The Bob Newhart Show

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The Bob Newhart Show
The Bob Newhart Show's Complete Second Season DVD cover. (front) Newhart, Pleshette, (back, left to right) Daily, Wallace, Bonerz.
Genre	Situation Comedy
Creator(s)	David Davis Lorenzo Music
Starring	Bob Newhart Suzanne Pleshette Bill Daily Peter Bonerz Marcia Wallace Jack Riley Florida Friebus John Fiedler
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	142
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 16, 1972 – April 1, 1978
Links
IMDb profile

The Bob Newhart Show is the name of two different television series. The better-known was a situation comedy produced by MTM Enterprises, which aired on CBS from 1972 through 1978. Bob Newhart portrayed a psychologist having to deal with his patients and fellow office workers.

It was nominated for an Emmy as "Outstanding Comedy Series" in 1977. Newhart was nominated for Golden Globes as "Best TV Actor - Musical/Comedy" in 1975 and 1976. TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time listed it as #44 on its list.

Contents 1 Premise 2 Ratings 3 Post-show appearances 4 Similarly named series 5 DVD Releases 6 Trivia 7 External links 8 References

[edit] Premise

The popular CBS series starred Newhart as Robert Hartley, a Chicago psychologist. The show divided most of its action between the character's home life and work, with Suzanne Pleshette as Hartley's occasionally sarcastic wife Emily, and Bill Daily as their friendly but inept neighbor and airline navigator Howard Borden. At the medical complex where Hartley had his psychology practice, Marcia Wallace played his acid-tongued receptionist, Carol Kester-Bondurant, and Peter Bonerz appeared as Jerry Robinson, an orthodontist who shared the office suite. Two of Hartley's more memorable regular patients were the exceptionally mean-spirited Elliot Carlin (Jack Riley) and the milquetoast ex-marine Emil Peterson (John Fiedler). Most of the situations involved Newhart's character playing straight man to his wife, colleagues, friends and patients.

[edit] Ratings

The show ranked in the Top 20 for its first 3 seasons (it followed the popular Mary Tyler Moore Show), but schedule changes eventually pushed it to #53 by its final season (1977-78).

[edit] Post-show appearances

Newhart and Pleshette reprised their roles from the show for the surreal finale of Newhart in 1990, in which it was revealed that the entire later Newhart series had been just Bob Hartley's dream.

The entire cast assembled for the one-hour clip show The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary in 1991. On the show, one of the things they did was analyze Bob's dream. During the discussion, the Hartleys' neighbor, Howard Borden (Bill Daily), 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 Daily were shown. (Jeannie ran for five years on NBC.)

The "Hartleys" were also hosts for a segment of the CBS Television Fiftieth Anniversary broadcast.

[edit] Similarly named series

Newhart was the star of a comedy variety show with the same name. It ran from 1961 to 1962 on NBC, and won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. Neither should be confused with two other series in which he starred, Newhart or Bob.

[edit] DVD Releases

The first four seasons of the show have been released on Region 1 DVD by 20th Century Fox.

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

[edit] Trivia

• Many running gags permeated The Bob Newhart Show. One such gag involved showing Bob Newhart in one-sided telephone conversations, which resembled his stand-up comedy routines from the 1960s. Another running gag involved characters saying "Hi, Bob" frequently. According to The Internet Movie Database, actors said "Hi, Bob" 256 times during the run of the series. ^[1]. This inspired a drinking game of the same name where participants watched the show and chugged their drinks whenever that phrase was uttered on the show.
• Elliot Carlin placed 49th in TV Guide's List of the 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time.

• In the show's final episode, the Hartleys announce plans to move from Chicago to rural Oregon, where Bob has accepted a teaching position at a small college.

[edit] External links

• "The Bob Newhart Show" (1961) at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Bob Newhart Show" (1972) at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068049/trivia