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A few months ago I finally got a copy of the Bob DVD set (and around that time I was reading a few articles reviewing the show, and I added a ton of info on the show to TV Tropes). It is a great show. Previously I had only seen a few episodes on TV Land.
I was thinking that the first season was better and much more exciting than the retooled second season, and I saw that many fans tend to think of the second as not as good. I'd call it "so okay it's average". Actually, I'd say that the first season is as great as Newhart, the second season is as good as (or less good than) The Bob Newhart Show (I do like that one, but not as much as Newhart).
As I watched the whole first season, I noticed that the comic book format gets less focused as the series goes on. Additionally, Harlan Stone, Bob's writer for Mad Dog, gets less focus at this point, when during the first half of the series he had pretty much been the second-in-command (at least when it comes to scenes in the office, but he'd also been seen outside the office quite a bit at first). I think most of the episodes I saw on TV Land (which include The Lost Episode, The Man Who Killed Mad Dog, and the first Christmas episode) are from around the point where Harlan and the comic book format are about to get less focus. I had barely remembered Harlan before, though I did remember Bob made a bet with the guy who was basically his boss, and remember them working on a new issue on Christmas Eve.
I had previously thought that Lisa Kudrow had a much bigger presence on the show, playing Trisha's roommate, I thought she was Trish's best friend and roommate and her parents just appeared occasionally, but it seems her parents were actually Bob and Kaye's close friends and she was just their daughter (who Trish didn't really like hanging around), and she was only in three episodes whereas her mom was also in just three and her father (played by Tom Poston) was in four. My copy of Total Television lists Kudrow as part of the cast while not mentioning Poston (who I would think would have been a higher priority to mention, given he was on Newhart's previous shows, though I think Kudrow had become a bigger star by the time that edition of Total Television came out).
The second season cast seems to share similarities to the first season cast. Pete is kind of like Harlan, being vain. Sylvia seems like Mr. terHorst, in that she's the boss (and her unseen ex-husband, Les, could also be a better comparison, though he seems unreasonable while Mr. terHorst is more reasonable). Whitey seems like a bigger and stronger Alvie, in that he is the nice guy at the office. Chris seems similar to the old woman who worked on the comic book (I forget her name at the moment). I guess the second season doesn't have anybody who is like Chad. Additionally, both Harlan and Pete seem like mixes of Kirk and Michael from Newhart (Pete also looks and acts a bit like Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother, though not a womanizer).
One episode of Bob Newhart's fourth sitcom, George and Leo, heavily featured the former co-stars of Newhart and Judd Hirsch's past sitcoms. It's a shame it only had two Taxi co-stars, it had more from Dear John but I haven't seen much of that show (and hadn't seen the show before that series went on the air). But I recently learned that two Dear John co-stars - Jere Burns and Cathrine Watkins - were also cast members on Bob (with Watkins being Bob's wife on Bob and John's ex-wife in the first season of Dear John). It's a shame that neither cast member appeared in that episode, which had no Bob cast members (though when looking at the IMDB credits for the cast recently, I saw that one Bob cast member, I forget who, made two appearances on George and Leo). Of course Watkins, from what I read, was only in five episodes in the first season of Dear John. While Bob may not have been heavy on people's minds (though reruns were being shown weekly on TV Land at the time... and at the time many cable providers did not carry TV Land), it would have been funny if those two appeared in a scene without Newhart or Hirsch (and even if people weren't familiar with the Bob cast, they would likely recognize Burns from Dear John).
Looking in the episode listing on the Bob DVD, I see that it lists airdates for the three episodes that did not air on CBS, and all the same air date (March 23, 1997). I wonder if these all aired during Nick at Nite's Bob's Bob Bob Newhart Newhart Marathon (though my recollection is that they just showed one episode of Bob a night.... and given that the promos heavily played up Bob as a cartoonist, it'd be odd if they only showed second season episodes where he's the president of a greeting card company and doesn't even design the cards anymore).
I was thinking that the first season was better and much more exciting than the retooled second season, and I saw that many fans tend to think of the second as not as good. I'd call it "so okay it's average". Actually, I'd say that the first season is as great as Newhart, the second season is as good as (or less good than) The Bob Newhart Show (I do like that one, but not as much as Newhart).
As I watched the whole first season, I noticed that the comic book format gets less focused as the series goes on. Additionally, Harlan Stone, Bob's writer for Mad Dog, gets less focus at this point, when during the first half of the series he had pretty much been the second-in-command (at least when it comes to scenes in the office, but he'd also been seen outside the office quite a bit at first). I think most of the episodes I saw on TV Land (which include The Lost Episode, The Man Who Killed Mad Dog, and the first Christmas episode) are from around the point where Harlan and the comic book format are about to get less focus. I had barely remembered Harlan before, though I did remember Bob made a bet with the guy who was basically his boss, and remember them working on a new issue on Christmas Eve.
I had previously thought that Lisa Kudrow had a much bigger presence on the show, playing Trisha's roommate, I thought she was Trish's best friend and roommate and her parents just appeared occasionally, but it seems her parents were actually Bob and Kaye's close friends and she was just their daughter (who Trish didn't really like hanging around), and she was only in three episodes whereas her mom was also in just three and her father (played by Tom Poston) was in four. My copy of Total Television lists Kudrow as part of the cast while not mentioning Poston (who I would think would have been a higher priority to mention, given he was on Newhart's previous shows, though I think Kudrow had become a bigger star by the time that edition of Total Television came out).
The second season cast seems to share similarities to the first season cast. Pete is kind of like Harlan, being vain. Sylvia seems like Mr. terHorst, in that she's the boss (and her unseen ex-husband, Les, could also be a better comparison, though he seems unreasonable while Mr. terHorst is more reasonable). Whitey seems like a bigger and stronger Alvie, in that he is the nice guy at the office. Chris seems similar to the old woman who worked on the comic book (I forget her name at the moment). I guess the second season doesn't have anybody who is like Chad. Additionally, both Harlan and Pete seem like mixes of Kirk and Michael from Newhart (Pete also looks and acts a bit like Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother, though not a womanizer).
One episode of Bob Newhart's fourth sitcom, George and Leo, heavily featured the former co-stars of Newhart and Judd Hirsch's past sitcoms. It's a shame it only had two Taxi co-stars, it had more from Dear John but I haven't seen much of that show (and hadn't seen the show before that series went on the air). But I recently learned that two Dear John co-stars - Jere Burns and Cathrine Watkins - were also cast members on Bob (with Watkins being Bob's wife on Bob and John's ex-wife in the first season of Dear John). It's a shame that neither cast member appeared in that episode, which had no Bob cast members (though when looking at the IMDB credits for the cast recently, I saw that one Bob cast member, I forget who, made two appearances on George and Leo). Of course Watkins, from what I read, was only in five episodes in the first season of Dear John. While Bob may not have been heavy on people's minds (though reruns were being shown weekly on TV Land at the time... and at the time many cable providers did not carry TV Land), it would have been funny if those two appeared in a scene without Newhart or Hirsch (and even if people weren't familiar with the Bob cast, they would likely recognize Burns from Dear John).
Looking in the episode listing on the Bob DVD, I see that it lists airdates for the three episodes that did not air on CBS, and all the same air date (March 23, 1997). I wonder if these all aired during Nick at Nite's Bob's Bob Bob Newhart Newhart Marathon (though my recollection is that they just showed one episode of Bob a night.... and given that the promos heavily played up Bob as a cartoonist, it'd be odd if they only showed second season episodes where he's the president of a greeting card company and doesn't even design the cards anymore).