He played straight manandcomic, both with a quiet ear.
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What kind of shell?
You know how powerful that thing is, Willard?
the bomb master asks, grinning.
Six city blocks, Willard!
It sets you apart from everybody else.
I called him one time and I said, [in nasally voice] Mr. Smithers?
Yeah, this is Bob at the yeast factory, and we have a fire here, sir.
Some would say I didntreallydo it on my own.
There was always that other person; its just that he was unheard.
Those routines got him signed to Warner Records, and he began expanding and polishing them in nightclub appearances.
(Its subtitledThe Most Celebrated New Comedian Since Attila the Hun.)
You changed four score and seven to eighty-seven?
1 on what would later be called theBillboard200 chart.
It was hard for Americans to move through life in the early 1960s without hearing it.
For the rest of his life, Newharts fans would come up to him and reproduce chunks of it.
Newhart recordedsix more comedy albumsin the 60s.
Most had Button-Down in the title.
OnThe Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he played an air-traffic controller telling a passenger how to land a jet.
(No, no, its easy.
You just disengage your automatic pilot.
Its a lever over your head to the right.
Not all the way to the right.
You just emptied the washroom.)
Then cameThe Bob Newhart Show.
The pieces warm and elegant middle is a tribute to Pleshette and Newharts chemistry.
His next sitcom,Newhart(1982 through 1990), beat the odds and pressed the reset button.
Created by Barry Kemp, aTaxiwriter who also createdCoach,Newhartwas another smartly written and endearing half-hour comedy.
At its best, it had the winsome oddness of a Roz ChastNew Yorkercartoon.
It never really found an audience and was heavily reworked between its two seasons before being canceled.
The inspiration has been credited to variousNewhartwriters and producers and also to Newharts wife, Ginnie.
Though intended as a spoof of it was all a dream twists on such shows asDallasandSt.
Elsewhere, theNewhartending took on a life of its own.
When asked for his response to their complaints, Newhart said, simply, Okay.
He knew what worked, and what, especially, worked forhim.
Larry Gelbart said that comedy is just looking at life through a different lens,Newhart told Larry King.
I guess I just always had that different lens.
