"The Bob Newhart Show" was hilarious. "Newhart" was not only hilarious but legendary. "Bob" was hilarious but short-lived. "George and Leo," where Bob Newhat was joined by another proven sitcom star, was not hilarious.
Bob Newhart started out as a stand-up comic. A very different sort of comic from any other: In his best routines he was on a telephone, basically being the straight man where the comic lines were in the listeners' heads. It's sort of like Abbot and Costello's "Who's on first," where the straight man (Abbot) has all the laugh lines.
The genius of Bob Newhart's shows was that, while Newhart was a funny guy, like another low-key comic, Jack Benny, he surrounded himself with very funny characters and he didn't care who got the laughs, so long as people in offices would say, "Did you catch that latest show with Bob Newhart?" When "Newhart" was on as soon as it signed off a friend and I would race each other to the phone to see who'd ring the other first, to discuss it.
The first season of "Newhart" was pretty dire but with a little tweaking it lasted nine years. "Bob" his the ground running breathlessly but lasted little more than one season.
The first problem with "G&L" is that the subsidiary characters aren't there. Then there's Bob and Judd. Bob is the same Bob he's always been, which is good as he plays a bookstore owner (in retrospect it seems a natural setting). Judd is funny in his manipulative, fast-talking, conman way asca stranger who muscles his way onto Bob Newhart's life with surprises like little bombs going off one by one. But the chemistry isn't there. It's like they're playing two different sitcoms. While "G&L" is often compared to "The Odd Couple," the odd couple played in the same show and its stars had chemistry and the ability to put over lines that weren't always funny. The best of its humor rose from character, not funny lines.
Don't get me wrong: Newhart's presence, which was on TV basically all my life, is comforting. And he's too exacting a comic not to make sure he has some fine laughs. But if "G&L" had starred anyone else, with the same scripts, I wouldn't have watched it. Usually, I say Newhart's shows, even when they tank or take time to settle on, we're good ideas. I can't say that this time.
