Bob Newhart has died.
He wouldn’t want people to be anything other than low-key about it… perhaps a deadpan quip. And 94 years is a great run for a person. Maybe not for an elf, mind you, but remember he was management.
Still, I’m quite bummed, and I’m hardly alone. You can read obituaries and appreciations from
- Associated Press (AP)
- CBS
- Deadline
- The Hollywood Reporter
- Los Angeles Times
- NPR (Scott Simon’s appreciation)
- Variety
CinemaBlend has a good rundown of where you can see and hear some of his work. And the Daily Beast talks about that Newhart series finale.
You can see that climactic finale here (with a bit of pre-amble, including the reference for getting out of the madhouse).
As it happens, I have an anecdote about the Newhart finale and how I became a fan… and true to form for this blog, there’s a Star Trek connection.
I hadn’t listened to any of Bob Newhart’s comedy albums or watched his sitcoms until the 90s and college. At that time, I and other Trek-minded students would gather in the dorm lounge to get our syndicated Star Trek fix. To ensure we could watch, we’d arrive in the lounge the half hour before and, as fate would have it, Newhart was in reruns.
We’d half watch it while talking about the pressing inanities of the day, but a bunch of us got to know the sitcom well enough to know the characters. I especially enjoyed the quiet absurdity of Larry, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl.
One night, the Trek contingent was gathering per usual and Newhart was on in the background. I think one of my compatriots commented that this episode of Newhart seemed to be “extra wacky” and a bunch of us started paying closer attention. Unbeknownst to us this was the series finale, but even not knowing that, the episode did seem bigger somehow: like it was building to something. Then, Bob gets hit by that golf ball, they go into slo-mo, and all of us in the lounge were all “Wait! What?”
And then the lights come up on the bedroom set and half of us, being the TV/film trivia geeks we were, suddenly realized this was from The Bob Newhart Show an entirely different sitcom and we’re all like “WAIT! WHAT?!?”
And we’re loudly comparing notes with each other while the rest of the people in the lounge are beginning to worry about our sanity… because nobody watches whatever this show is, right? And then Suzanne Pleshette appears and the studio audience on screen howls in laughter and recognition to be drown out the screams of delight and recognition in the lounge. I’m talking “nailbiter-game-of-sportsball” levels of volume.
And the rest of the lounge denizens, who were just arriving for a little Star Trek, are seriously wondering what the heck is going on, but they are shushed as the monumental meta-ness is explained to them and the whole room focuses in. And then it ends… and we realize we just saw a series finale for the ages, a comedy payoff the likes of which none of us young whippersnappers had ever imagined… and it was glorious.
There is applause, more than a few instances of “Oh My GOD!” and interrogations between each other that we did indeed just see what we just saw.
I guess the ensuing Trek episode was fine. I don’t remember which one it was.
I can’t say I’ve seen or heard all his work, but I was a Bob Newhart fan from then on. That moment… that moment was a gift of unexpected joy that I will never forget. I’ll always be thankful to Bob Newhart and co. for bringing that into the world.
May his work delight people for years to come.