Remembering Bob Newhart and Christmas

To modern audiences Bob Newhart was Papa Elf. He passed away recently at the age of 94.

But for anyone who has followed comedy Bob Newhart has been a steady name for more than 60 years.

In 1959 Newhart was just 30 years old, working as an accountant in his native Chicago. He gave himself a year to make it in comedy and if it didn’t work out it would be back to bean counting.

Newhart’s accountant imagery was just the kind of thing that made his comedy work.

He was a regular guy, prematurely balding and he stammered. His comedy wasn’t of the radio satire variety so popular in the late 1950s. It was observational, ironic, and timed to perfection.

Frankly, America had never seen a comedian like him.

His debut album won a Grammy and overnight it seemed Bob Newhart was on his way.

Newhart worked the comedy circuit and launched best-selling albums in the sixties before moving on to hit television series in the 1970s and 1980s.
For Christmas fans, Bob Newhart provided regular glimpses into the modern Christmas.

Here’s a good example of Newhart’s comedic delivery as a Christmas shopper trying to return a toupee in a sketch on Dean Martin’s 1968 Christmas television special:

CBS had two hit series featuring Bob Newhart, one in the 1970s called The Bob Newhart Show had Bob as a psychologist living in Chicago. Here’s an episode titled Twas the Pie Before Christmas:

The other CBS series, simply titled Newhart, showcased him as a New England inn keeper. Here’s a clip of Newhart’s character complaining about blinking Christmas lights:

If you get the sense that Newhart’s various productions just featured him being himself, you’re right.

He was just naturally funny. The droll observational chatter that would fall out of his mouth was relatable.

Newhart was Catholic, and in this spontaneous conversation with Conan O’Brien he shows once again why so many thought he was funny:

While Newhart’s career spanned decades of television and album sales his movie career was largely unremarkable until the hit Christmas movie Elf, which came out in 2003.
Newhart claimed he knew when he read the script it would be seen every Christmas, just as other film classics such as Miracle on 34th Street.

While younger generations will mourn the loss of Papa Elf or Professor Proton from The Big Bang Theory there are those of us have been around long enough to appreciate the full comedy career of Bob Newhart.

Newhart wasn’t just a character on a TV series. He was a fixture in Hollywood. Here he is cutting it up with Johnny Carson, which whom he was a close friend. Watching them talk isn’t
just funny, it’s a throwback to a time of more honest television:

If you want to look up old Christmas episodes we recommend from 1973, I’m Dreaming of a Slight Christmas where Dr. Bob agrees to meet a patient at the office then gets stuck there when a blizzard hits and knocks out the power.

The Bob Newhart Show also has an excellent Thanksgiving episode as well.

There will never be another Bob Newhart. We’re grateful to have his long career on records, tapes and videos to forever entertain us.