Bob Newhart’s button-down brain has always mined comedy from places his potty-mouthed peers don’t consider.
Inside the driver’s ed car of a harried instructor. On Madison Avenue with Abe Lincoln. Up a tobacco-stuffed nose. Small-town Vermont.
Now, Newhart’s noggin is going to the Last Supper.
The gently satirical Grammy Award winner is taking his new stand-up routine based on Jesus’ final feast on a national tour. During an interview, Newhart, who plans to release a memoir in the fall, spoke seriously about his new bit, his career and how the industry has changed during his nearly 50 years in the business.
It really came out of the “Passion of the Christ’ with Mel Gibson and what a huge success it was and unexpected. And I just got to thinking of other things in the Bible and the Last Supper was one of them. It always struck me that they just alluded to a last supper. You don’t just have a last supper. You have to rent a hall. Measure the size of the room.
My last supper? I’ve always wondered about last suppers in prison, when they’re allowed to order anything they want. It almost doesn’t matter because it isn’t going to stay down that long. You don’t have to watch calories. I guess it would be bacon and eggs and sausage. Eggs Benedict, I suppose.
It’s just very comfortable. I never felt comfortable going the other direction. It just wasn’t my style. I’ve talked to Jerry Seinfeld about it. He works pretty much the way I do it. We both feel when the show is over and you haven’t had to resort to shock, you just feel kind of good about yourself.
I think they’re getting it on the Internet. I don’t do that. But I know people who go and just get these jokes and that’s a source of where they get their comedy. That, and the late shows, Letterman, Leno.
It’s very impersonal. It’s just printed out. It isn’t delivered comedy. It lacks the immediacy of watching somebody perform.
I never learned how to quit I guess (chuckle). I always thought of myself as the youngest person to ever retire. But when the opportunity came, I kind of thought to myself, “Gee I don’t want to do that.’ Why would you ever not want to make people laugh anymore? I could never imagine not doing stand-up as long as I’m physically able to do it.
It’s a kick. I enjoyed doing it. The show is well-written. I think people watch it on different levels. It’s a sendup of the genres, the daytime soaps and “Dallas.” I guess I just find it a hoot. It doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s very easy, you go in for a day.
They kind of work around my schedule. They call up and say, “Is Bob available next week?’ Then they write a script that involves Morty.
A priest, just in case the doctor wasn’t competent (laugh).
It’s kind of me growing up in Chicago and then one day making a decision to see if I could make a living in comedy, then spending three or four years not making a living in comedy. Various part-time jobs I held, and then how the album took off, and became the Album of the Year in 1960, and the conceptualization of the television shows and trying to live a semi-normal life in Hollywood. Observations on this kind of crazy place we all inhabit.
Jodi Lee Reifer is a reporter for The Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance. She can be contacted at reifer(at)siadvance.com
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