Callaroga Shark Media. Hello, Johnny Mack. Bob Newhart has passed away at
age ninety four. This episode is about Bob. There's the normal episode in
the feed right below this one from this morning. A friend of the show,
Jason Zinneman, writes in The New York Times, Bob Newhart holds up
great stuff from Jason as always. Jason writes, It's hard to think of
a stand up from that era. Who's a better argument against the commonplace idea
that comedy does not age well. His work doesn't just live on and its
influences. You can definitely hear his pregnant pauses in the stand up of Fellain
DeGeneres, who has cited him as a key figure in her career. Put
on his old comedy albums and you will chuckle. The Bob Newhart shows half
a century old and remains hilarious, paving the way for shows like Seinfeld.
He played a straight man surrounded by eccentrics, giving him an opportunity to express
endless kinds of exasperation. Later, his friendship with John Rickles gave him another
wonderful foil to playoff. Here's a clip from the roast of Don Rickles.
Bob Newhart here making some really funny jokes about Don. Don is my best
friend, which just give you some idea of the difficulty I have in making
friends. As some of you may have already known, Don's hotel room was
recently robbed. The only thing that was taken was the music to Don's act.
So by the Chicago police have picked up thirty three thousand people who might
have had a possible motive. So Don has not done that well in television.
He's had four series now. The last one, a couple of Don's,
received a minus four Nielsen rating. This name's note but no one watching.
But several people with our TV sets had heard about the show and said
if they got one, they wouldn't watch it. Jason Zinneman writes, Newhart,
who got started in comedy in the nineteen fifties working on bitsy taped with
a friend, understood that the real partnership in comedy is with the audience and
knew how to plant an id in their heads and let them run with it.
That's why the phone was such an effective enduring tool for him. It
allowed him to use pauses to tell the story of what you don't hear most
comedians are in a hurry filling the room with quips. There's a wonderful tension
to this brand of comedy. But Newhart showed us there's another way you can
find surprise and adjusting speeds. Not everyone understood Newhart's stammer was an incredible tool,
but network executives for his TV shows told him to stop using it.
His response was the stammer got him a house in Beverly Hills. Jay Leno
told people Bob was always very kind to young comics. Jay said, never
a mean spirited bone in his body, never had jokes that were based on
anything uncind, you know what I mean. And there were no gimmicks.
A lot of comics they have an ethnic cook or they have a catch for
they have something they do when the jokes aren't going that well that they go
to it. It always works. It's just the tool to trade. But
he always relied on just clever jokes, I mean, his old gimmick.
He was just an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, which is my favorite thing.
He always had these kind of really clever jokes. He had to listen
to, you had to pay attention. It was intellectual enough for intellectuals and
easy enough to understand for regular people. He never talked over anybody's head,
and he never used particularly big words or anything like that. It was just
a very clever way of doing things. He never had a shot joke.
He always had a good, solid joke. Sometimes it slipped in over the
audience's head, but most of the times it scored pretty good. Kara Burnett
tweeted, I had the great pleasure of working with Bob and being his friend.
He was as kind of nice as he was funny. He will be
missed. Dean Cook tweeted, Bob was and is one of the best comedians
to ever deliver, and man he delivered, always funny, always from the
heart. Always a reminder to me of why I started in stand up legend,
Bob Newhart, you are forever funny. Jimmy Walker dinah Miight said his
comedy albums were great. His TV show Knew Heart was cerebral genius. I
remember seeing him in twenty nineteen at the Pale Honors, a special tribute to
television's comedy Legends, where Bob was supposed to get up and say a few
words. He did like a half hour and kill at age eighty nine.
Judd Apatow said, Bob Newhart was the kindest, most hilarious man. He
asked me to make a documentary about his friendship with Don Rickles. I was
so lucky to get to spend time with my hero. His brilliant comedy and
gentle spirit made everyone he encountered so happy. Bill Prady, co creator of
The Big Bang Theory, where Bob Newhart guest starred as Arthur Jeffries, said,
heart explain how important Bob Newhart was to every comedian and comedy writer who
came after him. Working with him, ever so briefly was one of the
greatest joys and honors of my life. Jamie Lee Curtis on Instagram. They'll
be laughing wherever people go when they leave us. God, he was funny.
Bob Newhart, You will be missed. Jerny Gunderson is the executive director
of the National Comedy Center. Until the Hollywood Reporter, Bob Newhart's groundbreaking work
in stand up and television and his beloved deadpan delivery have lesst an indelible mark
in the art form of comedy and will be treasured by comedy fans for generations
to we are proud to celebrate and preserve his extraordinary work at the National Comedy
Center. In a nineteen eighty six Rollingstone interview, Bob Newhart said the secret
sauce of his sitcom was brevity. It's saying it in the fewest number of
words and giving the audience some credit for being intelligent being able to figure it
out. One self description of Bob Newhart's persona is the last sane man on
Earth. If you're in the mood for some Bob Newhart, the Catchy Comedy
Network might have to deep dive on your cable system there, but they're doing
a weekend binge with the Bob Newhart Show. Newhart and Bob, that third
TV series that didn't last so well. The tribute begins tomorrow Saturday at noon
Eastern on Catchy Comedy, and we'll go all through Monday until six am.
Go to Catchycomedy dot com for more about that. In this feed, I
shared an episode of TV in the Basement that's in the feed A couple episodes
down now. Joe Mitchell did a really nice tribute to Bob's TV work other
Bob stuff on The Hitmaker Chronicles. A deep dive into the buttoned down mind
of Bob Newhart. You'll find that podcast. It's called The Hitmaker Chronicles and
on five daily trivia questions. Today's topic Bob Newhart. I'll see you guys
in the morning.