HBO COMEDY FESTIVAL

HBO: Hello and welcome to today's chat with the comic genius himself...Mr. Bob Newhart.
HBO: He's ready to start fielding your questions, so start firing away now! Feel free to ask him about his first years in stand-up, his Grammy Award winning albums, that cameo on "The Simpsons" or just the status on Larry, Darryl and Darryl.

Bob Newhart: This is Bob Newhart. I'm in Aspen at the Comedy Arts Festival, and I'd like to thank everyone for coming in to the chatroom, and I'm looking forward to your questions.

Mickey blue eyes: When was the last time you performed stand-up?
Bob Newhart: The last time I performed stand-up was in January of this year. I've never stopped doing stand-up, even when I was doing both the TV shows. I still continued doing stand-up, because you can lose your edge too easily, and besides I enjoy it.

Mark: Do you still keep in touch with any of the old cast members from your shows?
Bob Newhart: Yes. I see Tom quite often because we golf together. I see Suzanne because she and Tom are an item. I see Marcia. I keep in touch with a lot of the people. At least once a year if not more often.

Steph: If Larry, Darryl and Darryl were on "Survivor," who would be the first Darryl voted off the Island and why?
Bob Newhart: That was one of the inexplicable things about "Newhart," that we were in Vermont and had these three strange people right out of "Deliverance." I don't think either of the Darryls because they don't talk, so it would probably be Larry.

Kiny: You are the "Sultan of sitcoms," having starred in four over of the last four decades. Which have been your favorite sitcoms over the years, and what's your favorite sitcom on the air today?
Bob Newhart: It's like being asked what's your favorite child, you know? The successful ones which were "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart," and the less successful ones, "Bob" and "George and Leo" are my least favorite of all of them. I watch "Friends." I watch "Frasier." I watch "Sex and the City," "Dharma and Greg," "Will and Grace."

Matt: If you could go see one comic out there today, who would that be?
Bob Newhart: If I could see one comic, it would be Richard Pryor. I think he's the most influential comedian of the half century. He's influenced more comedians. Although I work clean and he doesn't, the underlying ideas of his routines are hysterically funny. He ranks with Mark Twain and Will Rogers. It's beyond comedy. I had the chance to present Richard with the lifetime achievement comedy award, and he was in the wheelchair and he couldn't come on stage, so I read the award from the stage and walked over to him and presented it to him, and he looked at me and said "I stole your album!" I told him I got 25 cents an album and asked him for a quarter, and he handed me the quarter.

Linda: So you're being honored today by the USCAF, placing you in an elite group of comics, how do you feel about that?
Bob Newhart: Obviously I'm highly honored that they would think my work merits such an award, and I'm just honored to be in the company I'm in. I don't know if it's deserved or not; that's for someone else to say, but I'm honored to be in the company.

Dina: Which is your favorite "peeper" episode
Bob Newhart: Specifically, the one where we were arrested in a sting operation by ladies of the evening. They thought we were coming on to them and we weren't, but they arrested us. Tom and I are both in the cell, and I don't sit with him because he kind of precipitated the whole thing, and one of the female officers said "did we read you your Miranda rights?" and I said "No." Tom piped in that they did and I just kind of turned and glared at him. It was kind of a Laurel and Hardy moment.

Adam T: Hey where you really in the army just to make people laugh or did you do other stuff
Bob Newhart: I wasn't in the service to make people laugh. I was on a personnel team that traveled around and inspected personnel records. Basic, and learning to shoot a rifle and throw grenades. I was there two years. I was drafted. I wasn't going to volunteer. It was during the Korean War '52-'54.

Dan: No questions, just a thank you for the years of joy and laughter you have given my family and myself. Run for president you have my vote.
Bob Newhart: Dan, thank you very much. That really is nice. I hear that occasionally and my standard reply is "It was my pleasure" and that's true. It was my pleasure.

Penny Faith: Hi Bob. Just wanted to tell you that you are great, and I wanted to know how you got started?
Bob Newhart: It's a long story. I was an accountant with a degree in accounting. I was really bored, and so another guy and I, on the side, started a radio show, which wasn't successful, but it lead to my having to write material everyday. I came to the attention of a DJ in Chicago who thought I was funny, and the Warner Bros. record label executive came through Chicago and they called on him. He told them about me and had me put some routines on tape to listen to them. I think I had the Driving Instructor and Abe Lincoln, and they listened to them. They wanted to watch me at a nightclub, but I'd never played one, so they booked up into the Tidelands in Houston, Texas, and I had the album written and wrote the other half in the two weeks I was there, and they didn't think much of it. I called Warner Bros. in Hollywood and asked what happened, and they said it was going crazy in Minneapolis and ended up selling a million copies. They were too busy filling the orders to tell me. They were taken by surprise, like I was. A DJ, Howard Viken in Minneapolis, played it and people wanted it. It gradually spread around the country.

Howard: What was your favorite show that you worked on?
Bob Newhart: I know the one that we most often get requests for, or people mention to me when I'm on the road, seems to be Moo Goo Gai Pan where they all come to my apartment and pass around a jug. Another one is the Barracuda show, and a lady is very nice until we go on the air and she cuts me to shreds. Then I have to interview two nuns. They said they'd go 50/50 on a hitman for her. Those episodes were from "The Bob Newhart Show." One of my favorite "Newhart" episodes was doing a telethon at a local station in Vermont. Sort of a Jerry Lewis kind of thing. I was haggard and people were helping me out. Julia came on and sang "Old Man River" only it was in a very up-tempo mode, and it just was very funny to watch her, 'cause she was so good.

Howard: Were there ever any embarrassing bloopers on the set?
Bob Newhart: Oh yeah. At the end of every season, we would have a party on both shows and we'd put together a gag reel and it was people messing up their lines or doors not opening. I remember one where I called Mary Frann 'Emily'. The audience went crazy. They went absolutely insane.

Pat: You are a winner, someone who succeeds. What advice do you have that can help others to succeed as you have in life?
Bob Newhart: Do what you love to do. I can't think of any other advice to give anybody than that. Do what you love to do.

Jocuna: Hey Bob. When did you know you wanted to become a comedian?
Bob Newhart: I don't know what age, but probably the first time I ever got a laugh, and what a nice feeling it was, that I wanted to repeat that feeling again and again and again.

Denny 67: Do you do your own taxes?
Bob Newhart: If I did my own taxes, you wouldn't be talking to me in Aspen, you'd be talking to me in Leavenworth.

Marty: You started in radio and later moved to television, which did you prefer?
Bob Newhart: I loved the TV programs. I really enjoyed them. We did it in front of a live audience, and it was a kick. Just the process and going in on Monday with a script that's not quite right, fooling with it, making suggestions to writers, and then Friday doing it in front of an audience, and they laugh. It's a great feeling.

Nancy: Is it true that you've won more Grammy Awards than Snoop Dogg? How many?
Bob Newhart: I don't know how many Snoop Dogg has won, but I've won 3. I won 3 in 1960. I found out in '92 that my first album went to No. 1 and second album went to No. 2, so I have the No. 1 and 2 albums for the longest times. So in '92 when Axel Rose had the No. 1 and No. 2 for more weeks than I, at least it went to a friend, even though you hate to lose a record. We're very close. We talk every day on the phone.

Miss Q: How close are you and Don Rickles, and how does he inspire you?
Bob Newhart: Yes he does. We're very close friends. We took a vacation this summer. Before that we went to Southeast Asia. We celebrate the Jewish holidays with him and Catholic ones at our house. He inspires me because he's just so good at what he does, and he's the exact opposite off than he is on. He's a gentle, caring person.

AE Angel 8604: How hard is it to get up and try to make people laugh?
Bob Newhart: One of the hardest things to do in show business, but it's also, at least in my mind the most gratifying. I guess the risk is what makes it so rewarding. You do it one night and then you have to do it again the next night.

Curious 72: Can you recall the first joke you ever told that killed?
Bob Newhart: It wasn't so much a joke. I don't remember the joke. I have a good ear for jokes, and I remember them. That is unusual because Rickles and Rowan and Martin can't remember jokes and get punchlines wrong. I don't remember which one it was, but I remember what a nice feeling it was when I did get a laugh.

Fred: When can we expect to see you on stage again?
Bob Newhart: If by on stage you mean standup, I'm going to Florida to do some standup around Ft. Meyers, Melbourne, Coral Springs. I do probably 20-25 appearances a year. There's a Bob Newhart website, www.bobnewhart.com. There's also an Oak Park website. That is a suburb of Chicago, near where I live, so Oak Park has its own website, at www.oprf.com, and my name is mentioned there.

True One: What do you think about the trend in comedy towards more "dirty" humor?
Bob Newhart: It depends on your definition of "dirty." I don't consider Richard Pryor dirty. I think there's a tendency towards some of the younger comedians starting out to confuse shock with laughter, and you have to learn the difference.

True One: Whose idea was it to make the Newhart show just a dream?
Bob Newhart: That was my wife's. I was considering ending the show in the 6th year because CBS kept moving us around to different times. So I was kind of unhappy. We were at a Christmas party. And she suggested we end it with a dream sequence, because "Dallas" had done a dream sequence and "St. Elsewhere," and she said you ought to wake up in bed with Suzie. It was all her idea. I thought it was a great idea and described it to Suzie and she said she'd fly back for it no matter what. We put in a misleading scene where I got hit in the head with a golf ball, and I went up to heaven and saw God, played by George Burns. So the tabloids published that as the end and we told the crew at the last minute, and that was the bedroom scene with Suzanne.

True One: Which TV wife was your favorite (not the actress, the character)?
Bob Newhart: I think Emily and I had a chemistry, not that Mary and I didn't, but there was a chemistry that's very hard to capture. You can't manufacture it. It happens. Emily was very independent, her own woman, and a great wife. I told Mary Frann as a matter of fact that she had the toughest job in TV because everybody will compare you to Suzanne, and I thought she did a great job of overcoming that.

True One: How has your sense of humor changed over the years?
Bob Newhart: I don't know that it changes. I'm not doing the material I used to do. In a concert, I might do two of the old routines for the people, but I don't know that you ever lose your sense of humor. Larry Gelbart wrote a book and mentioned that comedians look at life through a different lens than other people, so I don't think you ever lose the lens.

True One: Do you go to clubs and look for up and coming comedians?
Bob Newhart: I don't, for two reasons. I don't want to intimidate them if they know I'm there. I don't want to distract from them, and sometimes you'll start writing a routine and it just flows and you say to yourself, "I wonder if I heard this somewhere," so I kind of go out of my way not to, although I will here in Aspen, 'cause comedy has changed so much over the past four years.

Virtual Mirage: Hi Bob! Do you improvise a lot at home with the family as far as joking around too? Or are you more serious?
Bob Newhart: We have a great time. I tend to like kind of sick material, and of course my family know that and they'll tell me these terribly sick jokes they hear. For me it's a way of dealing with the herd in life. You can kind of deal with it and move on.

HBO: Thanks for a great chat Bob. Any final thoughts?
Bob Newhart: Just keep smiling!

HBO: Thanks for coming out to chat with Bob Newhart.
HBO: There's plenty more where Bob came from, and it's all at the US Comedy Arts Festival.
HBO: Click for more schtick here - www.hbo.com/comedy.