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The Bob Newhart Show: Difference between revisions
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A [[Sitcom]] that aired on [[CBS]] from 1972-1978 and was the forerunner to two of [[Bob Newhart]]'s other sitcoms, ''[[Newhart]]'' and ''[[Bob]]''. It was a top-rated success at the time, and has quietly earned classic status since. Produced by David Davis and Lorenzo Music as a deliberate complement to ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'' (an established hit produced by the same studio, MTM Enteprises, and immediately preceding it in CBS' Saturday-night lineup), it shared much the same format: drop a bunch of wacky character actors into a professional setting and hire an established star as their [[Straight Man]].
At the time Newhart was one of comedy's hottest stars, renowned for his dryly understated standup persona. Who better to field the role of an uptight psychologist than the guy whose biggest hit album was ''The Button-Down Mind''?
The premise revolves around well-respected Chicago shrink Dr. Bob Hartley and his strong, sexy schoolteacher wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) -- as one critic put it, a marriage of two people who're convinced the rest of the world is crazy, and have agreed to keep an eye on one another. It's a wise precaution: Surrounded by neurotics, depressives and other mentally unstable people both in private life ''and'' at his psychology practice, Bob has plenty of opportunity to underreact.
To further the cause Newhart's trademark 'telephone' routine, in which he valiantly holds down one end of an increasingly surreal conversation, is worked into every episode. Other recurring opportunities included needy neighbor Howard's habit of dropping in at very odd hours (he was an airline pilot) and the standard closing scene, featuring Bob and Emily in bed, talking over the events of that episode and more often than not dueling for the last word.
A distinctively veteran supporting cast -- including Pleshette, Bill Daily (as Howard, the friendly but somewhat addle-headed airline navigator who lived next door to the Hartleys), Peter Bonerz (Jerry, the swinging-single orthodontist from the clinic office next door), Marcia Wallace (Carol, the hyper-competent secretary they share) and Jack Riley (Bob's ''uber''-patient Elliott Carlin) -- serve as fine foils. Carol even made it onto an episode of ''[[Murphy Brown]]'' years later, as one of Murphy's few plausible secretaries-of-the-week, who leaves when Bob comes back to beg her to return to the Chicago office ("Jerry has made a mess of his appointments!").
Not surprisingly ''[[Newhart]]'' referenced it most frequently, and memorably; in an episode where Dick and his wife go to a counselor, they meet the doctor's previous patient, Jack Riley as Mr. Carlin (the doctor says that he's got a lot of work ahead of him there, "due to some quack in Chicago"). And in ''Newhart'''s final episode, one of the most famous in TV history, the entire series is revealed to be a dream of Bob Hartley's -- from which he awakens in his original bedroom set, next to Suzanne Pleshette.
This was actually the ''[[Name's the Same|second]]'' show Newhart did that was called ''The Bob Newhart Show''. The first was a [[Variety Show]] that aired for one season from October 1961 to June 1962.
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** Will Mackenzie (Larry Bonderant) directed one episode and then went on to direct episodes of ''[[Taxi]]'' and ''[[WKRP in Cincinnati]]''.
* [[The Ditz]]: Howard
* [[Drop
* [[The Eponymous Show]]
* [[Everything's Better with Bob]]
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{{quote|'''Jim''': Here comes Bob and Carol/His wife Emily really likes him/He has five people in his group...(repeat)}}
* [[Locked in a Room]]: Bob and Emily spend the Bicentennial Fourth stuck in their building's storage room.
* [[Man Child]]: Howard is this through and through, more childish than his young son. The show [[Lampshade Hanging|frequently hints]] that Bob and Emily see him as the child they never had.
* [[Marathon Running]]: Two for [[Nick at Nite]] ... first ''Better Living Through Bob'', which introduced the series to the schedule with a season-a-night run of all the episodes for eight nights; and then ''Bob's [[Bob]]!, [[The Bob Newhart Show|Bob Newhart]], [[Newhart]] Marathon'', which featured selected episodes of all three series as it introduced ''Newhart'' to N@N and ''Bob!'' to sister channel TV Land.
* [[Mandatory Motherhood]]: Deliberately subverted. Newhart's response when the producers told him that 'Bob & Emily were going to have a baby' that season has passed into legend: "Sounds great. Now, who are you going to get to play Bob?"
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* [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]]: Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette, a gorgeous ex-movie star, were famously mismatched in looks, though this was rarely commented on in the show itself. It was however [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in a very early episode:
{{quote|'''Emily''': Bob, I never went for tall, good-looking guys. That's why I married you.}}
* [[Wacky Guy]]: Mr. Carlin and Howard.
* [[We Want Our Jerk Back]]: When Howard sees a therapist and gets cured of his dependency on Bob and Emily, the Hartleys do everything they can to bring the old Howard back and make him helplessly dependent on them again.
** Justified in that the therapy has given Howard an entirely new personality that's even more unhealthy than his old one.
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