Ashes From Burnt Roses: In Memoriam: Bob Newhart

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

In Memoriam: Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart died a few days ago at the ripe old age of 94, and I wanted to commemorate his life. I can’t say that many (if any) comedians have shaped my life, and I wouldn’t say Bob Newhart shaped my life in any way but I did connect with him in a way I have not with comedians.

For those that don’t know Bob Newhart or are too young to know him, he was a very reserved comedian from the 1960s through mostly the 1990s, but he performed into the 21^st century, albeit sporadically. A “very reserved comedian” today sounds like an oxymoron, but Bob mastered the style of comedy that relied on understatement and verbal disconnect. He was not outrageous nor did he use vulgar language or vulgar scenarios. He was decent, gentlemanly, staid, and unexciting on the surface. That’s like saying he’s boring. [Now you know why I connect with him. Isn’t that what Jan, one of my friendly commenters on this blog, says about me? Staid, boring…LOL.]

Of the various obituaries, I liked the one from NPR (National Public Radio). Here’s how they described his comedic style.

Comic Bob Newhart, best known for an everyman persona that powered two classic TV sitcoms, died Thursday morning of natural causes. He was 94. Newhart was the funniest guy in the room while playing unassuming characters who, in others' hands, would have been setting up somebody else's jokes.

Much of his success, according to Newhart himself, came from one mannerism: his stammer. It showed up in his first hit TV sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show in 1972, where he played a psychologist flummoxed by a long line of eccentric patients. And it continued all the way up into his guest appearances on CBS' hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory starting in 2013, where he played a former kids TV show host bewildered by the fan worship of genius scientist Sheldon Cooper.

I knew Bob Newhart from his two popular TV shows, The Bob Newhart Show which ran from 1972 to 1978 and on the series Newhart from 1982 to 1990 where he played a Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon. Both shows had similar premises, a low key Bob Newhart character mixed into the wild and whacky characters around him. I have never forgotten the early episode of Newhart show where a threesome of helpers are called and the lead of the three introduces himself as Larry, and then says “this is my brother Daryl and my other brother Daryl.” So funny. Actually here are excerpts from that very episode.

The obituary goes on to give some details of his life.

George Robert Newhart was born in 1929 in Oak Park, Ill. Raised in the Chicago area, he got a degree in business management and served in the Army during the Korean War before landing a job as an accountant.

Bored with accounting, Newhart began making up comedy routines over the phone with a co-worker. Eventually, he quit accounting and got a DJ pal to help him get a record deal with Warner Brothers. But there was one problem, as he told NPR's Talk of the Nation in 2006, Warner Brothers told him: "We'll record it at your next nightclub," Newhart recalled. "And I said, 'Well, see, that's going to be a problem because I've never played a nightclub.' "

Newhart had two weeks to develop material for his first record, The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart, released in 1960. It became the first comedy album to hit No. 1 on Billboard's albums chart, launching his career.

Oak Ridge Park, Illinois also was, Interestingly, the birth town of Earnest Hemingway. The two were very different. Their lives did overlap in time. Hemingway born thirty years earlier, and died in 1961, the year after Newhart’s break through comedy album. As far as I can tell, the two never met. The obituary in the Chicago Sun Times goes a bit further into Bob’s biography. In discussing the ending episode of the Newhart series where Newhart wakes up to find he’s back in the 1970s The Bob Newhart Show, a brilliant comedic disconnect that was given many accolades, we find out the idea came from Bob’s real life wife. From the Chicago Sun Times:

Mr. Newhart’s real-life wife, Ginnie Newhart, came up with the idea for the show’s ending.

The two met in 1962 when Mr. Newhart’s pal and fellow comedian, Buddy Hackett, set him up on a blind date with a red-headed actress named Virginia “Ginnie” Quinn, who babysat for the Hackett family.

The couple married in 1963 and went on to have four children. He raised them as Cubs fans.

Buddy Hackett was a pretty funny comedian himself, though of a different style. Ginnie died in 2023, the year before Bob’s death. They had a long and happy marriage together. The Sun Times continues with some of Bob’s early life.

He had three sisters, including one who became a nun. His father, George David Newhart, co-owned a plumbing and heating-supply business, and his mother Julia Pauline was a homemaker.

As a kid, he attended St. Catherine of Siena grade school, couldn’t drink enough Pepsi and worked as a pin setter at a bowling alley.

He grew up in an apartment at 26 N. Mason Ave. in Austin, a couple blocks from Oak Park. Mr. Newhart was always trying unsuccessfully to get the attention and affection of his father, who spent a lot of time at a local pub, he said in his memoir.

He attended St. Ignatius College Prep and graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a business management degree in 1952. He briefly attended the university’s law school before he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War.

St, Catherine of Siena grade school! I knew there had to be a connection with my blog. Seriously, I did not know that Bob was Catholic, and from what I can tell he was a lifelong practicing Catholic, despite moving to Beverly Hills in California. That’s certainly commendable.

Now for some highlights. Here’s part of an episode from The Bob Newhart Show where a ventriloquist and his dummy come to see Bob the psychologist.

Hilarious! Bob was also known for doing one sided phone conversation skits. Here’s a classic where the Biblical character Lot is taking a call from Noah, the ark builder.