The Bob Newhart Show is an American sitcom television series produced by MTM Enterprises that aired on CBS from September 16, 1972, to April 1, 1978, with a total of 142 half-hour episodes over six seasons. Comedian Bob Newhart portrays a psychologist whose interactions with his wife, friends, patients, and colleagues lead to humorous situations and dialogue. The show was filmed before a live audience.
The credits feature the Cooper Black typeface, after it was made famous in 1966 by its use in the artwork for the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album.[1]
Premise
Standing, from left: Howard Borden, Carol Kester, Jerry Robinson; seated: Bob and Emily Hartley
The show centers on Robert "Bob" Hartley (Newhart), a Chicago psychologist, his work and home life, with his supportive, though occasionally sarcastic, wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette), and their friendly but mildly pesky neighbor, airline navigator Howard Borden (Bill Daily). The medical building where Bob's practice is located also houses Jerry Robinson (Peter Bonerz), an orthodontist whose office is on the same floor, and their receptionist, Carol Kester (Marcia Wallace), as well as a number of other doctors who appear on the show occasionally.
Bob's three most frequently seen regular patients are cynical, mean-spirited and neurotic Elliot Carlin (Jack Riley), milquetoast former US Marine cook Emil Peterson (John Fiedler), and quiet, reserved Lillian Bakerman (Florida Friebus), an older woman who spends most of her sessions knitting. Carlin was ranked 49th in TV Guide's List of the 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time, and Riley reprised the character in guest appearances on both St. Elsewhere and Newhart.
Most of the situations involve Newhart's character playing straight man to his wife, colleagues, friends, and patients. A frequent running gag on the show is an extension of Newhart's stand-up comedy routines, where he played one side of a telephone conversation, the other side of which is not heard. In a nod to this,[citation needed] for the first two seasons, the episodes opened with Bob answering the telephone by saying "Hello?"
Cast
Emily listens to Howard in the Hartleys' apartment.Bob (right) congratulates Carol and Larry Bondurant on their marriage.
Henry Winkler played patient Miles Lascoe in one season 2 episode, but he was not a series regular.
Bob and Emily's relatives
Seen very occasionally, except for Bob's sister in seasons 2–4.
Pat Finley as Ellen Hartley, Bob's sister (introduced near the end of season 2, and featured in nearly half of the episodes in season 3, the character was eventually dropped midway through season 4)
Martha Scott as Martha Hartley, Bob and Ellen's mother
Will Mackenzie as Larry Bondurant, Carol's boyfriend and later husband
Richard Schaal as Don Livingston (later Don Fesler), boyfriend/short-lived fiancé of Carol's; in the 1st season played Chuck Brock, husband of Nancy, who had previously been briefly engaged to Bob
Mariette Hartley as Marilyn Dietz, downstairs neighbor and friend of Emily's
Gail Strickland as Courtney Simpson, a girlfriend of Jerry's
Phillip R. Allen as Dr. Frank Walburn, another psychologist
Teri Garr as Miss Brennan, Dr. Walburn's receptionist
Episodes
The Thorndale Beach North condominium, at 5901 N. Sheridan Road in Chicago's Edgewater community, was used for exterior establishing shots of the Hartleys' apartment building.
The first four seasons of The Bob Newhart Show aired on Saturday nights at 9:30p.m. Eastern Standard Time. During the winter of the 1976–77 season, the program moved to 8:30p.m. EST. For its final season during 1977–78, the program moved to 8:00p.m. EST.
In the show's April Fools' Day final episode, "Happy Trails to You," Bob gives up his practice and accepts a teaching position at a small college in Oregon. In the closing scene, Bob, Emily, Jerry, Carol and Howard exchange tearful goodbyes and embrace; an emotional Emily bursts into an impromptu refrain of "Oklahoma," and the others join in (except for Howard, who does not know the words), a nod to The Mary Tyler Moore Show finale (also produced by MTM) from the previous year, in which the newsroom characters embraced and sang "It's a Long Way to Tipperary". The final credits show the cast of the episode in a curtain call.
Awards and honors
In 1977, the show received two Emmy nominations – for "Outstanding Comedy Series" and for Pleshette for "Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Comedy Series".[3] Newhart, himself, was nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award as "Best TV Actor—Musical/Comedy" in 1975 and 1976.[3] In 1997, the episodes "Over the River and Through the Woods" and "Death Be My Destiny" were respectively ranked No. 9 and No. 50 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[4]TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time listed it as No. 44.[5] In 2007, Time placed the show on its unranked list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME".[6]Bravo ranked Bob Hartley 84th on its list of the 100 greatest TV characters.[7]
In 2004, TV Land commemorated the show with a statue of Newhart in character as Dr. Hartley, seated and facing an empty couch, as if conducting a therapy session in his office. The statue was temporarily installed in front of 430 North Michigan Avenue, the building used for exterior establishing shots of Hartley's office. The statue is now permanently located in the sculpture park adjacent to Chicago's Navy Pier entertainment complex.[8] In 2005, the TV Land Awards honored The Bob Newhart Show with its Icon Award, presented by Ray Romano.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked the series No. 49 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time.[9]
Later appearances by series characters
St. Elsewhere (1985)
Jack Riley reprised his Elliot Carlin role on a 1985 episode of St. Elsewhere and partnered with Oliver Clark as the amnesiac John Doe Number Six. Carlin and Doe have been committed to the hospital's mental ward, where Carlin treats Doe with the same verbal abuse he directed toward Clark's "Mr. Herd" on The Bob Newhart Show. Carlin blames his insanity on an unnamed "quack in Chicago." While Oliver Clark's recurring portrayal of John Doe Number Six is essentially identical to Mr. Herd, the two are never stated to be the same individual. In a nod to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, John Doe Number Six addresses a character played by Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens, which Betty White's character denies.
ALF (1987)
In the 1987 ALF episode entitled "Going Out of My Head Over You", Willie visits a psychologist, Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Dykstra, portrayed by Bill Daily. Jack Riley is in the waiting room, apparently portraying Elliot Carlin. Also in this episode, ALF mentions learning about psychology by watching episodes of The Bob Newhart Show.
Newhart (1988 and 1990)
Riley appears in a 1988 episode of Newhart, playing an unnamed character who acts very much like Mr. Carlin. This character is being treated by the same therapist in Vermont whom Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart) visits for marriage counseling. Dick feels he recognizes Riley's character, but cannot place his face; whereupon the unnamed patient insults him. Echoing Carlin's statement from the 1985 St. Elsewhere, the therapist apologizes for her patient, explaining that it has taken her "years to undo the damage caused by some quack in Chicago."
Tom Poston, who played Cliff "The Peeper" Murdock, Bob's college friend from Vermont, played "George" the resident handyman from Vermont, throughout the Newhart series. Poston and Suzanne Pleshette married in 2001, with the marriage lasting until Poston's death in 2007. Pleshette died the following year.
Newhart and Pleshette reprised their roles from the show for the 1990 finale of Newhart, in which it was revealed that the entire Newhart series had just been Bob Hartley's dream. Bob and Emily awake in a room identical in appearance to their Chicago bedroom from The Bob Newhart Show. (This plot device had previously been used in the season five finale ("You're Having My Hartley") in which Emily is pregnant. At the end, the pregnancy is revealed to have been a dream.)
The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special (1991)
The entire cast assembled for the one-hour clip show The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special in 1991, which finds the show's characters in the present day. This show is set in Chicago, in the same apartment and office that Bob Hartley had in his 1970s show. During the course of the show, the characters analyzed Bob's dream from the Newhart finale. At one point Howard recalled, "I had a dream like that once. I dreamed I was an astronaut in Florida for five years," as scenes from I Dream of Jeannie featuring Bill Daily as Roger Healey were shown.
Murphy Brown (1994)
Newhart played Bob Hartley on Murphy Brown, in the episode "Anything But Cured" (March 14, 1994) to beg Carol (Marcia Wallace reprising her role from The Bob Newhart Show) to leave her job as Murphy's secretary and come back with him to Chicago.
Saturday Night Live (1995)
Newhart reprised Hartley twice in the February 11, 1995, episode of Saturday Night Live. In one sketch, he appears on a satirical version of Ricki Lake, befuddled by Ms. Lake's dysfunctional guests and her armchair pop psychology. The episode ended with a repeat of Newhart’s "just a dream" scene, in which Bob Hartley again wakes up with Emily (Pleshette), and tells her that he just dreamed he had hosted SNL. Emily responds, "That show's not still on, is it?"
George & Leo (1997)
George & Leo was a sitcom starring Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch, and a 1997 episode called "The Cameo Episode" featured a raft of cameo appearances by their co-stars of previous series. Although the actors were not necessarily playing the same characters as they played in the previous shows, there was certainly a suggestion with some of the unnamed characters that they could be. Amongst the Bob Newhart Show actors making cameos in the episode were Peter Bonerz (as "Dr. Robins"), Oliver Clark, Bill Daily (as a pilot), John Fiedler, Tom Poston (as a police officer), Jack Riley, and Marcia Wallace.
CBS at 75 (2002)
Newhart and Pleshette, as "The Hartleys," were the hosts of a segment of the CBS at 75 broadcast.
On February 3, 2014, Shout! Factory announced it had acquired the rights to the series. It subsequently released The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Series on May 27, 2014.[10] The fifth and sixth seasons were later released on DVD in individual sets on February 3, 2015.[11]
DVD Name
Ep #
Release Date
The Complete 1st Season
24
April 12, 2005
The Complete 2nd Season
24
October 4, 2005
The Complete 3rd Season
24
April 11, 2006
The Complete 4th Season
24
September 5, 2006
The Complete 5th Season
24
February 3, 2015
The Complete 6th Season
22
February 3, 2015
The Complete Series
142
May 27, 2014
In popular culture
Season 1 episode 7 of the 2019 Sci-fi alternate history series, For All Mankind, in which the USSR beats the United States to a crewed lunar landing, has the crew of Apollo 22 watching The Bob Newhart Show on the Jamestown lunar base and greeting each other with "Hi Bob."
See also
Hi, Bob – a drinking game based on watching the show
Related Research Articles
Marcia Karen Wallace was an American actress and comedian, primarily known for her roles on sitcoms. She is best known for her roles as receptionist Carol Kester on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, Mrs. Carruthers on Full House, and as the voice of elementary school teacher Edna Krabappel on the animated series The Simpsons, for which she won an Emmy in 1992. The character was retired after her death but sporadically appears through archive recording.
Newhart is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from October 25, 1982, to May 21, 1990, with a total of 184 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons. The series stars Bob Newhart and Mary Frann as an author and his wife who own and operate the Stratford Inn in rural Vermont. The small town is home to many eccentric characters. TV Guide, TV Land, and A&E named the Newhart series finale as one of the most memorable in television history. The theme music for Newhart was composed by Henry Mancini.
George Robert Newhart is an American comedian and actor. He is known for his deadpan and stammering delivery style. Beginning as a stand-up comedian, he transitioned his career to acting in television. He has received numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002.
Martha Ellen Scott was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), playing the mother of Charlton Heston's character in both films. She originated the role of Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's Our Town on Broadway in 1938 and later recreated the role in the 1940 film version, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
The reset button technique is a plot device for interrupting continuity in works of fiction. Simply put, the reset button device allows to return all characters and situations to the statusquo previous to some major change. It can be employed in the middle of a program to negate some portion of what came before. Often used in science fiction television series, animated series, soap operas, and comic books, the reset button technique accommodates dramatic changes to characters and the fictional universe that might otherwise invalidate the premise of the continuity of the show. For example, writers may use the device to improve the audience's experience of the lead character's death, which usually would be impossible without effectively ending the work or significantly altering its course.
St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982, to May 25, 1988. The series stars Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels as teaching doctors at an aging, rundown Boston hospital who give interns a promising future in making critical medical and life decisions. The series was produced by MTM Enterprises, which had success with a similar NBC series, the police drama Hill Street Blues, during that same time. The series were often compared to each other for their use of ensemble casts and overlapping serialized storylines.
Thomas Gordon Poston was an American actor, appearing in television roles from the 1950s through the early to mid-2000s, reportedly appearing in more sitcoms than any other actor. In the 1980s, he played George Utley on the CBS sitcom Newhart, receiving three Emmy Award nominations for the role. In addition he had a number of film roles and appeared frequently on Broadway and television game shows.
Howard Hesseman was an American actor known for his television roles as burned-out disc jockey Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati and the lead role of history teacher Charlie Moore on Head of the Class. He appeared regularly on television and in film from the 1970s to 2010s, with his other noteworthy roles including Sam Royer in the last two seasons of One Day at a Time and a supporting role as Captain Pete Lassard in the film Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.
Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress. Pleshette was known for her roles in theatre, film, television. She received nominations for three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards. For her role as Emily Hartley on the CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) she received two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nominations.
William Edward Daily was an American actor and comedian known for his sitcom work as Major Roger Healey on I Dream of Jeannie, and Howard Borden on The Bob Newhart Show.
John Albert Riley Jr. was an American actor, comedian and writer. He was known for playing Elliot Carlin, a chronic psychology client of the main character on The Bob Newhart Show, and for voicing Stu Pickles, one of the parents in the animated Rugrats franchise.
Jeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.
Peter Baldwin Bonerz is an American actor and director.
Moosie Drier is an American television and film actor. He is best known for his roles as Adam Landers in Oh, God! and Riley on Kids Incorporated. Drier had regular appearances on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and The Bob Newhart Show. He has also worked as a voice actor and as a director.
Oliver Clark is an American character actor.
Bob is an American sitcom television series created by Bill Steinkellner, Cheri Steinkellner, and Phoef Sutton. It aired on CBS from September 18, 1992, to December 27, 1993, for two seasons. The series was the third starring vehicle sitcom for Bob Newhart, following his previous successful CBS sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart.
Doc is an American sitcom produced by MTM Enterprises which aired on CBS from August 16, 1975, to October 30, 1976.
The Committee was a San Francisco-based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson. The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court in San Francisco's North Beach.
Hi, Bob is a drinking game in which players watch The Bob Newhart Show and consume alcohol whenever a character utters the phrase "Hi, Bob". Believed to have originated on American university campuses in the 1980s, it is thought to be the first documented instance of a drinking game using prompts from a television show to initiate player action.
The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special is a 1991 American television special to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 1972–1978 sitcom The Bob Newhart Show. Directed by Dick Martin, it was taped in front of a live audience on October 30, 1991, at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California and broadcast on CBS on November 23, 1991.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
