The tributes to Bob Newhart last week were universal in tone. A great comic, great sitcom star, great guy. If there was anyone who had a bad word to say about Newhart, I didn’t hear it or read it.
The passing of Newhart brought back memories for those of us lucky enough to remember his classic series, The Bob Newhart Show, and his lesser (but still great) follow-up sitcom, Newhart. Coincidentally (or ironically, I’m never sure if I’m using this word correctly), the Emmy nominations were released last week, with FX’s The Bear setting a record with most nominations for a comedy with 23.
How does The Bear compare to comedies of the past? Not well, as it turns out.
Most TV viewers will remember the time of ‘Must See TV’ as a golden era of network comedy. Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers, M*A*S*H, Newsradio (OK, never that popular, but great nonetheless), Taxi, Maude, The Golden Girls and many others. All but M*A*S*H utilized the tried-and-true TV comedy format of filming in front of a live studio audience. While the single-camera format (shows filmed without an audience) is responsible for some classic TV like The Office and Arrested Development, I’ve always been partial to old school, live studio audience comedies. And decades before ‘Must See TV’, CBS had a line-up of audience sitcoms that was second to none.
In the 1973-74 season, CBS was home to All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show, a variety hour. Those six shows aired back-to-back on ONE night. And it was SATURDAY night.
Yep, the best night of TV comedy was Saturday. And this was decades before you could easily record a program; if you missed a show, you would have to wait for summer reruns. Today, there is zero original programming on Saturday night, and not one comedy on a par with any of those shows.
advertisement
Except for M*A*S*H, which used a laugh track, these great comedies and most others were filmed in front of an audience. What a delight it was to hear an audience scream with laughter or surprise. I recall an episode of The Bob Newhart Show where Bob and his male friends\patients spent a drunken Thanksgiving together that had the audience screaming with laughter. Or the All in the Family moment when Sammy Davis Jr. gave Archie Bunker a kiss on the cheek. Or the Seinfeld sequence where George describes saving a whale from asphyxiation by reaching into the blowhole and pulling out a golf ball (I’ve watched that scene many times just to hear that first woman screech with laughter, then the laughs that follow for a solid minute). The finale of Newhart (the famous scene with Suzanne Pleshette) wouldn’t have been half as funny without the roar of recognition from the audience.
Sadly, traditional sitcoms have almost vanished, reduced to justifiably underwatched mediocrities (does anyone watch Lopez vs. Lopez, or even heard of it?). Sadder still, classics like Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore can’t be found on streaming services, unless you want to pay for individual episodes via Apple.
This is a crime against comedy. I think Bob and Mary would find whole new audiences with a younger generation pining for some real comedy. Please Apple or Netflix or Amazon or anyone, please release Bob and Mary from their pay prison.
Until then, I guess we’ll have to laugh along with … The Bear?
No thank you.
(By the way, if you want to get an idea of what Bob Newhart’s comedy was all about, check out Tubi’s Bob Newhart: Off the Record, a collection of his greatest, most famous stand up routines.)
Edmonton based Maurice Tougas knows classic TV. He also hunts down Hidden Gems here at brioux.tv.
