Back in my college days, we had a drinking game called “Hi, Bob.” You would turn on The Bob Newhart Show, and every time a character said, “Hi, Bob!” you’d have to do a shot. Given the number of entrances on that show, I don’t recommend this if you’re no longer college age.

Today being the day that Bob Newhart died, today is yet another time I wish I did a better job of keeping a journal.

Oh, I keep a journal. But I don’t write in it every day, and so I frequently miss the days and details of when something noteworthy happens. 

Like: the evening I met Bob Newhart and had a little conversation with him.

Wish I could remember more of what it was about.

Twenty years ago this October, I was a guest at the 10^th anniversary event for the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. Bob Newhart opened with a 20-minute set in which he was pretty damn funny, and then Richard Carpenter played and sometimes sang, accompanied by a 15-piece band, and different singers from the extended Carpenter family, doing lots of Carpenters songs.

Afterward, everybody lined up onstage for food, served buffet-style. I wound up right behind Mr. Newhart. The line was long and slow, so I think we actually talked for 15 minutes or so as we crept along, plates in hand. As I recall, we mostly talked about the food on the buffet line, with him eyeing the ham steaks with appreciation.

So, I can say I met him. Which is the sort of thing that happens a lot in Los Angeles and environs:  You just meet people. Some of them you just run into and wind up talking to, like Keanu Reeves and Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston (in line at plays), others you’re doing something with (Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Robbins, William H. Macy). Sometimes you’re at the supermarket and you realize you’re talking to James Karen, who appeared in Samuel Beckett’s only movie but who people living on the East Coast from the 1970s through 1990s remember as “the Pathmark Shopping guy.” 

While my association with Bob Newhart was obviously fleeting and unremarkable, in another way my association was longer, that is, about 10 years. That’s because there was another standup comic from that era whom I knew better:  Shelley Berman. Shelley and I both taught in the master’s program in writing at USC. In the late 1950s, Shelley’s standup routine caught fire with a telephone routine:  Just him, on a stool, engaged in a telephone conversation, with us hearing only his side of it. Some years later, Bob Newhart did a bit like that, just him on a stool with a one-sided telephone conversation, but Newhart got more famous for it — and, to be fair, for records that were built out of quite different routines, and for two sitcoms that had nothing to do with that. But for years, Shelley would say, “He stole that from me.” Mentioning Newhart was not a good idea.

I don’t have any opinion about whether or not one can “own” an act with a one-sided telephone, and I should note that I also know a gentleman who absolutely swears that the idea for “The Terminator” was stolen from him by James Cameron. It’s that kind of town.

I just know that Bob Newhart made me laugh a lot for many years, with his standup routines, with his two sitcoms, with his brilliantly funny role in “Elf” and, for 20 minutes, at the Carpenter Center. Even when we were picking up our dinners, he made me laugh. I just wish I could remember in what way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 18th, 2024 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Beckett, Samuel, On seeing, Theatre, Thoughts, Writers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.