Bob Newhart toasts 1960 debut album
Bob Newhart encountered a major setback when he recorded his charttopping, Grammy Awardwinning debut comedy album, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” at a Texas nightclub in early 1960.
The setback had nothing to do with the fact that — until two weeks earlier — the former Chicago accountant had never done a single stand-up performance in his life and was unknown to his Houston audience. Nor was it related to the fact that Newhart, who became a standout TV sitcom star in the 1970s, arrived in Texas with just three routines and had to quickly write three more for the flip side of his first album.
Instead, the setback came in the form of a very drunk man, seated in the front row. He repeatedly interrupted the neophyte comedian’s act, as the tapes were rolling, on the first evening of the deadpan Newhart’s two-day Texas nightclub stand. The fact that the performance featured such future classics as “Driving Instructor,” “Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball” and “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Ave.” didn’t deter the drunk in the least.
“He kept yelling, throughout my set: ‘That’s a bunch of crap! That’s a bunch of crap! That’s a bunch of crap!’ ” a bemused Newhart recalled, speaking from his home in Los Angeles.
“We went and listened to the recording after the show, and you could hear the drunk better than you could hear me. That left the two Saturday night shows to record, which we did.”
Heckle-free, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” came out on May 6, 1960.
The album topped the national Billboard sales charts. While it still held the No. 1 position, Newhart’s follow-up album,
“The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back,” was released.
It rose to the No. 2 spot on the Billboard charts, making him the first comedian to simultaneously have the top two bestselling albums in the United States. In 1961, he also became a TV star with “The Bob Newhart Show,” a variety series. It aired for only a single season, but won a Peabody Award in the process.
His third album, “Behind the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” came out in 1961, followed by “The Button-Down Mind on TV” in 1962.
Newhart, 90, is one of the few comedians to have starred in two separate hit TV sitcoms a decade apart, first in the 1970s as a Chicago psychologist, then in the 1980s as a New England innkeeper. He was introduced to a new generation through his appearances on “The Big Bang Theory” (for which he won a 2013 Emmy Award for outstanding guest actor) and its spinoff series, “Young Sheldon.”
Here are edited excerpts from a conversation with the comedian.
Comedy made a big shift around 1960 to a more contemporary and situational approach, championed by a younger generation of performers. Were you aware of that shift at the time, or only in hindsight?
I was aware of it, and it wasn’t just me. It was Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Shelley Berman, Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters and myself. Growing up, I was a huge fan of (the comedy duo) Bob and Ray, so what we did was a departure. All of a sudden, there was a social edge to comedy that I don’t think existed before . ... And it was largely because of the college students (in our audience) at the time. I think most changes in the world come from college students, and then they become part of the establishment. I always had the feeling that a stand-up comedian, at the time I started, was an iconoclastic kind of guy who was always finding something wrong with the system and making fun of it — an anarchist, really.
Was it an advantage that you looked like a button-down member of the establishment at the time?
(laughing) Yeah, definitely! Of course, they couldn’t look at me (while listening to my records). But I had a stammer, which I still have, and that’s my way of talking . ... After my first album came out, a writer from The New York Times came to see me, and he said I was biting the hand that fed me, which was true. Because I was making fun of the corporate mentality and (the concept of ) merchandising Abe Lincoln, the Wright Brothers and Abner Doubleday. All that was a change, a social change, that happened in comedy. And I happened to be part of it.
Did your background as an accountant help you parse your recording and TV contracts?
No, no, no! I always said that if I had stayed in accounting, the Enron corporation would still be in business. Because no one could figure out my books. I wasn’t a great accountant, at all. But it was math, which is part of comedy, and I was always good at math. It seemed like the simplest thing in the world ... I gave myself a year; it was back to accounting if comedy didn’t work out . ... I advise young comedians that, when they’re starting out, to disguise their voice a little. That way it’s not you out there, it’s this persona you create with kind of an odd voice. Then try a routine and see if it works, and push it a little further the next night, and push it a little further the night after that. And then, one night, you’ll drop that (persona), and it will be you out there. But find some place to hide behind while you’re discovering you.
But you didn’t do that, did you? You didn’t disguise your voice or create a persona.
No! It was just bravado. When I was starting out (doing stand-up), in my first year, I was opening for Peggy Lee at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. I did 18 minutes on stage and then watched her show. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
You were doing standup dates on the road as recently as last fall. If the coronavirus crisis had not happened, would you be touring now?
Yeah, it’s my first love, as long as I’m physically able to do it. The gratification is immediate, and the shock is immediate, too, when it doesn’t work! I think that the impetus for me is having the danger of failing. Not to fail, but to succeed against the possibility of failure . ... People say to me, “You’re 90, why do you keep doing stand-up?” And I always say, “Well, the alternative is (like the 1950 movie) ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ ” You sit in your darkened den, and Erich von Stroheim knocks on the door, comes in and asks you “What episode of ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ or ‘Newhart’ do you want to watch?” I’m not ready for that.