The Bob Newhart Thread

[Yorick]

Bob Newhart is fantastic! There's no one like him, his style is so unique!

 

[minor muppetz]

Reviving an old thread because I found something on YouTube I had been trying to find for awhile (and I was surprised to see it was posted in 2010, before I started this thread): Various Nick at Nite interstitials spoofing various TV shows, but with Bob Newhart in them:

Unfortunately, not all of the parodies are included. The ones not included are Bob: Impossible and The Brady Bob.

 

[D'Snowth]

I forgot about this thread, but Bob Newhart actually came to my town a couple of years ago for a show. It was good, but I left feeling like we were short-changed, and I felt like I wanted more: the show itself was allotted for two hours, but it's like a third of that time period was dedicated to some kind of auction they were having, for whatever reason.

But anyway, yeah, he did some of his old bits, like his driving instructor bit (and just to show you how P.C. the world has gotten today, he actually got heckled by a woman in the audience who took offense to his use of a woman driver in the bit . . . though he bounced back offering an alternative: instead of a woman driver, he offered to make it a Chinese driver, figuring it'd be better to be racist than sexist), and offered a few personal anecdotes from his career, such as the finale of NEWHART going back to THE BOB NEWHART SHOW being his wife's idea, and talking about his Catholicism, and such. He also included a slideshow of his career highlights, including a bit he did on THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW, where he had trouble getting through the bit because Dean couldn't keep a straight face.

Then of course, it wasn't too long after that when he appeared on THE BIG BANG THEORY, so I guess his career ended up in the crapper in the blink of an eye.

 

[Drtooth]

Then of course, it wasn't too long after that when he appeared on THE BIG BANG THEORY, so I guess his career ended up in the crapper in the blink of an eye.

I don't see why a high rated show where he probably got some very good money and was purposely sought out would be calling his career in the crapper. I loved every minute of his appearance. It was refreshing to see a guest star that wasn't a sci-fi/comics nerd culture icon or an actual scientist.

Sure, he played a scientist and all... and they had him dressed up as Obi Wan (which was the single greatest thing ever)...

 

[minor muppetz]

While Bob Newhart is a comedy legend and his two most successful sitcoms are popular, I wonder if The Bob Newhart Show or Newhart qualify as cult classics. It seems neither show gets referenced/parodied often, not even on Family Guy. Given the popularity of the last episode, I'm surprised that one doesn't get more spoofs, though it could be due to how rare it is for people to star on two successful sitcoms. I keep thinking that if Family Guy ever has an official finale, it should end with the whole series being a dream of somebody elses (if Newhart's still alive by then then it could be his dream).

The only times I know of where the last episode was spoofed were on SNl when Bob hosted in 1995 and in a TV Guide comic concerning possibilities for how The X-Files should end, with one possibility being a Newhart-style ending.

 

[minor muppetz]

Lately I've been thinking about how Bob Newhart will often say that Bob Hartley's psychology license should have been revoked after the first season, due to the fact that many of his patients are uncured. But does anybody know the average amount of time it takes for a psychologist to cure a patient? Is there an average amount of time, or does it vary (for which Bob wouldn't be blamed for)? Is this something I should be asking in the "Questions about anything" thread?

While Bob does have a good number of recurring patients who don't get cured during the shows run - by my count, the number of regular patients is 8 (Mr. Carlin, Mr. Peterson, Mrs. Bakerman, Michelle, Mr. Gianelli, Mr. Herd, Mr. Plager, and Mr. Vickers), in addition to a couple who only appear in two or three episodes (I can't remember their names, one of them was in two episodes as part of the group that consisted of Mr. Herd, Mr. Vickers, Mr. Plager, and Mr. Carlin, the later in that group as well as the main group) - he does have a lot of patients who only appeared in one episode. It could be assumed that those patients did get cured and we just never saw them (have there been any instances where a patient got "cured" on-screen? The first episode opens with Bob on the phone with a patient he cured, and "Who is Mr. X" shows that he had cured some people in the past).

And one thing I find interesting is how most of Bob's patients are called Mr. or Mrs. and then their last names, yet Michelle Nardo is called by her first name as opposed to Miss Nardo. I wonder why she goes by her first name. Were there any other (one-shot) patients who went by their first names?

Changing the topic a little, I've been thinking about the episode of Newhart where a critic keeps giving Vermont Today bad reviews. I haven't seen that one in a long time, but it seems like Dick makes a bigger deal out of it than he should, considering that the critic was just doing his job. I can see Michael and the rest of the station staff making a big deal out of it, but Dick should be reasonable and understanding over negative reviews. Of course when Chester decides to use his power as the mayor against the critic and he, Jim, and I think Joanna consider forms of disappropriate retrobution, Dick merely just suggests making a law against negative reviews (which should be unconstitutional). Is there anything about the critic in this episode being more than just a designated villain?

I'll have to find the episode online and see for myself (and I think I've got some new tropes to add to the series page, once I've watched it again).

 

[minor muppetz]

So Larry, Darryl, and Darryl usually act as one, or at least the two Darryl's do. It's not often we see one without the other two, most plots involving them involve all three. There are quite a few though that involve Larry a bit more than all three. But just last week I've also noticed that the "brother Darryl" has had his share of episodes. There's "Prima Darryl" and "Prodigal Darryl", and an episode with a subplot where Dick plays checkers (or chess?) with this brother Darryl.... But were there ever any episodes where the "other brother Darryl" basically got his own episode or subplot?

 

[minor muppetz]

I've always noticed that on Newhart the closing would alternate between a shot of the Inn with and a shot without snow, but after watching several episodes recently, I just now noticed that, with or without snow, there's other shots of the Inn used in the credits, showing different angles (actually I think I kinda always noticed this with "A Midseason Night's Dream" without really noticing), while sometimes being darker outside than other times.

I also just now noticed that in the exterior shots, there seems to be a hill to the left of the Inn that I hadn't noticed before.

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I've noticed from time to time when talking about The Bob Newhart Show and/or Newhart to older people who saw the shows when they were originally broadcast is that people tend to get the shows confused. Sometimes I'll talk about one of the shows, and they'll think I'm talking about the other. They'll be confused when I mention something before realizing I'm talking about the other show, or might ask something like "is that the one where he's an Innkeeper?". I think I've heard my dad occasionally refer to The Bob Newhart Show as "Newhart".

Anyone else ever encounter people who have this kind of confusion? I don't think the titles are that similar.

One such memory that I just remembered the other night: A long time ago, my dad was telling me that he heard that one of the voice actors from Rugrats was on Newhart. I thought he was talking about Melanie Chartloff, the voice of Didi, who appeared a few times as Dr. Kaiser, but it turns out he was referring to Jack Riley. I recalled mentioning that to my parents a few times, and if he had gotten the show right I would have known who he was talking about. Interestingly, both actors did appear together in the Newhart episode "I Married Dick", where Riley plays a Mr. Carlin-like patient of Dr. Kaiser who Dick insists that he's seen somewhere.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, today is Bob Newhart's birthday.

I found the opening to the ORIGINAL Bob Newhart Show.

I just found out that Bob Newhart's third sitcom, Bob, was actually released on DVD in 2012. I had no idea of this. Of course I also didn't know until the release of Newhart's third season that the second season of Newhart was on DVD.