RIP, Bob Newhart
Jul. 24th, 2024 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerAmerican comedian Bob Newhart died last week. He was 94. Newhart gained fame starting in the 1960s with multiple award-winning comedy albums and starring roles in two critically acclaimed TV series. Younger generations were introduced to his dry, understated style of comedy through his minor-character role as Papa Elf in the 2003 Will Ferrell movie, Elf, and his guest-star appearances as Professor Proton in later seasons of The Big Bang Theory. It was for the latter he finally won an Emmy award in 2013.
My own experience with Bob Newhart's comedy began with watching episodes of his second self-named TV show, Newhart, in the mid 1980s. It was a family friendly show. I remember my father thinking it was absolutely hilarious. To me, though, as a teen, it was like, "WTF? This is supposed to be funny?" I mean, there were bits of it that were funny but on the whole it fell flat for me. The humor was slow and bland.
That all made a lot more sense in retrospect last week when I read how Newhart got his start in comedy. He started doing humor as an amateur in the 1950s while bored working as a corporate accountant, then broke out with a chart topping comedy album in 1960. 1960. Of course my boring dad liked him in the 1980s. Newhart was playing to what he enjoyed as a younger adult. Meanwhile, as a teen in the 1980s my notion of comedy was defined by Eddie Murphy's eponymous chart-topping 1982 comedy album. Murphy and Newhart were comedy night and day.
For years I thought of Newhart as a comedy relic best left in the past. That said, I did enjoy his roles in Elf and Big Bang Theory. There, though, he played characters who were clearly written as throwbacks to an earlier time. And with his recent passing I looked up some of his older comedy from the 1970s and 80s. He was funny... but in a bland, safe-for-adults 50+ way. Now that I'm 50+ it hits better.
My own experience with Bob Newhart's comedy began with watching episodes of his second self-named TV show, Newhart, in the mid 1980s. It was a family friendly show. I remember my father thinking it was absolutely hilarious. To me, though, as a teen, it was like, "WTF? This is supposed to be funny?" I mean, there were bits of it that were funny but on the whole it fell flat for me. The humor was slow and bland.
That all made a lot more sense in retrospect last week when I read how Newhart got his start in comedy. He started doing humor as an amateur in the 1950s while bored working as a corporate accountant, then broke out with a chart topping comedy album in 1960. 1960. Of course my boring dad liked him in the 1980s. Newhart was playing to what he enjoyed as a younger adult. Meanwhile, as a teen in the 1980s my notion of comedy was defined by Eddie Murphy's eponymous chart-topping 1982 comedy album. Murphy and Newhart were comedy night and day.
For years I thought of Newhart as a comedy relic best left in the past. That said, I did enjoy his roles in Elf and Big Bang Theory. There, though, he played characters who were clearly written as throwbacks to an earlier time. And with his recent passing I looked up some of his older comedy from the 1970s and 80s. He was funny... but in a bland, safe-for-adults 50+ way. Now that I'm 50+ it hits better.
