WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Bob Newhart from 2014 and 2018

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

First, hear Marc's 2014 conversation with Bob Newhart from Bob's home in Bel-Air. Then, a follow-up conversation from 2018 where Marc and Bob talked on the phone. Bob Newhart died on July 18, 2024, at age 94. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lock the gates! I'm sitting on my car in front of a home in Bel Air. Haven't done this in a while. And I'm nervous. When you're going to talk to somebody like Bob Newhart, I'm a bit in awe. This is a guy that's had an amazing career on television, but I just spent the morning listening to his first three records, The Button Down Mind, Bob Newhart, Return of

the Button Down Mind to Bob Newhart, and Behind the Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart and behind the button down mind of Bob Newhart. Now these all were recorded roughly between 1959-1961. The first album, the button down mind of Bob Newhart won two Grammys. 1961 the Grammys won the best album of the year, best new artist, and return of the button down mind, one best spoken word album the same year. So this is an amazing amount of output. And these were huge records. And these were game changing records. In terms of what I see is the evolution from the comedian to the stand-up comedian. I don't think Bob Newhart gets the proper respect that he should as a stand-up comic

and as somebody that really invented the form of one of the main inventors of the form of American stand-up, shifting away from joke-telling and from straight-up comedic entertaining to actually doing cultural commentary and satire. I mean, people are familiar with, or at least familiar with the name of Lenny Bruce or the name of Mortsal. But this is a little after those guys put out their records that Bob was working. And these records are profoundly important in terms of creating what the possibilities of stand-up could be, of point of view comedy,

of criticizing satirically the forces that were at that time, you know, marketing, advertising, politics, bureaucratic employment, you know, what was being presented as the future of America. This is an interesting time that I don't know about historically that often, but it's a transition time, you know, in the middle of the Eisenhower administration. It's before Kennedy, but it's post-war. And there was a certain amount of momentum going on in America. You know, there's a big change going on.

You know, the beatniks were already around. As I said, Lenny was already around. There was a counterculture. But Bob Newhart, you know, becomes huge, really speaking truth to power in a very palatable way. You know, he did comedy that, it wasn't just it wasn't just him on the phone talking to someone we couldn't hear, but on some of these records there's characters. He's doing characters that are engaging with each other. He's setting up scenes in offices, on the telephone, driving instructors, on vacations. Yet he's doing full scenes.

He's, what I heard one reviewer say about Cosby, he's peopling the stage with these characters. This is not something you see much anymore, where comedians will do a series of characters within a scene. There's a few guys that do it, and I love it. It's a rare thing. And it was rare even then, obviously, to do well. In my mind, Bob Newhart's one of the most important stand-ups ever.

As I said, a lot of people know him from his TV shows and I think those are fine. I think they're great. They're obviously amazing. They were hilarious. Both the Bob Newhart show and Newhart years later, but there was a period where he was just doing stand-up. He guest-hosted The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over 80 times. He was on the Dean Martin Variety Show dozens of times. Ed Sullivan made appearances in movies. But if you think about it, and I'm not sure you would unless I told you you know The three records that happened between 59 61 Were

over ten years Before the Bob Newhart show which really familiarized everybody with Bob Newhart. That's a long time I wonder what was going on in those times I wonder what you know what was going on in those times. I wonder what was going on in his mind as he made the shift into standup. I guess I'm going to find all these things out as soon as I pull into his driveway,

just sitting out here weirdly in Bel Air, talking on a microphone, parked on a fairly secluded lane. And he's in his 80s now. I'll try and keep my my act together here. You know, I've made a bunch of notes here. You know, I've got two pages of handwritten notes in the margins all over the place. It's just like my brain splattered it onto a piece of paper, all the things that I should know. But ultimately it's gonna really come down to me and him and I sitting there and talking.

Oh man. Yeah, I always, I feel this way a lot. Felt this way when I was sitting outside of Jonathan Winter's house. Felt this way when I was in the parking lot of Mel Brooks's office, sitting outside of Carl Reiner's house, sitting outside of Dick Van Dyke's house.

These guys are guys that were sort of there at the beginning. And it's always daunting to me to sort of how do I encapsulate that? How do I, you know, get a sense of that? How do I get it all in or at least get that moment, you know, moments of, I've got to shut up. I should probably, I can't even head inside yet. So I'll just sit here. So we were just talking about Jonathan Winters when I spent time with him. You said that he was one of the first guys you ever saw? He was, Johnny and I got to, well there was a club in Chicago called the Black Orchid and somebody, I think somebody fell, I had never worked at a nightclub, but

I had a kind of minor reputation around Chicago. As what? As just a funny guy. I did a local television show there. I did a man on the street show. And a guy, Tom Racine was the host. Yeah. It's a man on the street show in in 1958 now a man on the street show Was revolutionary in 1947, but it was no longer Revolutionary in 1958. So it was hard getting people to stop because they'd like just push you out of their way You know here's comes a gentleman. We'd like to talk. Sorry. They've had enough of it already the time sorry they'd had enough of it already yes so he would he would do regular interviews and then I would be the comic relief and I would do on a topic usually or just no just whatever I wrote the night before that was on you

whatever so I prepared whatever struck me it's funny were well, we were on opposite today And Captain Kangaroo. Mm-hmm. So tough spot very tough spot It was five days a week We were on for 16 weeks. We got one postcard We're even sure if the if the signal was getting out of the building the postcards said why are you guys still on? No, the postcard, I did a guy, the most famous human interest storyteller in the world. This man has published many books of human interest, just strictly on.

So Tom asked me, what is your favorite, of all the stories you've written, you must have a favorite human interest story. So I tell this story about it. I said, well, it's the family and they had this dog, they had a little dog. And the dog had been with the family for, oh, years and years.

And somebody left the door open, the gate open, and the dog got out. And when the kids came open, the gate open, and the dog got out. And when the kids came back from school and said, where's Sparky? And the mother said, I don't know, he's in the house. I said, no, I live in the backyard. So they started looking for the dog. And then they were,

hey, you're so, it just became blibbering, you know. The car was a guy, he wanted to buy the book. Oh, you thought it was a real book? So I said, oh my God, we're not even getting through to people. They don't know it's a book. No, stick.

That still happens, you know. I'm sure. There's a sucker board every minute. People just believe everything literally. Poor guy, you moved him. It all worked up. Just wanted the book. So I listened to all the records,

you know, well, the first three records, and... First three were the best, yeah. Well, it was an amazing amount of output, you know, and... It was a flood. It was a, I mean, the first three albums were just, they just poured out. Right, and leading up to that, before we get into exactly what happened,

so you're around Chicago, you grew up there. Yeah. Do you go back still? Yeah, I go back. You got people there? Yeah, it's a great city, yeah. I love that city. You got still a family there?

Yeah, my three sisters are there, yeah. And so what was, I mean, when you grew up, what was your family like? What was the life like? What did your old man do? He drank. Well, I mean, but I, see, I thought everybody, I thought everybody's life was that.

That's what a kid does. I mean, he worked during the day. He was a heating and air conditioning and heating salesmen. And then he'd come home and then we'd have dinner, sometimes as a family, other times not, and then he would leave around eight o'clock and he would go to this bar with all his friends. And then he'd come back about 11, 30, 12 o'clock.

And he had a snoot full, you know? But I thought that's what every father did. And in retrospect, what do you think? Well, I don't think he wanted to be with us. I mean, if I, if I, if I laid dawned on me, then maybe we weren't, in fact, I guess my career It finally dawned on me. In fact, I guess my career is all about just trying to get my dad's attention. Hey, and I had this conversation with Steve Martin.

He had the same upbringing. Not that his father was an alcoholic, but his father was just uninterested. Not that his father was an alcoholic, but his father was just uninterested. Right, detached. And he spent his time just trying to impress his dad. And so I'm devoted. I mean, I want to thank him.

Yeah. Because if I grew up in a normal house, I'd be an accountant somewhere. It's interesting how many comics I talk to that have an experience like that. You know, whether their father's detached or absent or you know, this need for this approval to prove yourself. Sure, sure.

But there's also like a weird anger at the core of that as well. Like, you know, why? You know? So I guess your mother was solid. Yeah, oh yeah. She was very... She kept it going.

But in a way she allowed him to do it. Well that's the classic structure. Yeah. Put him to bed, picked him up, walked him in. No, not that so much. He wasn't that kind of drunk. He just was... He drank every night. Until a doctor said to him, George, that was his first name,

he said, George, you can't drink anymore. You're allowed one drink. And my dad said, okay. And that was it? That was it. From then on, he had one drink during the day. That's all he had. And was he a different guy? No. No. He had one drink during the day. That's all he had and was he a different guy No

He probably not as much fun, you know Are you the oldest or where do you fit in with the whole second holes? Yeah, and where'd your sisters end up doing? Wait, how did I'll go oldest sister is a nun religious? Yeah, why would I lie about that? I'm not going to make anything up. She was the first astronaut, the first woman astronaut. The first astronaut nun. That's right.

The flying nun was based on her. So you brought up religious? Yeah, oh yeah, you could say that, yeah. Catholic. Catholic, yeah. The fear was put in you early on. Sure. And you remained religious? Yes.

No, well that's, I guess you gotta have something that holds you together, right? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it works for me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not as religious as I used to be. Show business will do that to you. But I like this, I like Francis.

I like a lot of the stuff he's doing. Which, who? Pope Francis. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I call him Francis. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. You talked to him this morning. We're very close, yeah.

I just got off the phone. God calls me for advice. That's the new bit. You're on the phone with Francis. Yeah, he seems like certainly a more open-minded fella. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, have you been over there? Have you been to Rome?

Have you seen the heart of it all? Yeah, I went to Rome with the Rickles, as a matter of fact. When did that friendship start? That friendship started because my wife, Jenny, of 51 years, we were married 51 years, she and Barbara Rickles, who was then Barbara Sklar, was a secretary for an agent that Jenny was going out with, not while we were married, but before we got married.

Because I would have put my foot down here. Sure, you would have said something. Hey, wait, wait a minute. Not the situation I had planned. No. So, I had never met Don. Yeah. But I knew, I of course knew of Don. So, I was at the, I think the Sands in Vegas, in the main room. I always bring that up, the main room.

Sure. Because there's a pecking order. Yeah, of course. And he was- Not in the lounge. He was in the lounge. Okay. At the Sahara. Yeah. So, Ginny said, and they had just got married. So. This is a young,

sweaty Don Rickles. It's the same Don Rickles you see. I just saw him in Canada. You know, do it. Did you see? Yeah. I saw him do the Q&A at the end because I was doing a gala show after him. And when I got there he was... Oh, that's right. He just did the... And he was sitting up there... Just relaxed. Yeah, taking questions and it was phenomenal. And he always speaks very highly of you.

And it's just the yin and yang of it. The kind of...the differences in your personality. I guess it was meant to be. I'm surprised you guys never did the Sunshine Boys. We had talked about it. Did you? Yeah, we had talked about it. By that time, it meant learning a lot of words. So it was recently.

Yeah, I would say five years ago. Right, right, right. So anyway, so Ginny says, oh, Don and Barbara are in town. He's in Lanzo. Why don't I set up and we'll have a late dinner with him. His hours were like, he started at one in the morning and went till six

in the lounge. So we said fine. So we go to the Sahara, as I remember, the coffee shop. Right. Which, oh. Yeah, the all night the coffee shop. Right. Which, oh. Yeah, the all night diner thing. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

And we're talking, I'm talking to Barbara, Jenny's talking to Don, and now it's time to go and see Don's three o'clock show in the lounge. So now we're, then Don goes back to change into a tux. He still wears a tux. Yeah. And now everybody, Cosby, everybody else has given up. Yeah.

I mean, Cosby's in sweatsuits, you know, but. Yeah. And I'm just in a jacket, but still, he wears a traditional tux, so he's going back to getting his tux. So we're walking into the showroom, to the lounge. And Ginny says to me, he's such a sweet man. He's such, oh, he just wants to be with his family

and he hates being on the road. I said, honey, that isn't the man you're gonna see, okay? I mean, yes, he is that way, but. She'd never seen him. She had never seen him, no. He walked out, first thing he says, and they put us in the front row, first thing he says, he said this stammering idiot from Chicago

was in the audience with his hooker wife from Bayonne, New Jersey. So, I look over, her draw is dropped, and I said, I tried to tell you. That's what he does. And that was the introduction. Then we started taking trips together and we just. That was it, huh?

We just have a good time. We just enjoy each other. Well, it's interesting to me, you know, when I listen to your records again, like today, is that in my mind, and one of the reasons that I have such respect for you, is that there was a difference in what you were doing as a performer at that time. I mean, you know, Don Rickles is, he's his own thing, he's Don Rickles,

but he's a club comic. And it seems to me that you are part of this legacy of what really became, in my mind, there's a difference between a stand-up comedian and a comic. There was a sea change in comedy. Right. around 58. Right.

Exactly. And it was, the comic now had a point of view. He had a way to speak a certain amount of truth to power. He was able to take his time and it wasn't all based on old jokes. There was no joke trading. It was a specific. Which was a reason.

And it was probably more at first. Right. And then Shelley. Right. Which was a reason, and it was probably more sulfurous. Right. Then Shelley. Right. Mike and Elaine. Johnny Winters, myself. Lenny? Lenny.

And that was pretty much it. The reason they couldn't do Take My Wife, Please, because it was college audiences, and they didn't relate, I don't have a wife. Tell me something that affects me. Right. You know, and so they didn't go to nightclubs. Right.

Because that's what the, I'll burn a hole in the coat. You know, all the punchlines. Which everybody had stole from everybody else. And that was their parents anyways. Yes. And they wanted to break it. So now they had to find their nightclub. Their nightclub was a college dorm. And they wanted to break. So now they had to find their nightclub. Their nightclub was a college dorm and they ordered pizza and beer and they sat around and played

Morsal, Lenny Bruce. It was never a record. Because you, I think it seems like Jonathan really came out after you on record. And I guess Shelley and Mort and Lenny had done a record. Proceeded, yes. Yeah, just a couple years. And I think Mike and Elaine, yeah. And Mike and Elaine. Yeah. So when you're coming up, I mean, before you started doing comedy,

because you really didn't start doing standup until after the record came out, right? I did standup to make the record. Right, but before that. Before the first place I played as a standup we recorded the album two weeks later. That is mind blowing. I know.

Because knowing that and having read that, I was sort of listening to that record, it was like, hey, he's a little nervous. He's a little nervous. Oh, try terrifying. I know, wait, there's another. So Warner Brothers, they finally found a place that would take a chance on a comedian

who had never played played a nightclub. We're going to tape on Friday night and on Saturday. One show on Friday night and two shows on Saturday. Friday night I get a drunken woman in the front row. That's the worst thing a comedian can get. It's still the worst thing. Yeah, still the worst thing. That and the Bachelorette party, the worst.

Yeah, because you can do, with a woman drunk, you can do maybe two lines and then you better stop because the sympathies immediately shifts to her. Right. But she's drunk, so I'm doing Abe Lincoln, or I'm doing the driving a certain. And she's saying, that's a bunch of crap. That's a bunch of crap. Oh no. Through the entire, so we go up,

Georgia Buck and she's clearer than I am. Yeah. That's a bunch of crap, so. I'm the take. Yes, we had to throw Friday night out. I got two. I'm nervous enough anyway. And where are you?

I'm in Houston at the Tidelands. In Texas. In Houston, Texas. Yeah. Why that choice? Why Texas? Because they're the only ones who would take a chance. It took them a year to find a club for this, to hire a comedian who had never played in

a nightclub. A nightclub in Chicago, there's tons of them, no one would give a local guy? No, no. It was that tight, we don't got it. There was a second city. Right. They were approached and I was told they said,

that isn't our kind of stuff. What does that even mean? I guess improv. I guess it means improv, I guess that's what it means. All right, so all you got is Saturday night now. What does that even mean? I guess improv. Okay. I guess it means improv. I guess that's what it means. All right, so all you got is Saturday night now. All I got is two shows Saturday night, yeah. And you nailed it.

What you heard was that's what happened, yeah. And you could hear the nervousness in the- Well, not like nervousness, but like knowing what I knew, and knowing that this was it. Uh-uh, okay. You know, like there was an intensity to it. Because by the time I got to behind the button down mine,

I mean your flow was different, your comfort level was different. I'm not even aware of it. Yeah, I mean this is just me being sort of like, obviously the material was great and you were great, I mean it was a huge record. Your first record to win two Grammys. So that was phenomenal. That had never happened before. Yes.

And out of nowhere, your first night on stage basically, as a stand-up comic, you won three Grammys and it's a national phenomenon. It sells all over the world. I did a show one time. I'm getting ready because I only had people that didn't even understand. I only had one side of the album. People don't know what you mean by one side, because they're used to CDs. So what, four bits? Three.

Three bits. And you have three, three and a half. You had three bits going into the show in Texas? Yeah, I had the driving instructor, Abe Lincoln and Submarine Commander were the three I had. So at that time recording an album was no small task. I mean, it was big equipment.

Oh yeah, well you couldn't see it, but there were microphones hanging all over the place. So I got three routines. So I go out one night and I come off and I go by the maitre d' and he said, they're applauding, he said, go back out. I said, I don't have anything. I said, that's all I have. He said, well, go and he said they're applauding he said go back out I said I don't have anything I said that's all I have he said well go back out there applauding and I said which one would you like to hear again so leading up to

this what was the trajectory so you you go to school and then you go into service? Yeah. And how long were you in the service? Two years. Did you go to, were you in Korea? No, I was in California. That's it, that wasn't as hard a battle. No more stories.

Yeah. I was, I lived in Chicago at that point 22 years. They sent me to California. Now I run into the California weather and I'm like, why didn't someone tell me about this? Yeah, all these years. I've been freezing to death or perspiring from heat and no one told me about California. I said, as soon as I get $300, I'm coming back out here.

Yeah. And you went to, what'd you go to school on, the GI Bill? How'd that work? Yeah, afterwards. I went to law school for a year and a half on the GI Bill. And you bailed? I flunked. Yeah.

That's a nice... They bailed, I'll use that from now on. But it wasn't your thing. You weren't interested? I was too busy with, no. I was, well, I was a law clerk. I'd go to school in the morning and probably the afternoon, then I'd be a law clerk in the afternoon,

and then at night I was active in a play group. So something had to suffer, and it was law school. At least that's my version of it. You were doing sketches and stuff? No, plays. Just full plays? These were, yeah, full plays, yeah. When was the accounting period?

That was after I flunked out of law school. So then I went into accounting. Yeah. And worked two and a half years as an accountant. Was it horrible? I mean, were you like, you know, this can't be my life? Bored to death, yeah, bored to death. That's how the Bob and Ray thing came about

because at the end of the day, this guy I was in the play group with, Ed Gallagher, he'd call me on the phone and we'd do bits over the phone just to break the monotony of accounting. And so I did two and a half years and then I thought, I just gotta try comedy. And when was the advertising gig? That was after accounting, that was a very short time,

maybe six months. A friend of mine was in advertising, he got me a job in advertising. And that didn't appeal to you? I got fired. I got, well, no, I mean, again, my side of it is I was on the wrong side of the room. You know, I worked for a guy named Fred Niles. Yeah.

Who had this building which is now Oprah, or was Oprah's building in Chicago. And I was on the wrong side of the room, and so he fired half the room, and I was on the wrong side of the room and so he fired half the room and I was on the, that's my version of it. You can't, don't ask Fred because he's gone. But I think he has a different version of it. Anyway, at that point I said, I gotta try this. If I fall on my face, I fall on my face, okay, I'll go back to accounting or whatever, advertising.

But some of this stuff was so pointed, your experience in accounting and your experience in advertising, your experience in sort of a face with bureaucracy, but also your experience in what really became the dominating force of American culture, which was advertising, did it play into, like, because it seemed like, on the first record, the couple of bits, the press agent,

Nate Blinken, and certainly the marketing of the Wright brothers, that these were, you know, these were very pointed satires about image and about what people thought were true. That's why they came up with the button-down mind. That's why it was called the button-down mind of Bob Newhart, which wasn't even my idea. That came out of Warner Brothers, that the uniform of the day on Madison Avenue was a button-down collar, and so much of the material was about advertising and marketing and that kind of thing,

that they called it the button down line. That was a pretty smart marketing person. Yeah, I don't know where he is. I never got a chance to thank him. He did you right with that one. I don't know that mainstream America had seen that that type of satire really, you know, as accessible as you made it.

I was just doing what I thought was funny. I can't say there was a giant overall plan. But it was definitely, you know, you had, you know, there was a certain, you know, chutzpah to it. I mean, you know, it was the world that you sort of had been in a little bit and it was a world that everybody was of had been in a little bit, and it was a world that everybody was starting to understand that was becoming public. I mean, this was a pretty powerful time for America, sort of post-war, everything was moving forward. The economy was good, right?

Yeah, Eisenhower. Yeah, but there was this weird beatnik thing that was happening. There was a shift that sort of led into the 60s. Yeah, actually, they always said nothing happened in the 50s. A lot was happening in there was a shift that sort of led into the 60s. Different, yeah. Actually, you know, they always said nothing happened in the 50s. A lot was happening in the 50s. Things were breaking apart. Moirzal and Lenny Bruce and Shelley and...

All right, so you start, when you say you're going to start doing comedy and you got this idea, you know, how did you first start to approach it? Because it all happened so quickly once you, you know, got the record, but did you start going out and watching people Because it all happened so quickly once you got the record, but did you start going out and watching people? No, I don't think so. You just were gonna, Bob and Ray did it, I'm gonna do it. Bob and Ray, yes. So you didn't say it's-

I thought my dream would have been to have become a writer for Bob and Ray. That would have been, that's the epitome. Well, there's that dynamic. I mean, you can certainly hear a bit of that, but there's only you. There's just Bob, and the beats were filling in the blanks in reaction to this fictional person, this unheard person.

But so you didn't go out and study anything. You're just sort of like, I'm gonna do this. Where did you realize it was crazy at the time, or did you really think of it as a reasonable career? No, I just had to find out. You just wanted to do it. I just had to find out. People were telling me, gee, you're funny.

You ought to go to New York, you know, and get in a place, and then you go to New York and nothing happens, and you come back, and the guy who told you to go to New York says, yeah, I thought that'd work out for you. Now you've wasted five years of your life and all this guy says is that, really I thought that'd work out for you. So what was the series of events then? So you had these bits that you wrote with the guy on the phone, you know, with your buddy from accounting? Ed Gallagher. Ed Gallagher. So you put these on paper?

There was a guy, I think Chris Peterson was his name. He put up the money so we could make an acetate of like 10 routines that we had that Ed and I had developed over, and a lot of them were improvised. They were just, it was an open mic and I said, You mean the two of you were just working as a team? I'll be a submarine commander.

Right. Okay. And then I'll introduce you as you're walking out. Okay, fine. Right. And then we'd just go. So we sent these and we got three replies. We got Northampton Mass, which I think was a girls college near there. You sent it out as an audition reel.

Yeah, we sent a hundred of them. This guy put up the money for it, Chris Peters. We sent out a hundred acetates. Three replied. It should have told us something. Northampton, Jacksonville, Florida, Idaho Falls, Idaho. Almost coast to coast, not quite. We need Seattle and then we would have been. So, okay, now we get, Ed said, what did we charge? I said, I have no idea. I said, I know. Five, five minute routines a week for 13 weeks.

I said, I don't know, it's seven fifty, seven dollars and 50 cents. No, no, come on. Yeah, yeah, I said, yeah, I think. Well, we found out the tape cost more than $7.50. So one of the stations stiffed us. I don't know which one it was, one of the radio stations. Two wanted to renew us on this basically poor man,

Bob and Ray program. And we wrote him back and said, I'm sorry, we can't afford to do this anymore. You know, it cost us money. So then Ed was offered a job in New York in advertising at BBDNO. So I'm in Chicago and Ed had to take the job because he had kids and he's married and we had nothing going and we weren't making money. So I said okay I either have to find another partner as good as Ed, or I go out on my own. So I decided to go out on my own.

So a lot of the conversations, somebody is still there. Right, yeah. He's on the other end of the phone. Right, yeah. But in on the other end of the phone. Right. Yeah. But, and leading up to the record, how did the record deal sort of come together? You couldn't audition.

No. What happened was a disc jockey friend of mine, a guy named Dan Sorkin, he was a great disc jockey. He was like just off the wall kind of. Right. So the Warner Brother record people were coming through Chicago. So they call on Dan,

cause he's a very big disc jockey. To see what's going on? To just, you know, handshake and, oh, by the way, we've got the Everly brothers. Oh, right, right, right. Really like you to play this hot piece of wax. Yeah. So he said, I had this friend of mine.

I was on a, they had the Power Show in Chicago. Yeah. We got huge ratings. And it was off at 11 o'clock. NBC decided, what do we do with this audience that we've got? So they decided to build a show around Dan Sorkin, the disc jockey.

I was a- The TV show. TV show. To keep the power audience. Yeah. I was a writer and performer. And the show lasted, I think, four weeks, I think.

The director, he said, if you were at home and you opened the window, when the power show went off, and the Dan Sorkin show came on, you could hear an audible click of television sets all over or Chicago being turned off. So anyway, Dan is, so he's familiar with my material.

So the one of other people, so he says, I have this friend of mine, I think he's familiar with my material. So the Wonder Brothers people, so he says, I have this friend of mine, I think he's very funny. And I said, okay, we'll listen to him. So Dan calls me up, he said, borrow a tape recorder and record Abe Lincoln, submarine commander, and driving instructor. So I do, I take the tape down there. They listen to it, they say, okay, we think it's very funny,

and we'll record you at your next nightclub. Right. I said, I've never played a nightclub. They said, well, we'll have to find you a nightclub and record you at that nightclub. And that was the year. And that took a year to find him. Unbelievable.

To find him. And because I called him up at one point, I said, because I had signed a recording contract with Warner Brothers. And I said, whatever happened today, said we're still trying to find a place that'll take a chance on us. I can't believe that's so astounding to me

that the industry was so intimate at that time and so controlled that if you wanted to, you couldn't just rent a place. But that wasn't really a possibility, because you needed the audience of the nightclub. You needed to walk into an established joint. It's amazing to me. Okay, so it takes a year, you end up in Texas,

you knock this thing out, and your expectations around it, you knew you did well, right? I mean, you felt good? You didn't? No, no, I didn't know. I thought the record might might sell 25,000 yeah copies and so if I went into a city, maybe there are 50 people That heard her deal and would come in to just to see it right to see the guy

So you make a little bit of money. You think you could get started. And it's a great adjunct to a standup career. Yeah, sure. I had no idea it was going to explode. What do you think that was? What do you think that moment was culturally? I mean, because I mean, before, I mean, you were familiar with Lenny Bruce,

you knew Mortswale You know these guys were were, you know, aggressively taking on politics You know and aggressively pushing the envelope and you seem to find a level this I guess I'm answering my own question You can tell me if I'm right or wrong They found this level where it was where it was clean and not menacing to sort of get the message of You know kind of sticking it the message of kind of sticking it to corporate America, kind of sticking it to these shadow forces.

There was a, I remember, Millstein, his last name, and he was a writer for the New York Times. And he came down, he interviewed me at some place, maybe The Hungry Eye, where I was playing at the time. And he wrote an article and he called it The Man Who Bites the Hand That's Feeding Him. Which is kind of what we were talking about. Yeah.

He's biting the advertising, he's making fun of the advertising world that the advertising people are going to see this man who then makes fun of what they do. That's a tricky business, because if you go too far they're gonna be like screw that guy, yeah, that guy's finished, he's a troublemaker. But somehow or another you found a very diplomatic line. There's nothing better than being able to rip somebody and have them laugh. Without them knowing it, sometimes without them Somehow or another you found a very diplomatic line. There's nothing better than being able to

rip somebody and have them laugh. Without them knowing it. Sometimes without them knowing it. Because they're saying, I know that guy. Yeah, right, it ain't me. Oh, yeah, it's him. It's him. I guess that's something you share with Don Rickles.

You're just a little, that might be the core of your friendship. Is that you're much more subtle, but you're kind of doing the core of your friendship. You're much more subtle, but you're kind of doing the same thing. Okay, I'll take that. I knew where I stood in terms of politically, but I also knew I was doing something important. I knew I was making fun of the large corporation

and I was making fun of the military, the highly organized. I was just doing it in a little different way. You're humanizing it. In the sense that, you know, cause you were doing characters. And you know, and these characters, even though you don't hear Abe Lincoln talk you know what he became in that bit was sort of like this you know overly earnest you know not quick

person and and the shtick of the press agent was like yeah you know that's the fact that this this is one of the most revered presidents in American history. And I'm saying the guy isn't real bright. He's thick. Yeah. And it was, I think it was, it kind of released some steam in the American culture. It's phenomenal. Like in just listening to this stuff this morning, it's so fresh in my head that a lot of that stuff still holds up.

And the thing with the rocket scientist is a great bit. Because then- See, that's weird, because that's one of the really obscure. I love it. I love it because you're dealing with, I mean, Lenny did a bit about Hitler, right? Yeah, yeah.

That bit about, he's a painter, MCA and Hitler. But it's still Hitler. So Hitler's on the periphery of the rocket scientist. But to actually draw attention to the fact that these rocket scientists were Nazis. And then the whole bit is this sort of like, it turns out him, you're gonna pay me later. And the best line, and to make a long story short,

we lose the war. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But that's provocative stuff, and I don't know that Americans were necessarily, certainly people that weren't intellectuals

or paying attention, had not put that stuff together at all, necessarily. Okay. No, no. Perhaps. All I'm saying is it struck me funny. Right. And I did it.

Did you feel like you had a... But I wasn't setting out to blaze any new trails or... Right, but it was just, this is where your mind was working. But this was in my gut that these things upset me. You had, oh, they did upset you, and you had a point to make. Yeah, the large, unfeeling corporation, the military, this man, this submarine commander, rises at least seven levels above where he's competent. Right.

And very calmly explains this horrendous trip that they made. Two years, underwater. Underwater. And the sick line is what we saved, as you know, we knocked two minutes off the previous record four minutes and 29 seconds in surfacing, firing at the toward target and then resubmerging.

I think a lot of the time we saved was because of the men we had to leave on deck. I think they, in no small small way had an awful lot to do with the two minutes that we cut off the record and none of us will soon forget their somewhat stunned expressions as we watched them through the periscope. I'm not even sure that's on the album, is it?

I'm not sure. I don't think it is. You know why? Because Don Adams stole it. He stole it? I tried to, I had nothing going, and I tried to sell him the Submarine Commander, and he turned it down. And then just took it?

Yeah. Oh, before you did Button Down Line? How'd you come in touch with Don Adams? Because at this point, nothing was happening. And so I said, I'll become a, no, even before. When Ed had gone to New York and I don't know what the hell direction to go in. And I said, okay, I'll become a comedy writer.

And so I tried to sell it to Don Adams. And Don and I were good friends and we get along. Is he from Chicago? No, Don's from New York. How were you meeting these guys? Who else did you pick? He was at the Cloister in Chicago. Don Adams, I'd seen him on television. And...

So there was a period where you were gonna be a comedy writer and you'd go out and try to pitch gags to guys. Only to Don Adams, that's the only one. Because he stole it. And he did me a favor because, well, I said, well, if they're gonna steal it, I may as well do it myself.

So that was your one experience in writing jokes. The guy just took it. All right, kids, a good idea, I can't use it. I'll tell you what happened. I did it for him. Yeah. He was staying at the Mayflower Hotel in the Cloisters. And I stood up and did the submarine commander for him.

He said, I'm trying to get away from that particular character, but that's the thing. So here's my address and keep in touch. So I went home and I'm watching the Steve Allen show. Yeah. And he comes on and he's doing the Submarine Commander. Yeah. And I'm yelling at the TV.

Well. That's mine. That's mine. He did the whole bit? He did the guts of it. Yeah. And that one part that you weren't able to put on the record. So when I made the record, I took that part out

because I was afraid people were going to say, oh, he stole that from Dianos. So that was an issue with that generation of comics at the beginning, this idea of the bits being yours, especially if they were original. I mean, there's a difference between an old joke and a unique take on something, and everyone was aware of that.

And also the darkness, see, that's the other thing that, like, it started driving me nuts when I was coming over here and thinking about talking to you is that I think that most people know you from the television shows, and that you made these seminal, amazing records, and there's a darkness to it, there's a cut, there's a bite to it, you know, you were sticking it to them,

you had a point of view. I mean, the ledge psychology bit, even as simple as that, like, I don't know that, you know, anyone was humanizing these, you know, because it reminded me, you know, that bit that Lenny did about the guy who put his mother on the plane with the insurance policy. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, yeah. You know, so like there's this idea where you got this story where a cop, he's gonna talk a guy off the ledge, and he doesn't. But not appear to. Right, right, right, he's gotta play it cool. Yeah. And you think it's all going well,

where'd that guy go? You know, there's a darkness to that. That's, you know, But you finally talk him out of it, and then you're gonna disappoint a lot of people. Yeah, right. Some of them, they've been on there two, three hours. They even need a show.

Which is, again, you're attacking those strange people down there. Who were expecting the blood. Who were expecting, yeah. Yeah, it was amazing. So you do these three records almost in back to back back-to-back and now all of a sudden out of nowhere Without being run down by the road. I think that you were given a gift in that I do you think your point of view could have survived as a you know

Just going out and doing nightclubs without the the amazing sort of success that happened all at once No, I don't think so. Could you have handled it? No, because I did it. Yeah. I mean, when I played the Houston, the Tidelands, and then there was about three months before the record came out. So I played a club in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and it's across from Detroit. As in unknown?

Yeah, the record had not come out. Right. And died every night. I died two shows a night for a week. And Canadians are very nice people. I mean, they didn't yell anything. They just, they'd occasionally look up and, oh, he's still on

Oh and nothing nothing not a snicker in the states, too No, then I went to another club in Winnipeg and it went great. Yeah, because it but Windsor I was I was thinking of going back to a county right because I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life Standing on the stage with no one paying any attention to me and not laughing. It's the same material that was ahead four months later. So you learned to listen there somehow. Yeah, I'm not sure what it is. All right, so now you're a comic.

Now you know, you did the three months. I'm a comedian. Yeah, stand up comic. Stand up comic, okay. Stand up comedian. Stand up comedian. Jack Benny once said, a comic says funny things.

A comedian says things funny. Okay. Okay? Yeah. And you do the Winnipeg show, you got your road chops in in between recording your record and the release of the record.

And you went through a dark night between Winnipeg and Windsor. You're very condensed experience. And then this record blows up and now you're a made guy. You're one of the guys. Now I gotta assume that a lot of guys were like, who the hell is this guy? Yeah, because they didn't know.

I wasn't part of, you know, oh I ran into him, yeah, he followed me. Right, all the comics, there were hundreds of comics. I said who, yeah, I didn't know any of them. Where the hell did this guy come from? I knew him by reputation, but I didn't know him. I mean the one benefit of it is, and the miracle of it is, is that,

as we said before, if you would've just started out on the road, who the hell knows what your style would've become? So now your record becomes popular exactly the way you wanted to do it. And now people are like, we want to see that guy. And they're coming out to see you. It's an amazing gift.

You didn't get all beaten up. Because it's all attitude. Right. It's all attitude. Yep, and if you were out there grinding away, trying to entertain people as an unknown, you might not ever come up with what you want. You might never have arrived at what you want.

I'll just hell with it. I'm not gonna go through this. I'm not cut out for this. So what happened? So it must have just been like a rocket. You must have just been overnight almost. It was crazy. It was just crazy.

Then it was the hungry eye, then it was the crescendo. Yeah. And you're meeting all the guys. Who are you meeting? Like who are you seeing? No, I'm not meeting all the guys. I met him as I go along. I met Buddy Hackett.

Oh my God, he was so funny. Yeah, yeah. Inventive. So inventive. Just like, but he was just, he was one of my favorite. Like when I was a kid, I sent him, I sent a way for his autographed picture. There was just some.

Did he send it? Yeah. Somebody sent it. You're one of the lucky ones. Somebody sent it. My grandmother loved him. You know, she'd go to Vegas a lot, my grandmother. She'd see Shaggy Green, Buddy Hawk, and Rickles.

What she said about Rickles was funny. He's like, he's very mean, nasty, but after the show, he apologizes very nicely to everybody. And she loved Buddy Hackett. But what first started to happen? Because we're talking 1961, it's still 10 years before the Bob Newhart Show, where America gets to know you as a television personality

So so what happens you you know, yeah, I know you did the D Martin show a lot. You did Sullivan Yeah, you know you did I'm getting calls. Yeah, the record explodes and I got a call you want to do six at Sullivan's or eight at Sullivan's I called you, you want to do six Ed Sullivan's or eight Ed Sullivan's? I'm like, what the hell's going on? I don't know, just like that. I'm enjoying the hell out.

Right. And how do you record the other two records within two years? How does that happen? Did you just get manic and just start jamming? No, it was a flow. It just kept coming out. As you were performing more.

Yeah, yeah. I'd get a germ of an idea and then I'd expand on it and say, oh, okay, that's starting to work. I'll throw that in tomorrow night and I'll add this until you had a bit. And then you started to, it seemed to me that you started to enjoy acting characters. I watched some of the stuff with Dean Martin.

It just looked like you guys were having so much fun. We were, we were. I mean, how many times did you work with him? I did 24 Deans, because Greg knew that. Who's Greg? Greg Garrison, who produced the Dean Martin show. He said, why don't you take some of your routines and include Dean?

Because Dean came in Sunday, that was it, you know. That's the day they shot? Yeah, that's the day he came in around noon, one o'clock. So he played golf in the morning. He came in, now sometimes he'd be in his dressing room and they'd have a camera, a TV set, and he'd watch it and see what he was supposed to do. Other times he'd get involved in it.

So I'd do the thing with a hair piece. He had never seen it. So when I started doing it, now it breaks him up about returning the hair piece. So he was a great audience. He's a great audience. Because he wasn't at rehearsal. No, no, he just, it's just funny to him.

So, Greg said, I need a short thing at the front, you and Dean, I said, okay, I'm a plate act. Plate act, you know, with the sticks. So, but I'm from Europe, Eastern Europe. So, Dean said, we're very lucky to have one of the great plate acts of Eastern Europe with us, Gregor, somebody, whoever I am. Gregor, nice thing, thank you very much,

Mr. Martin. He said, I'd love to have you, would you do your famous plate act for the people? I said, I lost the plates. I said, I took the plane, the sticks in the plates, I lost, I don't know where they went. He said, well, could you do it anyway? I said, without, do it without the plates?

Yes, could you do it without the plates? You want me to do the show without the plates? So, I said, yeah, so. There's nothing, there's no plates. He's just putting mime plates. Yeah. I don't know, I just, because it's nothing, there's no plates. He's just fitting mime plates. I don't know, I just, cause it's funny, if a plate loses his plates, what has he got?

And Dean was just cracking up. That was a challenge every week to break Dean up. Was it hard? No, no. I never knew that about him, but that makes so much sense because he was so in the moment. Oh yeah, he would finish up,

and then Greg would be there, Gene, you walk over here. And then he'd just show up? And just read those cards. Which is what he was doing to me, he was just reading the cards over my shoulder. Great entertainer, though. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. So in that decade there, you were doing Vegas. Prior to, yeah, prior to the. To the TV show. So you're doing Vegas, and you got a family, you know, you got a wife. Yeah.

And that must have been a strain, was it? Well, they wouldn't go on, well, they'd go on the road with me too. Yeah. But mostly I'd play Vegas and they'd come up. Right. But then on Sunday night, they'd go home, Jenny and the kids wouldn't go home

because they had to go to school. Right. But then they'd come up Friday night. So, it was as normal a life as you could. Have as an entertainer? Yeah. So you weren't doing the road per se? Were you? So it was as normal a life as you could. Have as an entertainer? Yeah. So you weren't doing the road per se? Yeah, I'm still doing the road.

And what about the Variety Show? How did that come about? You know, the Variety Show was the result of the record album. That came. The first one again. Yeah, the first one. That was 61 to 60.

So there was a feeding frenzy. This guy, we gotta get this guy. Just get him on television. There were some very good shows in there. I wasn't very good. I was fine. It was a monologue, girl singer, guy singer, sketch, actor sometimes, Charles Lawton.

Random Charles Lawton. He was the guy you remember. Charles Lawton was there I think one day. Charles Bronson. Before he was Charles Bronson. And we'd do a sketch. I was terrible in the sketches. I'm so used to people-ing the monologue with people. And then there are these people that I know,

he doesn't look like the guy I thought. That I made up. That's in my head. So you had trouble making the jump from solo to interacting. To sketches, yeah, to sketches. Plus the fact at the end of the first year, they were going to renew the show. It was borderline.

They said, but you gotta make some changes. You have to get rid of the announcer, Dan Sorkin. I said, no, no. The radio guy. The radio guy. You brought him along. He was my announcer, yeah. I said, no, no, I can't. You did him a solid, that's a loyalty thing.

I guess so, I guess so. Well, he was. I love knowing that people take care of their friends. Well, if he hadn't played the record for Warner Brothers, I'd... Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

So I said, plus the fact that I was doing a monologue every week, 33 monologues, and they weren't of the quality. They occasionally were of the quality, but they weren't of the quality of the record. Of the stuff that you wrote alone. Yeah. So you had writers. I have writers and I'm writing some of it myself.

Sure, of course, of course. But the pressure of every week is, so to me the quality of the monologue was, so. And you have a very specific style, it's not like you're just doing jokes off the news. I mean, you gotta, you know, these are elaborate bits. You were probably, your monologues are probably one bit, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a different, that's a different game. I, I one time, this was in, I wasn't yet along with the producer. And at that time, so I went home to Chicago at Christmas time. This is how naive I am. I call up my manager, Frank Hogan.

I said, Frank, why don't you call NBC? I really don't want to do this anymore. I mean, so why don't they put in another show? And I'll just do college concerts. Well, the nice thing I know, a vice president of MCA has flown into Chicago. No, you can't do it that way. You can't say this isn't working out.

Bob doesn't enjoy this as much as he thought he would. So can you just put something else in there? That's what I thought. They sent the heavies. as much as he thought he would. So can you just put something else in there? That's what I thought. They sent the heavies. And now they see their commission going away because they don't own the next show that they're going to replace. Right.

So I make it to, I did 33 shows I think. So like after the vice president, if he held your ground, the next guy would have had brass knuckles and lived near you in Chicago. We got a guy here. Maybe talk some sense in this new art character.

So, okay, so I'm going in, they're talking about renewing me. I'm thinking, do I really want to do another 33 shows, try and do a good monologue every week? And then they said Dan Sorkin, and then I said, I don't want to. So that's incredibly bold, you realize the integrity of what. Or stupid.

Yeah, but did you ever have regrets about it at that time? No, no. Because you're making money on the road. Well, everything has turned out great. But the reasons were the integrity of what you do and the treatment of your friend. Those are big artistic choices. There's nothing worse than saying lines

that you know aren't right, they're not funny. And then you got a bunch of people saying, like, just do the joke. You know, it's not a, it's a funny joke, it's funny enough, what do you, what you gotta go crazy for? As you're doing, as you're writing a new routine, they're saying funny, funny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, sure. Funny, funny. No change of expression. There's a producer over at Conan that used to do that. Funny idea, funny idea. Yeah.

Ha, ha, ha. And if you actually make them laugh, it's like, oh my God. If that's what you're really laughing, like you've been bullshitting me for what, probably a year now? That's the first time you laughed. It's like you're walking down the street, you know, and you come to the corner of a building and you hear this terrible noise and you turn around and you see this safe has fallen and just missed you by about three feet. Yeah. Then that's your life.

Oh my God, I almost got. That's it. So then you're just, for those years you're doing TV, this is after the Variety show, you're doing D. Martin show. Do you feel like you're part of the crew at some point? Like you're doing Johnny's show a lot, and you're doing D. Martin's show. I mean, you're hanging out with Buddy Hackett,

with Don Rickles, and Shecky Crenin. Yeah, now I'm getting to know, especially in Vegas, you'd get to know opening acts, and you'd get to know closing acts. And who were some of the guys you work with that you really got close to? Well, Shecky, Don, Buddy. You talk to Shecky still?

I saw Shecky, I did a date last year in the spring, so I saw Shecky. Yeah, is it good to see these guys after so many years? Yeah. I wish I'd seen him one day. Shecky, he just make it up. He just, he just walk on stage and just start making it up and...

Kill. I heard great stories. Like, Vegas, they wanted you, they wanted the opening act to do a half an hour and the closing act to do an hour. And that's what they wanted. They didn't want 31 from their opening act or an hour and one from, they wanted an hour, that's what they wanted. They didn't want 31 from their opening act or an hour and one from they wanted and that's all because they wanted to get

the people back in the casino. So Shecky is in the lounge at the Riviera. He sort of invented lounge comedy didn't he? Yeah And he's, and the lounge at this point is a small showroom, it's beautiful. Right. And so he's in the middle of his act, so he's going over the hour, so they start turning out the lights. And he's on stage, so he takes a match, he lights it, and he does the rest of his act.

He keeps going. He seemed like a pretty exciting character. Oh yeah. And Buddy Hackett live was amazing too, huh? I saw Buddy one time. It was just, he came out and he said, I was talking to Joe Kelman. I knew Joe Kelman.

Joe Kelman was a guy in Chicago. He had a glass company. And I got married to Sherry, my wife Sherry. Sherry Dubois was her name, Sherry Dubois. Her actual name was Esther Cohen, but she changed her name to Sherry Dubois. So I tried to, and he goes on and he does his bits. And now 20 minutes in he says, oh what was I talking about?

And the audience, as one person says, Joe Kelman, oh yeah, Joe Kelman. And I think, you son of a bitch, you knew exactly where you were. But you made it look like he was making it up. Yeah, yeah. It's a good trick. Great.

But you always stuck by the script of what you did. You were not, you didn't improvise much, or you didn't like it, or? I'll tell you a story. I had a thing, because I started really at the top. Most comics start, opening act, for 10, 15 years. But in the back of their minds, when I make it, I'm gonna buy a Maserati, and I'm gonna buy the home in Beverly Hills.

I started at the top. So I gotta learn at the top. I gotta learn my craft at the top, because I don't know my craft yet. So every night in Vegas I peeked through the curtains to check out the audience, and oh, it looks like a trouble table then. Yeah, he's drunk, he's gonna be, okay, he's gonna be trouble, oh shit, there's a woman over there,

she's gonna be trouble. You feel it, don't you? Yeah, every show, it's a ritual. So I'm talking to my manager and I hear my bow music. I thought, I haven't looked through the curtains yet. And I thought to myself, well, I'll handle it, whatever happens, I'll handle it. Yeah.

That is a big shift. That's what I do. I learn. I feel that too. You go in the room and you're like, there's a bad energy. What's happening right there, that's gonna be the problem. Sometimes they're not though. No. You go in the room and you're like, there's a bad energy. What's happening right there, that's gonna be the problem. Sometimes they're not though.

No. You know, they're just people. Some of them know how to behave. Yeah, can't. Some of them realize they're on a show. Yeah. I'm surprised. And now, because now after 53 years,

there's a respect that they don't. Sure. They don't yell up at you The reason I had a problem with drunks or hecklers because I'm in the middle of something I'm in the middle of the rocket scientists now. There's some drunk and he's yelling out something now I got to go outside the bit to put him down somehow and then get back in into the bit So that ruins the continuity. Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes depending on how the crowd work goes. It's hard to get back into the bit. It ruins the continuity. Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes depending on how the crowd work goes, it's hard to get back into the bit.

Yeah. Yeah, but you've had to do that. That's why I hated it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I'd look for the trouble. Yeah, but even if you look through the trouble, even if you see them, you're just preparing yourself.

You still can't stop anything from happening. Of course, of course. I didn't realize you guest hosted The Tonight Show so much. Yeah, yeah. That was it, like that's unheard of now. No one does that. Everyone's so afraid of losing their job, no one would ever think.

87 times or something. And Johnny would just, what, you'd just get a call? I mean, your relationship with Johnny was good? Were you guys friends? Yeah, no, we were friends. Yeah, good friends, yeah. And he was a hilarious guy. Oh, quick, yeah.

And he just trusted you with that gig. It seemed like there was only a few people during that period. Well, see, here's what he would do to me. You go to a pre-interview. You're gonna do Johnny Schultz. Right, right. Pre-interview.

Jess came back from a trip with Ricklesles has a funny story about Don in Venice. Okay, that's the first second one Had just has a new dog has funny stories about dog in the house Ladies and gentlemen Bob and Hart sit down. I said Johnny. Yeah Do you ever go skeet shooting? I look at him like you sound a bit John Bobbitt Hart, he's going to sit down, I said, Johnny. Yeah? Did you ever go skeet shooting? I look at him like, you sound a bit, you know I have nothing on skeet shooting, what are you doing?

And he had this kind of smile on his face. He set you up. But he trusted me, and we'd make something out of it, but he did that all the time. Oh, that's hilarious. And of course, what I loved is when he came out and died. Yeah. And would call the mic, see if the mic's on.

Yeah. He invented something, I'll tell you that. And did you like doing that? Do you like hosting or anything? Yeah, yeah, it was a challenge, but it was so powerful, I mean, in plugging appearances into it, you know. So, yeah, so you filled up places. But I did it for three weeks, one time in New York.

I filled in for Johnny. He was having salary disputes with NBC, so they were looking for people who maybe would take Johnny's place. But he knew that? Yeah, oh sure. This is in the 70s. Did you have to ask him first?

He said, I know you're in contract. No, no, I was just kind of aware of it. No one ever said it, but it was kind of in the... So I did it for three weeks. The writers took the three weeks off because I'm not going to fire a writer. So they would give me three bad jokes and then they'd work on their play.

So I've got 18 bad jokes. So I'm at the end of three weeks. I'm a, I'm a bath case. I'm brain dead. And the man did it for 30 years. I did it for three weeks. I'm brain dead. It takes a special person to do that.

Oh yeah, yeah. To do that show. It's insane. A dedication that's incredible. And in terms of movie acting, it seems like you did a few meaty parts, but you'd show up and they'd know exactly. It seemed like people, when they cast you,

they were like, well, Newhart would be good for this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you didn't really do really serious parts until fairly recently, right on television. Yeah. Do you like doing that? It depends on the project.

Right, right, yeah. I mean, I never studied acting. Right. I mean, I was in that group, but I never really studied it. What was that group? Did it have a name? Just Oak Park Playhouse. Oh, okay.

Wasn't a second city. Suburb of Chicago. And we were doing Pygmalion and those kind of... With no guidance, just a director. No, and I played very cheap sets, you know. Barely held up through the performance. Someone sat and they broke and fell apart.

But Catch-22 was a big role. Oh yeah. And that was a bizarre movie, and a great movie, a great story, Mike Nichols directed it. That's right Did you know Mike previous to that? No, I only knew of Mike right Mike. Yeah, and then I could and then of course when he started directing That was the cast on that was astounding. Yeah And you know when you did that was did you feel like your movie career was gonna you know really take off?

That's an odd When you did that, did you feel like your movie career was gonna really take off? That's an odd, Mike came to us and said, you're all figments of Yossarian's imagination. You don't actually exist. You're figments of Yossarian's imagination. Which is the catch-22 of I want to get out of... You gotta be crazy to fly. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you're crazy, then you're not crazy. Right, right, right, right. As everybody does. So I didn't, frankly, I didn't know what the hell Mike was talking about. But so I just played it for laughs. I just played major, major, major. Just, I didn't know what the hell Mike was talking about. So I just played it for laughs. I just played major, major, major.

I made it funny. Yeah, it was funny. Now you're seasoned. You can act. You're one of the guys. Before I get to that, was there resentment of you coming in as green as you were from other comics? Did you feel that at all?

Probably. Yeah. That's good. That's diplomatic. A little bit maybe. I just know comics and I've got to assume you're taking a bit of shit here and there. Yeah, I won't tell you who the comic was. What he could be on, he could be in Venice for six months, staying at a beautiful hotel, great money, sitting, reading variety, and I would have been perfect for that. And he's mad.

Right, sure. Perfect, I would have been perfect for that. And he's mad. And perfect, I would have been perfect for that. I had a friend who used to call the TV the resentment box. How the hell'd that guy get that? I guess it never changes, you know? It's a tough business. So the opportunity, had you been given other opportunities to do sitcoms before that, before the Bob Newhart show? And you were just too busy on the road or didn't want to do it? I don't think so.

No? I don't remember, maybe. Yeah. But they didn't, I read them and they didn't seem right. So how did this come about? This came about because MTV, Maybe, but I read them and they didn't seem right. So how did this come about? This came about because MTM was founded by Mary Tyler Moore, Grant Tinker, and Arthur Price.

Arthur Price was my manager. So he came to me and this Mary's show was a big hit. He said, would you like to do a television show? And I said, yeah, you guys can get off the road and have a normal life. Yeah. Just drive over to Burbank or wherever. Yeah. And he said, okay, okay.

So he said, I got a couple of writers and Dave Davis, Lorenzo Music, and the three of us sit down and kind of knock out what you'd like to do. So we started talking about, okay, based on the writer, Bob listens to people. Well, that's what he, he's a very good listener. Okay, what's a profession for people to listen? Psychiatrist.

I said, well, I said, psychiatrists really, they deal with seriously ill schizophrenics. And much as I would like to get my humor from schizophrenics, I don't think America's ready for it yet. So then we said maybe a psychologist. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay, psychologist. They do kind of lesser disturbed people.

Right. Then we started casting. Then we saw. Bill Daly? Well, I knew Bill from Chicago. Bill wasn't in the original. The original pilot was Suzy. Suzy was on...

She was on the Tonight Show with Johnny. And my manager, Arthur Price, had seen... He said, I think I found your wife. Comedian. I didn't know she was missing. Yeah. Boom. He said, Suzanne? I said, Suzanne she was missing. Yeah. Boom. Yeah. He said, Suzanne, I said, Suzanne would be great. I said, I didn't think she'd want to do weekly television.

He said, well, I'll make a phone call. And so she said yes. So then we built the show around the condominium that we stayed in, in Chicago. And the condominium that we stayed in in Chicago and the condominium meetings. And we shot that pilot. Between that time, then we reshot it. We shot it with Bill Daley, Mrs. Paley, or Bill Paley,

who ran the network, owned the network, had seen her on a Merv Griffin show. or Bill Paley, who ran the network, owned the network, seen her on a Merv Griffin show, and she'd be very funny on What's His Name's show. Your show. Bill Paley, your What's His Name. One of many What's His Names. Yes. So, I had worked with Peter on...

Peter Bonners. Peter Bonners on Sketch 22. And I knew we were gonna do the show. So who was, Paley, talking about Marshall Wallace? Marshall Wallace, yeah. So I knew we were gonna do the show in front of a live audience, which every show did. So I knew we needed people who were used to live audiences

because as a standup I was used to live audiences. Peter was in the committee up in San Francisco. Marcia had done some acting. Susie, of course, had done a lot. Never done, well she had done Broadway, but serious stuff. Yeah. And Bill Daley, Bill was doing standup but at the same time I was doing standup. We've done Broadway, but serious stuff. And Bill Daley, Bill was doing stand-up about the same time I was doing stand-up.

So we shot the show with those people at it. Yeah, I was wondering, because I was going through the first disc, and then the second disc starts with a pilot, the one. I think it's in this. It is in there, yeah. It's in there. Yeah. It's in there, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So now you got this great cast of characters and then you got the recurring cast of the people in the group sessions and the patients, the fellow who played Mr. Carlin, who was amazing. What was his name? Jack Riley.

Unbelievable. Was he a comic? No, he wasn't a standup. No, he wasn't a stand-up. No, he was part of what I call the Cleveland mafia, which was Pat McCormick, Jack Riley, Tim Conway, Ernie Anderson, anyway, these guys, anyway, he was... They were out here. Yeah, Jack was more an actor than a stand-up, yeah. So funny.

Great character. Is he still around? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's how history was made, is that you were set up, because you were good, listening is one way to put it, but I think reactor. You're great.

That's the other word they use, yeah, Bob reacts to it. Yeah, and that's sort of like, I guess that's where the comparisons to Benny come from, that you have that moment that take, that's very specific to you. I don't see a real correlation, but it's just a comic thing that people make up. They say I have his timing, but you can't teach somebody

how to time it. No, that's the weird thing. What Jack was, was he was brave. He was one of the bravest. Oddly, Jack Benny with his walk and all that was one of the bravest comedians who ever lived. Really? Because he would just, he would take the time.

Yeah. He wasn't afraid of silence or quiet or anything. That's a lot of lessons that we learned from that. You know, that, you know, to own it. Yeah. And decide your own pace. I'll tell you a story about, Dick Martin told me this story.

From Rowan and Martin? Rowan and Martin. Yeah. Jack is appearing at the Sahara in Las Vegas. The opening act is the Will Mast trail with Sammy Davis Jr. They come out, they open for Jack, destroyed the audience. They're screaming, standing on the tables, pounding. They go off, Jack comes up. He said, aren't they wonderful? Aren't they just wonderful? Said in the afternoon, sometimes I'll have some tea,

usually around, I don't know, 430 in the afternoon, quarter of five, five, sometimes five. Five, sometimes five. And I was in a movie with this actor and I can't remember his, oh, I promised Sammy Davis he could do another, would you mind if Sammy, Birth of the Blues destroyed, now you thought they'd destroyed him the first time, they're pounding on the tables.

Jack watches them go off. Clive, Clive, that was his name. Ha ha ha ha ha. Did he pull him around? Killed it. Yeah. That's amazing. That's brave.

Yeah. That's brave. That's brave. Yeah. That's brave. Yeah, yeah. It's a hell of a reset after a big musical act, I bet. So that show, the Bob Newhart Show, I think it sort of set the standard for a comedian being in a sitcom, in a way. Kind of, yeah.

I mean, it was like revolutionary. I mean, Mary Tyler Moore was one thing. That was an ensemble cast. But to build a show around a stand-up, it seems to me that was one of the first ones really of that model. I think so. Because you didn't have to spend six episodes explaining who the guy was. Right. You know, you knew who Cosby was when he walked on. You knew who Roseanne was. Yep, and that all happened after you. And you were obviously comfortable with the material and the character and you liked your writers. Now, was it a struggle at all to sort of honor your voice and how much did you have influence in that? Well, I had total control if I wanted to.

Right. You know, if I wanted to exercise. Yeah, yeah. In the sixth year of the show, and I'd already said that was going to be the end of the show, the sixth year of the Bob Newhart Show. They came to me with a script where Suzanne is pregnant. Now I had specified in the first, very first show,

I didn't want to have children. That isn't the kind of show I wanted to do. So in the hopes that maybe I would consider not ending the show with the sixth year and maybe going on to the seventh or eighth, that maybe if they introduce Suzanne's pregnant and has a baby and so I read this over the weekend. So Mike Zinberg, the producer calls me,

said did you get the script? They said yes, I read it, I read it. He said, what'd you say? I said very funny, I said it's a very funny script. He said oh good, because we were worried, we didn't know if you'd like it. I said yes, it's very funny. I said, who are you going to get to play Bob?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that. So it's there. The power is there.

If you choose to exercise or not, it's, yeah. Right. And you know it's there. But that wasn't your thing. They knew and, you know, it was never. So that ran for what? Six. Six, and that was it. Yeah, and that was enough. Yeah It's just it's a feeling. Yeah, it's just okay. Yeah, I think and and they were okay with stopping it They weren't thrilled, right?

Yeah, the network wasn't thrilled, right? So now the next show, which happened, what, what, a few years later? Four years, I think, later, yeah. And you just wanted to keep working? Doing the TV? No, I knew I was going back to television. Yeah.

I just, I loved the medium. I just enjoyed it, I understood it. Yeah. There was a normalcy to it. Yeah, you had a job. Job, you go home and a normalcy to it. You had a job? Job, you go home and have normal hours. That went for like what, eight years? That went eight, yeah.

The first two were kind of shaky. We were feeling our way and then the second year we brought in Julia Duffy, who was wonderful, and then Peter Scolari. Tom Poston was in from the Bob Newarch show. Yeah, he was the peeper. Yeah. Yeah.

And then it took off, but the first couple years were kind of... But they held in, they stayed with you. Yeah, because I think loyalty to me, and Larry Darrell in Darrell. Yeah. Yeah. There, guys. Those were the guys, those were you. to me and Larry Darrell and Darrell. There, guys. Those were the guys.

Those were you. You had a hell of a job as a straight man with that career, huh? Well, I would always, whenever they came in, I was always behind the counter, putting keys away or something, because there was gonna be about 30, 40 seconds of applause when they came in, and when they left,

there'd be 30, 40 seconds. People loved them. Absolutely. The first show they came in, we had a witch was buried in the basement of the inn, and I called Larry Darrell and Darrell, not knowing who they were. I said, we have a problem

and we need someone to come over. They were, they formed a company. They called anything for a buck. That was what they were known as. And I said, well, I need somebody to dig something up in our basement. He said, well, we're very busy and we couldn't make it till like next Friday. I said, I'm sorry we need somebody before that. He said, just

out of curiosity, what is it? I said, it's a dead a dead witch is buried in our basement. He said, well we'll be right over. So he comes in. Yeah, hi I'm Larry. This is my brother Darrell. this is my other brother Darrell. And the audience goes crazy. I said, how you doing? He said, I hurt my back. I said, oh, so it sounds like, how'd you hurt your back? He said, crawling under a house.

I said, oh, it sounds like rough work. He said, it wasn't work, I just enjoy crawling under houses. He said. He he he he he he. That guy was funny. What was his name? Bill Sanders? Yeah. So that goes into syndication, the Bob Newhart Show goes into syndication. You know, where were you at mentally? Were you done? Were you done? Were you sort of retired from television in your mind? Did you done? Had you done enough? Yeah, kind of. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. My feeling was, I'd say now I still have my fastball, you know. Which actually it's a change-up. Yeah. It's not a fastball.

And they wanted me for a show, I didn't, well, no, I came back. It didn't work. That was Bob. Right. It was kind of, the idea was, we want to give them a Bob Newhart they'd never seen. Well, the audience didn't want to see a Bob Newhart they'd never seen. Do away in the game for that.

So that didn't work. Then George and Leo, they talked me into George and Leo. They came to me and said, you have to, you have to. That didn't work. And, but you were still doing stand-up dates occasionally? Yeah, oh sure. And you still do it now? I do about, yeah, about 20 a year.

How'd they go, you love it still? Yeah, I hate getting there. Yeah. I hate the flying. Do you generate new stuff or no? Well, some they want to hear. I usually do, hate... Do you generate new stuff or no? Well, some they wanna hear. I usually do, I'll do one, I'll do a driving instructor or so,

or one of the old, because I know that's where some of the people wanna hear that. Didn't you do a special that was like in the 90s that was really... At the Raymond Theater, all the... The first, those three records. The first, yeah, pretty much.

It's amazing. But live, in front of an audience. Right, right. As opposed to on a record. That's over, that's 35 years after, right? Yeah. And all those bits, I imagine, held up really well. Yeah, that was amazing, yeah.

The only one that seems dated is the automaton one, you know, the machines. Well, and Khrushchev. Khrushchev doesn't hold up. Right, right, because no one has a point of reference for it. But I mean, I thought that the machine one was prescient. I mean, it did happen, not exactly that way. Well, that depends on how America feels

about the military at that point. Oh, OK. Whether they like them or don't like them. Yeah, yeah. How did you weather the 60s when everything kind of blew open? I mean, because you just were sort of on your own trajectory,

but it seemed like you got guys like Carlin and you got guys like, you know, prior in the late 60s that really kind of locked into that. Because that wasn't who I was. I just, you know who I was. Yeah. I just, you know, I'm a comedian. I'm a stand-up comedian. Right.

But... You didn't feel pressure. I don't inform people. Right. Well, I do, but I do it very quietly. I do it... Who am I? Right, right, yeah.

That's kind of my attitude. And you know, like looking back on all of it, you know, in all the comedy, because you seem to be a tremendous fan of comedy, which I love. Oh yeah. And you know, you bring up Pryor. Wow, oh nice.

The best, right? Genius, yeah. No question about it. Here's what Pryor did for me. I made this comparison before. I got the Mark Twain Award. Pryor was the first recipient of the Mark Twain Award. And what Pryor did and Mark Twain did

are virtually the same things. Twain wrote about life on the Mississippi, life on the frontier, really. 1900, you know, the Mississippi was on the frontier really 1900 you know the Mississippi was most of the frontier and in many ways Richard did life in the inner city The thing that always struck me about him outside of You know the bits was his vulnerability on as a performer Like, you know, there was a sort of real tangible kind of emotional rawness to him.

That, you know, you felt like a lot of stuff was really happening in that moment, and that, you know, he was really putting his heart out there. Yeah. And... Painful stuff, too. Oh, yeah. When you read about his life...

But you read... He does the AfricanAmerican minister. Yeah. The African-American minister in the black community occupies a position that the pastors and ministers, they don't occupy in the white community. They are much more of a force. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the weight he brought to that thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. George Slaughter had some kind of, you know, the Comedy Awards or something.

Yeah, yeah, the Comedy Awards, right. I present him with the award. Then Richard looks at me and he said, he said, I stole your album. I said, what'd you say, Richard? He said, I stole your album, Peoria. I wear it in the record store, I put it in my jacket. With the first record?

So, I said, so I keenly, I said, well, you know, Richard, I get 25 cents an album. He says, give me a quarter, somebody got a quarter? Give me a quarter here, here you go. He was something else. No, he was, he. No, he was. He's beyond. Yeah.

He's beyond. You love comedy. Oh. When I was in Vegas, I'd be in Vegas. Yeah. I'm there for four weeks, and this is the third week and two shows a night, and you're not sure what day it is. Yeah.

And I'm getting ready to go on. Jenny would play me prior. Really? She put the record prior. Which album, do you remember? Any of them? Any one of them. Mudbone is, it's uber comedy. It's beyond comedy.

It's Mark Twain. It's cultural. It's a Twain. It's cultural. It's a whole culture. Were you familiar with him before he became? Yeah, but I knew of him like when he was doing the road show Cosby stuff. And he'd be on the Sullivan show. And he did Rage.

I think he was a poet. Wasn't he a poet? And he did rage. I think he was a poet. Wasn't he a poet and he did rage. Very toned down. I was in Vegas and he was at a different place. I think that's when he said, screw it. Yeah, it's a no, yeah. This is what I'm gonna do. Because I know he attacked a guy in the front row

who happened to be one of the executives for the Hughes Corporation, a guy named Dick Danner. And he said, what are you shaking your head for? And then he started doing, that's when he started doing what made him famous. And just talking about being black in Peoria and the mother. You were in Vegas that night where he did that?

Yeah, because I heard about it. Because they fired him on the spot. Right, and that's when he went to Berkeley and regrouped his whole thing. That's when he said, this is what I'm going to do. I can't be this guy anymore. Yeah, I can't be a road company in Crosby.

Yeah, but you know, you put Prior, you know, in this other world. Rickle's not thrilled about that. But he would never hear this. Unless somebody rats on me and tells him what. Well, it's a different game. Like if you look back, you still watch a lot of comics. That's my favorite thing, seeing a Letterman or something, Like if you look back at, you know, and you still watch a lot of comics. You know.

That's my favorite thing is seeing a letterman or something. A great new comedian. Yeah, yeah. Comes out and kills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's. Because you can relate to it. Good luck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good luck. Just on letterman. I tried it, yeah. But you know with comics, you want to see them and you don't because You see one and then like two weeks later. You'll start doing a bit and it just it's all falling into place and you start saying Did I see this? Yeah, you got am I making this up or did I see this somewhere? It's true. Yeah, you know if you're immersed in it and for a while

I wouldn't I wouldn't watch other comics for fear if you're immersed in it. And for a while I wouldn't watch other comics for fear. Because the new stuff that I came with, the first album, it just, it flowed. It just, how long do you want to make it? Right. You want to make it 12 minutes? You want to make it eight minutes?

Yeah, you do. You sort of have to keep away from it. Were you ever able to meet some of those other guys, like, you know, like did you ever have any contact with Lenny Bruce or Mortortsal or those guys? I met Lenny a couple times, yeah, yeah. It seems like there's a line drawn between him and everything else.

Not in a good way, necessarily. Like, he was, you know, it seemed to me to the comic community, to some of them, they were like, that guy's just, you know, overrated troublemaker. He was uneven, though. Lenny would be uneven right he would be just great one night and then then then then I saw he wouldn't be so great and then he got into that whole assassination and right you know oh with the Kennedy

assassination yeah yeah and with Jackie trying to get out of the car. Yeah, it was bold. No, he was, yeah, he was so... but he was a mixture of show business, chicky baby and Yiddish. Yeah, yeah. People don't realize how much Yiddish he spoke. It was all very second nature to him. And then the battle became the battle bitch with drugs and with the authorities

Yeah, and that just you know crushed him Now if you were to the other thing I want to ask you now I know you you know you did these two series you and one for six seasons one for eight seasons you never won an Emmy Okay, you got nominated a lot, and then you do you do some some big bang big bang theories and they give you the Emmy yeah, wait, was there a building bitterness about that no because All right, I did six years ages 14 years and then 15 15 counting the Bob Newhart show 15, counting the Bob Newhart show, the Variety show,

and then 17 or 18 with Bob and George and Leo, so that's 18 years on television. Yeah. I was nominated six or seven times. For several years I didn't submit my name for the award because I didn't feel what I do doesn't get awards. But that's alright because that's what I do. I'm not going to change what I do to get an award. So you're like I'm not even going to put myself in the running.

For six years. So I've been nominated enough. I was beat by people who were very good. No, there was no, would I like to have had one? Yes, yeah. And I have one now. Good, good. And you did SNL a couple times.

That must have been fun. Nice show. Yeah. I think that, I think Lauren must have a tremendous amount of respect for you. I Hope so. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that show was amazing. Yeah, you know to do it I Couldn't do it today. Yeah Right. Yeah, physically to do it and you work with Will Ferrell on elf that must know he's a very funny guy Yeah, I mean like he he's gotta be up there.

He also doesn't get a lot of credit for his role in Elf because that could have been just a big dumb guy who didn't get it. But it wasn't a big dumb guy. It was this very likable person who thought he was an elf. You know, it would have been very easy for that to, for people to say, oh, come on. You know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a special guy. You know, a very sweet guy. But when he turned, he knows, he's one of those guys where I interviewed him, low key, very amicable, and he's one of those guys where you sit and talk to him and you're kind of half-weighted. You know, like, when's someone going to have it, I just don't get it.

When's he gonna, I'm talking to him for an hour going, uh-huh, when are you gonna do the funny thing? See, it's what we talked about off mic, which was to talk to somebody else who's done standup, it's just, you can't explain it. I know, special club. Yeah, it's a very private club, filled with a lot of crazy people.

That's for sure. Yes. Always, right? Who was the guy who committed suicide? Rich Jenny. Jenny. Yeah. I thought he was wonderful.

Great, great comment. Great. Yeah, who knows? Something went wrong. Yeah, you see it was I thought it was wonderful great great comic great Yeah, who knows something something went wrong Yeah, you see it all the time and it's a lot of the same reason why we're comics you don't fit in And again that whatever's going on out there ain't right for us And there's a certain amount of acceptance. That's the beautiful thing. That's it is like, you know, obviously for generations It's been true You got a bunch of loose screws out there and they're with us and, you know, obviously for generations it's been true, you got a bunch of loose screws out there, and they're with us.

And you know, what would be sort of overwhelming to just a regular working person is just the liability of our business. Oh yeah, I know that guy, he's out of his mind. I wouldn't get into a car with him, but you can eat with him, you know, that kind of stuff. Don't give him your phone number, great act. Don't give him your phone number. Great act. Don't give him your phone number.

So that's been going on since the beginning. Yeah. Dick Martin told me this story. Dick Martin does not, he has never lied to me in his life. You think complex is crazy. There's a ventriloquist named, if I remember, Pat Patrick, is on a plane, a small plane, with the dummy. He jumps out of the plane, leaves a note, the dummy did it.

He killed himself? He killed himself. I hope that's true. the dummy did it. He killed himself? He killed himself. Ha ha ha ha. I hope that's true. I hope it's true too. So I know the box set is out of the complete Bob Newhart show from the Shout Factory. I know that there's a few available of Newhart as well.

The records are always available. Outside of the first three, you did like seven, right? Altogether. I think so, yeah. And one was a compilation, I think. Right. Now, like looking back, as I was saying, the Mudbone bit, now if you were to say one bit of yours that you thought was, that's just the gem, the one you liked doing the most or the one that you thought that was the best bit you ever wrote, what would it be? And I'll play it on the show. Okay, the problem is the cliche is which child do you want? Yeah, Sophie's choice. But I like them for different reasons. I like

the driving instructor because I think that's the one that pushed the record, that drove the first album. Very accessible. Yes. Yeah. I love the Submarine Commander. Yeah. It's the big corporation. Right.

Where some guy gets to the top who hasn't, who's totally. Incompetent. Incompetent. I love Abe Lincoln. Yeah. Because it says something. That's even truer today than it was 53 years ago.

The focus groups and manipulation of- Sure. The people who are really running things. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I gotta tell you, it was a tremendous honor for me to talk to you. Thank you, thank you got in we got into great areas. I appreciate it. I love that. I love to get into well Thanks for talking about sure

Many of you may have read The Hidden Persuaders. It's about advertising. And one of the points the book made was that the real danger of the public relations man or the advertising man was that they were creating images. And they felt that in the presidential campaigns, the candidates were really getting closer and closer together.

There was no real difference between them. And you were really voting for the man. And this got me to thinking, supposing this science were as far advanced during the Civil War as it is today and there was no Lincoln. Now the advertising people realizing this would have had to create a Lincoln. And I think they would have gone about it something like this. This is a telephone conversation between Abe and his press agent just before Gettysburg?

Sort of a drag, huh? Well, Abe, you know them small Pennsylvania towns. You've seen one, you've seen them all. All right. Listen, Abe, I got the note. What's the problem? You're thinking of shaving it off. Abe, don't you see that's part of the image? Right, with the shawl and the stovepipe at the string tie.

You don't have the shawl. Where's the shawl, Abe? You left it in Washington. What are you wearing, Abe? A sort of cardigan? Abe, don't you see that doesn't fit with the string tie and the beard? Abe, would you leave the beard on and get the show on? Alright, now what's this about Grant? You're getting a lot of complaints on Grant's drinking, huh? A, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't see the problem. I mean, you knew he was a lush one, you pointed at him, you see what I mean?

You're gag writers. Yeah, you're gag writers, Eric. You want to come back with something funny. Maybe an anecdote about a town drunk. Well, I can't promise anything, Abe. I'll get him working on it. Abe, you got the speech. Abe, you haven't changed the speech, have you? Abe, what do you change the speeches for?

A couple minor changes, I'll bet. All right, all right, what do you change the speeches for? A couple minor changes, I'll bet. All right, all right, what are they? You what? You typed it. Abe, how many times have we told you? On the backs of envelopes. I understand it's harder to read that way, Abe, but it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down or something.

Abe, could you do this? Could you memorize it and then put it on the backs of the envelopes? We're getting a lot of play in the press on that. How are the envelopes holding up? You could stand another box. All right. What else Abe? You change 4 score on 7 to 87? I understand they need the same thing. Abe, that's meant to be a grabber. Abe, we test marketed that in an area, and they went out of their minds about it. Well, Abe, it's sort of like Mark Anthony saying, friends, Romans, countrymen, I've got something I want to tell you. You see what I mean, Abe? Like, uh, uh, what, what, what else?

People will little note nor long remember. Abe, what could possibly be wrong with that? No. They'll remember it. Abe, they'll remember it. It's the old humble bit. You can't say it's a great speech, I think everybody's gonna remember it, Abe. You come off a braggart, don't you see that? Hey, Abe, do the speech the way Charlie wrote

it, would you? The inaugural address swung, didn't it? Alright, anything else? You talk to some newspaper men. Abe, I wish you wouldn't talk to newspaper men. Well, you always put your foot in. No, that's just what I mean, Abe. No, no, no, no, no. You're a rail splitter, then an attorney. Abe, it doesn't make any sense that way. You wouldn't give up your law practice to become a rail-screening, would you?

Would you read the Bi-Aug ade? You'll see there's a lot of trouble on this ade. Hey, listen, before I forget, the manufacturer is coming out with the 8 Lincoln T-shirt on Tuesday. Could you work that into the address somewhere, Abe? Play it by ear, whatever you can do. Abe, have you got a pencil and paper there? Will you take this down? You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all the people all the time.

Well, you keep doing it differently. The last quote I got was, you can fool all the people all the time. Abe, hold on, they come up with a thing on Grant. Abe, hold on, they come up with a thing on Grant. Oh, right. Good. Yeah, all beautiful. Abe, listen to this. They got a beautiful squelch on Grant.

The next time they bug you about Grant's drinking, you tell them you're going to find out what brand he drinks and send a case of it to all your other generals. Right. No, no, it's like the brand was the reason he won. No, no, no, no. Abe, use it, it's fine. Trust me, Mr.

Saturday night? Oh, Abe, I'm sorry, I'm going to be in New York Saturday night. A bridge party at the White House? Oh Abe, I'd love to make it. How about Seward? You try him? He'll be out of town too, huh? Oh, that's a... you wouldn't... what's your name? Be home alone... Mary, be home alone. Listen Abe, why don't you take an employee? I'll be talking to you, go on. I'll be talking to you, go on. I'll be talking to you, go on.

I'll be talking to you, go on. I just got done, I just got out of Bob Newhart's house, now I'm driving home, and what an amazing conversation, what an amazing history, what an amazing history, what an amazing memory and clarity the guy had. And I was really happy and honored to talk to him. And I shut the equipment off, I was packing my bags, and we were chatting, and then I went out to my car

to get my phone to take a picture, and the phone had overheated, so I came back, and I was waiting around, and Bob was Bob was you know showing me pictures that were in his office you know it was a letter from President Kennedy you know picture of him and George Burns picture of him and Jack Benny a picture at a at a party at buddy Hackett's house with Shecky Green Don Rickles Jerry Vale Vale, Dom Delahuez, Norm Crosby, Norman Fell, you know, pictures. You know, it's just, you know, he's taking things off the wall. He's showing me pictures of the cast of both shows.

And what an amazing career. What a sweet guy. You know, what an amazing life he had. And it really went differently than a lot of other comics I talked to it and just in terms of a guy who got these this amazing opportunities you know based on not very much experience but really you know showed up and and and you know was the real deal it's a hell of a thing to start at the top and and stay there It was an amazing afternoon for me,

and I'm happy to share it with you. And I hope he's around for a long time. Okay, I'm gonna, I should probably drive and not talk on the mic. Okay. All right, so this is exciting. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. All right, so this is exciting. Bob Newhart, who I love and respect a lot, has a new audio series exclusively on Audible. It's called Hi Bob, Bob Newhart in conversation with famous friends. I actually wrote and recorded the foreword for the show

and the show features talks with people like Will Ferrell, Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Silverman. So get that on Audible now. Start a free subscription if you don't have one already. And this is me, you know, just touching base with Bob on the phone a little while back about the show and about, you know, him and, you know, we'll think, we'll phone thing with Bob Newhart. ["The New Heart"] Hi, Bob. Hi, Mark. So I haven't talked to you in a while, Bob.

How are you feeling about everything, okay? Oh, yeah, oh yeah. Considering I'm at eight and a half, I'm doing pretty good. So are you gonna be recording these episodes of Hi Bob for Audible up there at your house? Are you going to have people over to the house? No, they're recorded already. Where'd you record them?

At the hotel, the Bel Air Hotel. Oh, that's fancy. So you just rented a room and got some mics out and sat there in a suite? No, in the bar actually. It was great. The sound was great. And then we did a couple, Sarah Silverman we did in one of the rooms and it worked out great, it was very quiet. This all came from, I feel then for Johnny, 79 times I was guest host for Johnny. So part of that was interviewing the guests. And the night before they'd hand you the notes

and you'd try to pick out the ones that you thought were gonna lead somewhere or that you and the person had some kind of contact with. So I always enjoyed it. So this came up through Audible and you don't have to get out of plane and you don't have to sleep in a strange hotel room anymore. And it's interesting. It's just, it keeps in mind that, you know, I've been lucky so far.

And those interviews you did on Carson, those were shorter interviews, I imagine, and you didn't have a lot of time to get in depth with people and I assume that these interviews are a little longer And then more of a conversation. Yeah. Yeah, you're exactly right. I tried to make them conversational as opposed to and then bring a unique kind of Experience that I've had Almost 60 years of doing stand-up.

Yeah. And that, and talking to other stand-ups and how much different that world is now. Last night we went to the, Jenny and I, my wife and I, went to the Improv, because it was Billy Crystal's 70th birthday. Well, improvs and comedy clubs, they weren't part of my life.

So I always found it interesting, like talking to Sarah, what does that world like? It sounded terrible. I mean, it sounded like a cattle call and you just all wait and maybe you get five minutes at the very end if you're lucky. And it's totally foreign to me.

Right, the system is different because as I recall from our conversation, you had put together your act and I think your story is unique to you that you had put together your act. And I think your story is unique to you that you had put this together, your act in a vacuum and very quickly were able to perform it in a nightclub. And it just proved to be that you were, all the stars aligned and everything worked out for that first record.

And I guess that the process of becoming a comic was different, even. It was entirely different. The thing that people that I've talked to, like young comics, they'll say, when you recorded that comedy album, the Buttoned-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, you had never worked at nightclub before?

Yeah. And I said, no, no I hadn't. So yeah, that's kind of different. But as you learned from the get-go, you gotta pretend like you know what you're doing because if you don't, it makes the audience nervous. And so you've got to summon all the bravado you have. Yeah, yeah, or you're going to bomb.

That's the only thing I had going. I think if that didn't work, it would have been back to accounting or something. That's right. Or back to advertising, right? Whatever. Yeah. But I think that that experience, it seems to me, is a common experience. I think that half of our job, or if not more than half of our job, is pretending like we're

not scared. Yeah, it's not 90%. And then I was playing these big places. I was playing the Hungry Eye and the Crescendo in Los Angeles and the Crescendo especially in LA. I mean, I was a major star, was in the audience. And they'd say, be sure and introduce Roger Marx. Be sure to introduce him.

And I'm trying to learn the business, you know, from the top down, not from the bottom up, but from the top down, and trying to act like I know what the hell I'm doing. Yeah, and you pulled it off, you did it. Well, you know, that was one, I forget where I was. I think I was in Texas and I came off, I had 18 minutes when I came off

and the maître d' and they were applauding and the maître d' said, go back out. And I said, well, that's all I have. And they said, well, they're applauding, go back out. So not knowing that much about the business. I went back and I said, which one do you want to hear again? You know? That's all I have.

Did you actually do one again? I did one again. I forget which one it was. So I guess on the series here, you talked to Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow and Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman and some of them have done, you know, they're professional hosts and one's a professional comic actor, one's a comedy producer, one's a stand-up comedy comedian by trade. So what did you find was the commonalities

that you had with them or that they had together? What did you learn in talking to all these people? The odd thing, I'll tell you what happened with Judd. Yeah. Judd Apatow. Yeah. We're talking and then he was asking me questions and we're talking and I said,

Judd, I'm trying to interview you. And he said, no, no, your life is more interesting than mine is. So you have to get it back on track. I believe me, I know. Well, you know how it is. I mean, you've done it, both. You've done stand-up and now the podcast.

Yeah. Well, yeah, Judd is a very humble guy, but clearly he's got a lot of experience. He probably just feels like he doesn't have as much life experience. Did you end up getting him to talk about himself? Yeah, eventually, yeah. At that point, I think he was going back up into, Did you end up getting him to talk about himself? Yeah, eventually, yeah.

At that point, I think he was going back up into, he was going back into standup. Oh yeah, he did a good standup show. I liked his standup. I haven't seen it yet, yeah. Yeah. It's on cable, right? Yeah, it's on Netflix. I mentioned last night,

we went to Billy Crystal's 70th birthday. And Billy and I were, I was playing golf with Tom Poston. Yeah. Billy was Tom's guest. So we're playing along, we're enjoying ourselves and having laughs. And I said to Billy, I said, Billy, do you still do stand-up? And he said, he said, yeah, I'm working on a project.

I'm gonna get back into it. I said, you know, Billy, I think people who can make people laugh have an obligation to make people laugh. There aren't that many. I think that's true. I think that's true. You have to, it's a calling.

It's a calling. Yeah, I hate to call it a gift. You're right. It's a calling and it's just great. I mean, I still do, I'll do this year maybe five stand-ups. Yeah, it feels good. It's just a wonderful thing to be able to do to make people laugh.

Yeah. And you look and you laugh to her, it's one of the great sounds of the world, you know? To me it is. I think you're absolutely right. And when you interviewed Will Ferrell, like Will Ferrell is one of the funniest people who ever lived, but a lot of times when you interview him,

he doesn't act funny at all. What did he, was he funny with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was. Oh good. He was, but you know, we had the experience of Elf. Oh, that's right, yeah. Which was a great experience. Cause when I was offered Elf, I read it Oh, that's right. Yeah, which which was a great which was a great experience it because I've

When I was offered else I read it and I said to my wife I should this is gonna be a perennial Yeah, and it became a perennial. Yeah, so I could just see it every Christmas being played and that's and that's what happened It was just such a wonderful story And I complimented him on his role because very dangerous kind of role because it was very easy for him just to come off as a large guy who isn't very bright and doesn't realize that he's an elf.

But he was able, you were pulling for him so much, he pulled that off. And that wasn't easy, because it was very dangerous, and the whole movie could have fallen apart if you didn't believe him. That's right, he's a very talented guy, he's a good actor, very funny guy too. Yeah, yeah.

Well listen, Bob, I wish you nothing but success with this thing, and it's a pleasure to talk to you again and I'm excited for everybody to hear these conversations you had. Well Mark, I'm embarrassed, I mean we're talking on the phone, I mean you had the president come to your place. But I came, I went to your house,

we had a nice conversation. I know you went to my house, but you had the president, even though, I mean he he had a motorcade. I mean, there's a big advantage. Sure, sure. When you have a motorcade, it really knocks a lot of the time. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what,

next time you and I talk, I'll have your motorcade pick you up and bring you over here. Okay? Okay. Thanks, Bob. Thank you, Mark.