Name: Bob Newhart Looks back at His Career: Standup, The Bob Newhart Show, Catch 22, and Elf
Uploaded: 2021-03-29T17:00:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bob Newhart Looks back at His Career: Standup, The Bob Newhart Show, Catch 22, and Elf' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bob Newhart Looks back at His Career: Standup, The Bob Newhart Show, Catch 22, and Elf' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-29. Transcript available.

Bob Newhart Looks back at His Career: Standup, The Bob Newhart Show, Catch 22, and Elf

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Hey everybody, welcome to the newest episode of Bob Saget's here for you.
And depending on when you listen to this, because if you listen to it a month
from now,
it ain't the newest, it ain't the newest, but it kind of always will be to me
because my guest is Bob
Newhart. That's right. One of the greatest of all time in comedy, such a
national treasure,
Bob Newhart. And it's an audio only podcast because Bob literally does not love
the Zoom.
And I don't blame him. And whatever Bob Newhart wants, I accommodate him here
at Bob Saget's here
for you, where all sales are final and everything must go. And I've done audio
podcasts before my first
one with John Stamos. I had one with John Mayer, with Bill Burr. Those were
audio only, and you can
still listen to them on the YouTube page at youtube.com slash Bob Saget. And of
course,
you know, where you can find this thing everywhere on all your podcast
platforms. And you also,
you know, you need to rate reviews, subscribe, leave a comment, make it not too
negative. I take
instructive criticism, just not evil. This guest is someone, well, I would be
telling him, but when I
was 14, 15 years old, I snuck in to watch his sitcom, the Bob Newhart show
being filmed
in the San Fernando Valley at CBS Radford. And I will never forget it. And I
didn't know I'd be in show
business, still not sure. And he's just the dearest and one of the funniest
people with his own brand,
as he says, of Midwestern comedy from his Grammy winning comedy album, the
button down mine of Bob
Newhart, which literally made history, all the way through to the Bob Newhart
show, Newhart, Bob,
and, you know, Elf. Come on. I mean, you know, it's gonna last forever to see
that movie every
Christmas. He is just a wonderful, wonderful man. So here is the podcast with
someone I am blessed to
know in my life, Mr. Bob Newhart.
Hello. Hello. It's Bob. Oh, my God. See that? It's not even difficult. Oh, it's
scary. I know.
How's it? It's amazing. That's what's so great about this. It's like studio
quality sound. So it's not
like a phone call. So it's like we're having a risk. Yeah, it sounds awesome.
And I'm sure you're
going to want to hear it because you've only been asked half of the things I'm
going to want to talk
about your entire life. Well, first thing, Bob, thank you for doing this. Thank
you for being on my
podcast. I, you know, I, over the years, if it wasn't for Rickles, I would have
been much closer
to you and just weaseled my way into your life more. I just, I, you won't even
believe how much I've
followed you over the years. Um, okay. I'm not followed you personally. Um, no,
I know. Well,
there's somebody has been, I'm sorry. Do you want me to call anybody? Do you
know? It's just,
it's this person, uh, the last couple of weeks has every time I turn around, he,
he hides behind a
tree. He's just outside. Uh, yeah. Do you call security? Is there any, but they,
do you need
me to come up, come over? Well, I, I used to call security and then, but then
they got tired of it
and they, they, they won't even take my call now. They just, just let the guy
be there just behind
a tree. I guess it's like, if, if this nut Bob Newhart calls, don't pay any
attention to him. I
guess like that, that they had that posted at the, at the police station. I'm
sure they do. Cause
you're, you've always been such a pest. It's exactly the opposite of your
character. How are you doing?
You're, you're good. You've had the, you've had the vaccine and, and Ginny has
had it.
Ginny's had it. I've, I've had it. I've, my two weeks are up. So, uh, I'm
either impotent or,
uh, no, there's another word for it. Uh, disinterested.
No, no, that's about the telecast. No, that's about, that's about what we're
doing right now.
Yes. No, no, it's, uh, I, I guess I'm, uh, am I immobile? No, it's something
like that.
Yeah. You're, uh, impenetrable. No, you're, you're, uh, now what's the word you're,
you're,
you can't get the disease. Apparently that's it in the worst case scenario. I'm
trying to think of the
word. Everybody that's listening knows what the word is. They're all yelling it
right now into their,
and you'll be, yes. And I'll be the, you get a lot of mail. I'll drop. Oh, mail.
I get so much mail.
I do get comments. People do comment and it's not always pleasant. It's like
that guy out by the tree.
You know, I did, I did a, uh, I did a show, a man on the street show and like
19,
Oh, like 57. Uh, and it was, it was, I, uh, there was a host and I was like, uh,
the man on the street
and he'd interview me and I was a different character every day. And this was
on ABC television in
Chicago. You were doing advertising, copywriting, writing copy in 1958. So this
was before or
during that whole career. This is during this. I shortly, I got fired from
doing the copywriting.
Why? So we did a, uh, a half hour show every, every day, five days a week
for 16 weeks. Cause you were talking about your mail. Right. Uh, and we got cut
one postcard
out of whatever that, whatever five times 16 is. What is that? 80? I guess.
Yeah. 80 out of 80 shows.
We got one postcard. We weren't even sure that the, the signal was getting out
of the building,
you know, and we, we were, we were against, uh, captain kangaroo and today. Oh,
that's, that's,
that's tough stuff. That was the biggest rated stuff. Right. Tough time slot.
Yeah.
I was boy. I've been, I stayed up last night. I know everything about you, but
not everything. And then
no, not, no, that's good that I don't, um, no,
but it was so interesting to, to see your journey and, you know, at the height
of success
with, uh, the Bob Newhart show, how that was probably the time where you were
the most
annoyed at your time slot, because you had such a, a beautiful gift of a time
slot. You had been so
successful for the network. And then they started to move you around a little
bit. And I, yeah,
like in the sixth, we went on in 72, the Bob Newhart show. Right. And on in 72.
And so this would have
been about 77. And then the show had not, the CBS, the time slot on CBS on
Monday night at nine o'clock
had not been a hit. We made it a hit. Nine o'clock. So they started switching
things around and they'd
introduce new shows and they'd move us to like eight 30 or nine 30. And I
thought it was kind of unfair,
which had been very good to them and very good to me, by the way, also, uh, you
know, I thought they
were just being very cavalier about the way they were treating, they were
treating our show. Um, and, and so
I was about to, um, the show went on in 82, this would have been around 88. Uh,
and, and so I, I would
have, um, it lasted until 1990, right? Yeah. It ran eight years. The Bob Newhart
show ran six and, uh,
and the new heart ran eight. So at 14 altogether, that's so amazing. That's
just unbelievable.
Yeah. It really is. And then Bob ran for two years, I believe, or was it like a
year and a
half, year and a half, two years. Yeah. I love that show. There should be a law
in broadcasting that
you'd never remove Bob Newhart. I mean, you chose to leave, um, the Bob Newhart
show, correct?
I did. Yes, I did. Um, how do you do that with something that's, that changed
television and
Mary Tyler Moore show was there first. And then MTM came to you, right? Yeah. I
was doing standup. This
was, I, I had been doing standup for about 12 years from like 1960 to 72. And
then the Bob Newhart show
was in, was in 72. And it, um, I, I, I just felt we were, I always wanted to go
off a year too early
rather than a year too late. And I'm sure, you know, you know, being in
television is I've seen shows that
lasted a year too long and it, and it took a lot of the, uh, the, the, the, the
charm of the show,
uh, was kind of gone. And I, I didn't want that to happen to the Bob Newhart
show. So I, uh, I elected
to, to end it at the end of, uh, at the end of six years. That's amazing
because you could have gone
pretty much as long as you wanted with that show, I would imagine. Right. I
keep telling myself that,
yes, I was, um, it was pretty stupid is what you're saying, Bob. Nope. Nope.
But in today's world,
like the cast of friends had to be coerced into doing their ninth year, you
know, and then they
realized at a million, a million each. Exactly. So that's, that to me is like,
not that hard a decision,
but they, I guess they felt they'd exhausted it, but it's, you know, not even
knowing I was going
to be a standup. I'm 14, 15 years old. Um, it's, I, I trying to think what year
it was. It was right at
the beginning of, uh, the Bob Newhart show and I snuck in, uh, to your audience,
uh, because you had
to be 16 and I watched it being shot at CBS Radford. And I came a couple of
times to watch you do the
show. And I was so in love with the show and just, I was a kid. I didn't think
I'd be doing this for a
living. And I guess it was 1974, uh, or, or three. I went a couple of years.
Yeah. Yeah. It would have
been 74. Yeah. And I was, and you were Dr. Bob Hartley and Suzanne Plachette.
It was amazing. I know
she was one of your best friends in your whole life. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She
was, she was marvelous.
Susie was marvelous. Yeah. And Bill Daly and Peter Bonners, right? Peter Bonners.
And I had been with
Peter in, uh, in catch 22. I'm just reading the, the book on Mike Nichols. I'm
just reading the book
about, um, about Mike and they had the chapter in there about, uh, catch 22, um,
and, and Marshall
Wallace and Marshall Wallace was a doll. She was on full house. Once I knew
Marsha, she was, oh,
was she? Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And a lot of
your directors,
Peter Baldwin and Michael Zimberg, um, oh yeah, they directed full house
episodes as well. Like the,
the top of the directing craft. These one Peter Bonners, um, was always so
charming and wonderful. And yeah,
yeah, he was, Peter was, when, when I did the show, when I agreed to do the
show,
when MTM approached me about doing a show, um, I knew I'd have to get
performers who were used to,
uh, working in front of an audience because we, we did our show in front of an
audience. Mary did her
show. Uh, every, every show really then was in front of an audience, all in the
family, uh, you know,
every mash mash wasn't in front of a audience cause it was on location. Uh, and
so I knew we would have
to get performers who weren't spooked by an audience because there, a lot of
Broadway producers, a lot of,
not necessarily Broadway, but a lot of actors, film actors, uh, were just not
used to being in front of
a live audience. Right. And so I know Peter had been, I knew Bill had been, uh,
Marsha had been,
and of course Susie had been on Broadway. So, um, you know, that was one of the
considerations was
that they knew what it was like to work in front of a live audience.
It was miraculous. It was, and I saw Mary Tom Moore show bei