I used to watch and enjoy the show, but it was always in spite of, not because of, Bob Newhart. Him I can’t stand. I love dry humor. I love the straight man. I HATE BOB’S DELIVERY though. I hate his stammering, bewildered act. It sets my teeth on edge. The show managed to be funny even with him in it, though.
Julia Duffy’s best line: “Nothing more pathetic than a perky blonde on the skids!”
The Joe Cocker song “Something” is irrevocably tied in my brain to this show, especially Stephanie.
At one time (and I don’t know if this was a national or local thing), Newhart had a commercial with a bunch of Stephanie’s scenes edited together and the above song playing over them. At the line breaks in the song, they’d play one of her patented “Ewwwww!” lines.
There’s something in the way she moves (Ewwww!)
That attracts me like no other lover (Eww! Eww! Eww!)
Just cracks me up even now. I did a half-hearted search for the commercial on Youtube, but it’s probably too old (and/or too unlikely to have been taped then digitized) to be on there.
From now until the end of time, whenever that song comes on the radio or in the muzak wafting down in a store / elevator, I’m going to remember Newhart.
I always loved Larry and the Darryls. I was little when I watched it, and probably some of the humor went over my head, but those three always cracked me up.
My favorite was when Stephanie came down the stairs singing “Old Man River” as if she knew what toil was …
I loved both shows–I miss intelligent comedy like that.
I was! The first season of “Bob” was a complete riot, although apparently my teenage self was the only one watching. The second season, they completely retooled it. Suddenly, it was beyond lame, and was cancelled after only a few episodes. Sniff.
Me, too, and miss it greatly. Now, it’s all Reality, w/ a bit of comedy attempt (some of it good, I’ll admit, but…)
It’s been awhile, and tough to remember much w/out having seen some reruns. I wonder why that is, anyway? I loved the idea of TVland, but honestly, wonder about some of the stuff they CONSTANTLY run, then not others. I was SO happy to see Murphy Brown on for awhile in Dec, then poof…gone. I don’t even think it lasted more than a month or two?
I remember and liked both his 1st and 2nd shows, but wasn’t the 3rd one kinda lame? I seem to be having a flash of that neurotic red-head w/ the pageboy haircut wearing one of those bright yellow slickers, and being…well, neurotic.
One episode I’ve never seen and used to watch repeats just hoping it would come around- I’ve only read the episode guide entry for it-
Michael (Scolari) decides to produce Vermont’s first sitcom. Dick is cast as the father of precocious twins, both played by Stephanie. Supposedly it pokes fun at every Parent Trap and Patty Duke Show trick of split camera/one twin from the back/etc., and even has the dippy themesong (Michael said on another episode “I don’t watch any show where I can’t get the plot from the themesong”) with the lyrics “Since their mom drowned in a lake/Dick has taught the girls to bake…”.
Of the episodes I have seen (most of them), two of my favorites are
Don Rickles (Newhart’s real life close friend) as the local talk-show host (formerly the star of a flopped sitcom called"Oh That Moshe!") who makes an entire career of nothing but “PICK ON DICK! PICK ON DICK!”, including homophobic taunts (“Wanna see Dick get excited? Tell him we’re bringing on the Vienna Boy’s Choir!”) but to say the least can’t take it as well as he gives it out (hilarious ending with Ed MacMahon as a character actor being one of several characters to say “GO TO HELL DICK!” over the course of the series).
George (Poston) dates a woman who is perfect for him. He falls in love with her when he finds her wallet and sees her license and membership cards. She’s attractive, she likes him back, and there’s only one problem.
Dick (after giving several compliments to her but not saying what everybody in the episode has been dying to say): I think she has the biggest behind I’ve ever seen on a human…
George: DOESN’T SHE THOUGH!
It’s also the only episode where I think Newhart and Poston legitimately crack each other up ala Conway/Korman and it got left in. (It’s not in character for Dick to lose it the way Newhart does in that scene.)
Newhart had a very direct effect on my life. As a kid in rural Louisiana, I was fascinated by the Vermont theme and promised myself that I would live there some day. When it came time to apply to graduate school, I singled out Dartmouth as my top pick with a big factor being that image (Dartmouth is in Hanover, NH but the campus literally abuts the Vermont border). I got in, lined up a farmhouse of my own in Windsor, VT and lived there happily. Graduate school didn’t work out for other reasons but I loved that time. If it wasn’t for the show, it is extremely likely that things would be very different right now.
I alternated on the show. At times its surrealist bent was very appealing to me but at other times I found it extremely aggravating. I think I had pretty much stopped watching by the the last season but I did tune in for the finale and I agree that it is one of the best series finales ever. I don’t think it was any disrespect at all to Mary Frann or her contribution to the series, any more than it was disrespectful to any of the other actors or characters to be revealed as dream-constructs.
Apropos of nothing, did you know that Suzanne Pleshette and Tom Poston have been married since 2001?
You leave Cynthia Stevenson out of this!
No. Wow! 
But she was insanely hot. That’s got to count for something, no?
Considering the fact that she was his dream girl, she could have been hotter.
I dunno, Unc. Shw was* seriously* hot, though unable to deliver a funny line. Pleshette, OTOH, is insanely hot AND able to hold her own with the best and funniest.
Originally Posted by 2pelo honey
I remember and liked both his 1st and 2nd shows, but wasn’t the 3rd one kinda lame? I seem to be having a flash of that neurotic red-head w/ the pageboy haircut wearing one of those bright yellow slickers, and being…well, neurotic.
Sorry!
Interestingly enough, in researching this, the scene I’m remembering w/ her in the yellow slicker was NOT on Bob, but when she played Norm’s secretary on Cheers.
Wow, that is truly awful!!! :eek:
Thanks!
LOVED IT! WORTH WAITING FOR! Especially the overdone laughtrack and exposition. A dozen terrible sitcoms came immediately to mind.
One of my favorite silly in-jokes was an episode when Michael staged a GILLIGAN’S ISLAND marathon while a group of weird old men (I can’t remember why) watched it in his apartment. As he was throwing them out one of the old men tried to fight him- “I wanna see if they finally get off the island in this one!”- it was Russell “The Professor” Johnson, but being a lot older and a lot fatter I’m not sure the audience recognized him. And of course Dick’s encounter with the obnoxious counselling patient who was “damned near destroyed by some quack in Chicago” was also a great moment.
And William Sanderson is one of those DEADPAN actors who could read a Waffle House menu and have me laughing. The line “You have to hand it to Michael. That Brady Bunch/Brady Brides hour was a visionary masterstroke of counter programming” just made me lose it (as did his hosting Carson, which I remembered… “Since Joan has screwed up…” also made me laugh for some reason.)
One of my most vivid recollections of ‘Newhart’ was an episode in which Tom Poston’s character (can’t remember his name) wants to break up with his doting girlfriend, but is afraid to be alone with her. So he asks Dick (Newhart) to come with them to the drive-in.
TP’s character: “We’re going to see “Exploding Planet” at the drive-in.”
Dick: “Oh, that’s the one in which the…planet explodes.”
TP: “Gosh, Dick. You didn’t have to give away the ending!”
Later on, as the three of them (Poston, girlfriend & Dick) are sitting in the truck at the drive-in. Poston has broken the news to his g.f., the g.f. is crying, Dick is squirming uncomfortably, and ever so often you can hear voices from the movie soundtrack every so often shouting “Run! This planet is about to explode!” It was one of the most supremely silly things I’ve ever seen on t.v.