BOB NEWHART

BOB NEWHART

a chuckle, a couple of voices

and a belly laugh

remembered by Norman Warwick

Bob Newhart died last month, ending what AV CLUB magazine, (pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed),  described as arguably one of the greatest untainted runs in the entire history of comedy.

If memory serves me true I was introduced to this American comedian´s work by a teacher at my Secondary not-so-very Modern School For Boys, at Heys Road in Prestwich just North of Manchester. The man who taught us English was a massive inspiration, and who also introduced me to the works of Steinbeck and Hemingway, and poet Dylan Thomas as well the strange works of Bob Newhart.

Essentially the album Mr. Drury played for is was a collection of monologues, that were a modernised Stanley Holloway. Newhart´s timing was impeccable and he superbly conveyed the incredulity of the man listening to Walter Raleigh´s newly discovered tobacco, and the light mocking tone increasing to hysterical laughter.

Newhart´s audio performance of The Driving Instructor conveyed the patience of the instructor gradually turning to sheer terror.

William Hughes writing for AV CLUB recently said Bob Newhart created endless hours of hilarious comedy—but his genius was evident within seconds of the start of The Button-Down Mind.

A satirical, pitch-dark genius hiding within the shell of a deliberately shabby, self-effacing Midwest type, Newhart was responsible for two of the greatest sitcoms of all time, positioning himself perfectly as the stolid, slightly cranky fulcrum on which so much comedically delightful madness could pivot. He was maybe the perfect talk show guest, whether he was chatting with Johnny Carson or Craig Ferguson across five decades of time, always capable of cracking the host with one of those precision deadpan lines. One time, he let Conan O’Brien stick him in an “airtight booth” so he could threaten over-long Emmy speakers with a beloved icon’s death. Bob Newhart was funny, and loved funniness in other people.

But it’s possible that you might be feeling a little overwhelmed by all the Newhart content being passed around following his sad demise a couple of weeks ago. Maybe you first encountered Bob through scene-stealing turns in Elf or The Big Bang Theory, and have only begun to scratch the surface of what he could do with an eyeroll or a deftly crafted line. Or maybe you just have a free half hour today, and you want to spend it laughing your ass off. In any of these cases, might we recommend blocking out 34 minutes today to listen to The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart?

Recorded at a club in Texas in February 1960, Button-Down Mind‘s bona fides are legendary these days. (It was the first comedy album to ever win Album Of The Year at the Grammy’s, simultaneously making Newhart the only comic to ever score the “Best New Artist” award; it sold 600,000 copies; it dominated the Billboard 200 for weeks.) If you’re a fan of modern-day period pieces, you’ve probably seen it referenced—Pete listens to it in an episode of Mad Men, while Joel Maisel cribs jokes from it in the first episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. All of which might suggest something austere, even lethally respectable about the album, a throwback to a by-gone era of comedy. (Especially if you’ve heard much made of Newhart’s career-long aversion to working blue.)

Except the thing about Button-Down Mind is that it’s still belly-achingly  funny. Pitched, like much of Newhart’s stand-up, like a series of halves of conversations—with Newhart carefully positioning himself as the mostly-unflappable straight man to a series of imaginary partners—it remains one of the funniest half hours of comedy ever released. Because despite occasionally touching on dated topics—a 1959 U.S. appearance by the U.S.S.R.’s Nikita Kruschchev features prominently—Newhart roots his various observations on advertisers, marketing, image guys, and more prosaic topics like bad drivers firmly within the straight man’s wheelhouse, expressing gentle exasperation at the madness on the other end of the “phone.” (The genius, of course, being that Newhart gets to be both the agent of chaos and the person calling them out for being ridiculous.) It’s an incredibly potent recipe for comedy, even 54 years after release; more importantly, it’s hard to think of a better tribute to the man then spending a scant 34 minutes with it today. (Bits and pieces of the album are available on most of the major audio streaming services; industrious Googling will also almost certainly point you in the right direction.)