Let's celebrate Bob Newhart while we still have him, because it looks we might not for much longer

Hi Bob!

This is tough to look at.

Bob is one of my all-time favorites, along with Carol Burnett. Has anybody ever said anything unkind about him?

He was on Big Bang Theory in 2018 and didn't look this frail.

Has he been sick or something?

He’s a slut!

He needs cookies

He looks like a 91 year old man using a computer camera with no TV make up caked on....

I never enjoyed his humor. The same feeling I had with Tim Conway. I wish him well.

Autopsy photos are prohibited, OP.

Carol is 87 and he's 91.

Betty is 98 and so is Norman Lear.

When these four go, civilization will pretty much be over.

He was a heavy smoker and played golf in California 5-7 days a week. And he's 90fucking1

He was never funny. Odd that he even had a career because he got his start doing standup and his “humor” sucked donkey dick.

How much meth does he do a day?

Fuck you, Father Time. Turning all our faves into skeletors.

Get this man a bacon cheeseburger, STAT!

Sizemeat?

He looks good for 91!!

He has made me laugh for decades. I will really miss him when he's gone.

Never found him funny at all.

Madonna wishes she looked this young.

Madonna wished she looked human.

He's been on a downward slide since his best buddy Don Rickles died.

Now he actually looks like Abraham Lincoln’s PR man.

He looks like crepe paper

[quote] Carol is 87 and he's 91. Betty is 98 and so is Norman Lear. When these four go, civilization will pretty much be over.

Kindly fuck off!

That's a dying man. Have you never seen a dying man? He should be on saline 24 hours a day. Would help his nausea and make him look a little more refreshed. Who was he?

Carol is dead.

I love Bob's humour. I can understand why some don't but I just love how he is so deadpan and funny without being loud or obnoxious or "look at me, I'm being funny".

Plus, he may have the best season finale of all time. Over 30 years later, it's still absolute genius.

R28, Mine was even more memorable.

I've never seen one episode of Newhart.

I know he was best friends with Don Rickles who died a few years ago. I know that losing your friends especially as you get very old is brutal. I've always found Bob fucking hilarious.

He outlived Suzanne Pleshette, Mary Frann, and Eva Gabor.

I second that r25!

I want Mel Brooks to live forever.

Love Mel Brooks and Bob Newhart.

There was a box set of Anne Bancroft films that came out on Blu-Ray last year and Mel was promoting them. It was really touching to see him promote his late wife's work.

I'm trying to understand the mentality of people who post "I never liked him" on a tribute thread.

Love that Bob.

R37 - what does Bob Newhart have to do with Eva Gabor?

R38, They both worked for CBS?

R31, Wish I'd said that . . . Oh, wait!

"Has anybody ever said anything unkind about him?"

Marc Maron was interviewing one of those old 1950's/early 60's comedians on his podcast a few years ago.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think it was Shecky Greene. One of those whose name you were familiar with, but who never went much further in his career than being an opening act in Vegas, performing in nightclubs, and doing the occasional 5 minute set on TV talk shows.

Anyway, he pretty much accused Bob Newhart of stealing his act.

Newhart's original shtick, the thing that made him famous in the early 60's, was performing as if he were talking on the phone. He was the "straight man" in the conversation, and he had to imply what the other person was saying with his responses and make it all funny. It was an interesting, creative take on traditional stand-up comedy, and he actually had the first comedy album in history to reach #1 on the Billboard Top Albums chart. He also won Grammys for Album of the Year, Comedy Album of the Year, and Best New Artist.

And of course, he went on the create and star in two legendary, long-running sitcoms.

So anyway, Shecky Greene said that Newhart stole that whole "one-sided phone conversation" thing from him, and that he was the one who came up with the idea and was doing it in his nightclub act way before Newhart. You could tell he was still royally pissed off about it over a half-century later, and really despised Newhart for it.

I loved the original Bob Newhart show. But I sure as hell hope I don't live to be that frail and wear diapers.

R41 Comedians "steal" from other comedians all the time. Most comedians routines and shtick were appropriated from others in some form or fashion, very few are original. Newhart had impeccable timing that few others had, and his stammering contributed to how his routines we perceived. Shecky never had Newhart's delivery or timing.

By the way Newhart had been looking haggard for several years now.

Well said R43. I liked him and thought he was funny even as a kid. Also - my mother and step father always seemed like they were total strangers to one another but I do remember noting that listening to and laughing at Newhart's comedy albums was one thing that brought them together.

Love him so much! His longtime friendship with Don Rickles is one of the most adorable friendships in history.

"So anyway, Shecky Greene said that Newhart stole that whole "one-sided phone conversation" thing from him, and that he was the one who came up with the idea and was doing it in his nightclub act way before Newhart."

Darling, it's not about who does it first, it's about who does it best.

They can cast him if they someone decides to remake the movie Lifeforce . . .

there is a wonderful send up of the Seventies show in the AppleTV series "for all mankind"

Female comedienne Betty Walker made her whole career in the 50s and early 60s with her one-sided telephone schtick, including on her smash album "Hello Ceil", which came out in 1964, the same year as Bob's hit comedy album. Her act was not new at the time. She's very funny in that classic Jewish Borscht Belt way. I used to have her album and still quote it.

Although in the clip Betty is talking to Arlene Galonka, it's her classic bit and makes my whole family roar with laughter, and were not Jewish!

CZJ beneath the makeup.

So did Ellen, r50.

Her “phone call to God” is hilarious.

Who deflated Bob Newhart's face?

Poor thing...That picture actually makes Keith Richards look alive.

R50, As a kid, I always looked forward to Betty Walker's appearances on The Merv Griffin Show.

Marilyn! Chickie!

He seemed old to me when he did his show 50 years ago.

R41 Are you thinking of Sammy Shore?

Or maybe Pauly Shore?

Dinah Shore?

My god, he has become the grim reaper

"When 900 years old you reach, look this good you will not"

Love The Bob Newhart Show. It’s one of my comfort shows when times are tough. I hope you are ok, Bob!

Was Marcia Wallace a lezzie?

There comes a time when you start to feel the wind blowing through your bones, and you never truly feel warm again.

r37 Bob and Eva starred in a Disney animation movie called The Rescuers. They voiced mice characters. They were adorable. Geraldine Page voiced the villainess, Cruella-type character. I believe there was a sequel.

R41, are you thinking of Shelly Berman?

R66 I think you're probably right. It might have been Shelly Berman. Definitely not Sammy Shore, though.

Shelly, Shecky...both are just names that I grew up hearing, but never really saw them on TV (that I recall). I'm not even sure why I listened to that particular episode of Maron...I must have been in the mood to hear some old showbiz stories from some of those old timers who won't be with us for much longer.

It is still kind of touching to see the reaction he gets from the live audience at the first appearance of his character "Professor Proton" on TBBT. We find him sitting on top of his luggage that contains his Proton science projects. The elevator is broken and he has to walk up several flights of stairs before giving up and calling Sheldon and Leonard to come and get him.

[quote]Love The Bob Newhart Show. It’s one of my comfort shows when times are tough. I hope you are ok, Bob!

Also one of the best TV theme songs of all time.

^ I loved their apartment, seemed the very height of luxury.

I love Bob Newhart. He’s so drily cuddly. It will be a sad day when he’s gone. Agree that Carol Burnett, Norman Lear etc leaving this world will leave it a boring and sadder place.

And please tell me how Chadwick Boseman, a star of cinema, not the small screen, got final billing over Carl Reiner in the Emmy’s In Memorium segment?!

Emmys 2020: In Memoriam leaves Nick Cordero off the list:

[quote]He was never funny. Odd that he even had a career because he got his start doing standup and his “humor” sucked donkey dick.

r12, I can understand that you might not find him funny---there's no accounting for taste---but to say that he was never funny reveals that you now next to nothing about a man who has had a 62-year career, and continues to work even at 91 years of age. Someone who has won Emmys, Grammy awards, the Peabody Prize, and the Kennedy Centre Mark Twain Prize for Comedy. to name just a few, obviously was, and continues to be, funny to a great many people. Your low opinion of him does not change this reality.

R50 I loved the Betty Waker :Ceil" album! I even named my dog Ceil.

Let's not forget the "Hi Bob" drinking game that was played at many colleges and bars at the time. They would watch the show and every time someone said Hi Bib, you had to down a drink or a shot.

I can’t really get upset over the aging of someone in their 90s whom I don’t know. This isn’t a tragedy. He’s had an amazing life of accomplishments and he’s lived a full decade longer than most could hope for. The performative emoting over things that don’t actually affect you is so tiresome on DL.

I recall an Bob Newhart Show episode where Bob joins a life insurance company and an expert actuary estimates Bob will live to the age of.......... 77, and he lets out a sigh of relief. That was considered a decent age to live to in the 1970s. He's now 91 and counting.

Never laughed once at The Bob Newhart show but "Newhart" is a knee slapper--well at least Julia Duffy, Peter Scholari, and Kathy Kinney's characters are hilarious. I was schocked to read that Mary Frann died like 8 years after the show ended in her 50s.

Mary Frann is best known as Mary Richard's anti-Semitic new friend on an episode of TMTMS.

Someone here posted a link to a blog of someone who worked on Newhart not long ago. I remember there was something about how Bob didn’t much care for Mary Frann and was put off by her constant mugging.

[quote]In Memorium

Oh, dear.

[quote]Mary Richard's

Oh, dear.

The very first episode of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" deals with Joel's attempts to go into stand-up comedy by stealing one of Bob Newhart's routines.

R78, you're right, he gives every indication that he can still count.

Aww. Bless him. I think it’s mostly old age, perhaps a chronic condition but he started getting that gaunt look several years ago and it’s just progressed. I don’t find it as sad as some of you though, I admire him for squeezing every last drip out of life. He’s still married to the wife of his youth after all these years and I hope they have more time together.

I’m a latecomer to his sitcoms. In my teens Suzanne was in a lot of TV movies playing glamorous women with toy boys and Bob was a name I heard heard but associated with Vegas comedy. I couldn’t put the two together in my mind and never sat down to watch it until I got Hulu last year. They actually had great chemistry, Marcia Wallace was a hilarious second banana and it’s a really easy Sunday afternoon type show that I often come back to.

So my contribution to the Newhart appreciation is that he made something that’s very difficult look very easy and he gave his costars the good lines and let them all play to their strengths.