We are a deeply divided country, as we keep hearing, but there’s one thing we can all agree on – Bob Newhart was a national treasure, and one of the most talented and original comedy stars who ever lived.
Newhart who died on Thursday (July 18) at age 94, starred in two long-running sitcoms, The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, that entertained America for a combined 14 years (and will probably run endlessly in reruns). The former was part of a CBS Saturday night lineup in 1973-74 that is universally hailed as perhaps the most solid single-night lineup in TV history: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. Now, that was a schedule worth staying home for on Saturday nights – and millions of Americans did just that.
Newhart had a wonderfully dry sense of humor and comic timing that put him up there with such masters as Jack Benny, Bea Arthur and Betty White. Johnny Carson once told his Tonight Show audience of Newhart’s first visit to Carson’s vast (and perhaps just a bit over-the-top) home in Malibu. Newhart looked around and dryly inquired, “Uh, where’s the gift shop?”
While Newhart is best known for his work on TV, he had a pair of No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 in 1960-61. With Newhart’s death, just four lead artists who topped the Billboard 200 (which started in March 1956) before The Beatles’ explosive arrival in 1964 are still living – romantic balladeer Johnny Mathis, who is 88; Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey of the folk-pop trio Peter, Paul & Mary, who are both 86; and Motown legend Stevie Wonder, who is 74.
Here are seven times Newhart made Billboard and awards history.
