From 2003: Bob Newhart in Indianapolis

This story first appeared in The Journal Gazette on June 22, 2003.

Comedian Bob Newhart has a lot in common with Australian aborigines, native Hawaiians and Ifugao Filipinos. Like those endangered peoples, Newhart knows a few things that may die with him.

Newhart, who will perform a rare concert in Indianapolis at 8 p.m. Friday at the Murat Center, is a master of several forms of comedy that are not widely practiced or appreciated at present.

There are few comics who can do more with embarrassment than Newhart, few funnymen who can so deftly usher a simple misunderstanding into mass confusion, few comics who can invest politeness with so much simmering frustration.

Newhart, now 73, often plays characters who are defined by timidity, but one thing Newhart himself has never been timid about is making use of silence.

As Miles Davis once observed, “It’s not about the notes you play, it’s about the notes you don’t play.”

“After I recorded my first album,” Newhart recalls via phone, “the raw tape was sent to an editor in Hollywood who had this machine that could remove the spaces between words. So he sat there there and thought, `Oh we can pick up a whole second here and two seconds there.’

“I’m happy the way the record was received, but it was kind of jarring for me.”

At a time when the spaces between words (and noises) are the boogymen of all entertainment, Newhart may be an old dog, but his tricks just get newer.

He has become something of a comedy guru, a person other people seek out for lectures on the science of comedy.

He doesn’t much like it.

“Some people want to call (my routines) classics, but that seems somewhat immodest to me. I call them routines. I’m from the Midwest. We don’t put on airs.”

Newhart was born Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Ill. He studied accounting at Loyola University.

Sometime after graduation, Newhart and his college pal Ed Gallagher made ends unconvincingly meet by recording short duo routines on hijacked equipment for Chicagoland radio.

“Admittedly, we were a poor man’s Bob and Ray,” he says.

A handful of stations subscribed to Newhart’s service, netting the pair a grand total of $7.50 a week.

Newhart didn’t interpret this as the first step in an illustrious career.

“I thought it would last maybe five years, and I’d look back on it and say, `Well, I had that experience, I made a few dollars. it was fun.’ Then I’d become one of those people who hears `Hey, didn’t you used to be . . .?’ now and then.”

But Gallagher quit the team and Newhart was forced to consider replacing him or going alone.

He never intended to perform in nightclubs, but demo tapes of his soon-to-be-legendary telephone monologues had made the rounds and he was pushed by their popularity into the klieg lights.

“I had this picture in my mind of what the club scene would be like. It was inspired by black-and-white movies.

“There’d be a woman singing and people would be talking, but slowly they’d turn and go quiet and she’d be a huge hit. There were never any drunks involved.

“You learn very soon that if you show any kind of fear at all, you’re dead meat.”

Newhart’s debut album, “The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” was released in 1960. It achieved gold record status — one of 15 records to do so that year. It also was the first comedy album to reach number one on the album chart.

Newhart won a Grammy for best new artist.

The 1961 follow-up, “Behind the Button Mind of Bob Newhart,” also won a Grammy.

He attempted TV variety shows in 1961 and 1964, but they didn’t quite jell. A decade later, “The Bob Newhart Show” bowed and became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed sitcoms of all time.

Newhart put some intriguing constraints on his writers.

One, no kids.

Newhart hated sitcoms in which kids made adults look like buffoons.

Second, no topical humor.

“I told my writers, `If you put in a Gerald Ford joke, it’s going to look pretty silly if this show is still being syndicated in 10 years.’ “

Newhart managed another self-named classic series in the ’80s. This one, it should come as a surprise to no one, was set at a Vermont inn.

He also saw a couple of his TV projects fail over the years, so he decided long ago to rest on his considerable laurels in that medium.

These days, Newhart still goes out on short stand-up tours. He mixes familiar material with new routines, but his approach remains the same.

He said his telephone monologues have been altered slightly to reflect the advent of the cellphone.

“I have noticed that as cellphones get smaller and smaller, it is harder to tell the schizophrenics on the street from the people on cellphones.

“It is hard to know anymore what to make of a guy you see shouting into the breeze, `Tell them they’re not going to pull that on me!’ “

Much of his leisure time is spent with longtime friend Don Rickles and Rickles’ wife, Barbara. The men and their families often take vacations together.

In a Journal Gazette interview with Rickles in March, the insult comic was asked about his friendship with Newhart.

Rickles replied, “We still spend a lot of time together. You will often see us in airports. He’s carrying my luggage.”

Newhart laughs when he hears this story.

He recalls the first time his wife, Ginny, met Rickles.

Newhart and Rickles were playing the same hotel in Vegas.

“Don was in the lounge and I was in the main room. I still remind him of that.

“We met him in the coffee shop between shows, and Ginny and Don were talking about how they disliked being on the road.

“Don said he hated being away from his daughter, Mindy.

“We finally got to see his show. Ginny said, `He’s such a sweet man. Such a wonderful family man’ and I said, `Honey, his stage persona is a little different.’

“He comes out and looks right at us and says, `Oh I see the stammering idiot from Chicago and his hooker wife were able to make it.

“My wife about fell over,” Newhart says, laughing.

Newhart is often asked why he bothers at his age going out on the road, why he doesn’t just retire.

“Why?,” he always answers. “Why would anybody want to stop making people laugh?”