting, drapes, TV, sound system and furniture cost. He finishes his inventory and shows it to Bob as to what he believes the income number to be.

Bob looks at the number displayed on the calculator, blinks a few times and just barely gets out, "that is the number." Pure Newhart.

I remember reading that they named the street outside Bob's house in Beverley Hills Newhart Drive, or something Newhart.

I never did buy his comedy albums, but the telephone and one-sided conversations were a favorite vehicle for comedians to use in their bits. Bill Cosby, whose albums I did buy, famously as Noah, talks to God about building the ark and how to stock it with the right mix of animals.

Bob's imagined conversation with Lincoln about the Gettsyburg address gets mentioned in several of the Newhart obituaries.

I had forgotten he played Mayor Major in the movie Catch-22, a perfect character for Bob. Joseph Heller's Major Major could only be seen in his office when he wasn't there. If anyone came to see him, he jumped out the window. It was a great metaphor for the irony and the insanity of war that prevailed. 

Bob is missed, as is his type of humor that never had to be bleeped.

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