Bob

Bob Newhart's third sitcom was mostly a crashing non-success,which is a shame since,besides Mr.Newhart,the show had a very good ensemble cast that included veteran actors like Ruth Kobart and Carlene WAtkins mixed in with solid younger talent like Cynthia Stevenson,Andrew Bilgore and John Cygan. This was the first season. Then CBS decided to re-up this show(rather tenuously it appeared)for a second year,they blew-up that cast,inserted pros Betty White,Tom Poston and Jere Burns,that and a schedule move(from the no-man's land that was Friday nights to Monday nights)and hoped it would inflate the less-than-scintillating returns.It didn't,and the show was quietly pushed off the air after the half-way point of the 1993-94 season.

I personally felt like this show,while hardly up there with the first two Newhart entries,was still very watchable,quite funny and seemed to have plenty of potential to get better and/or get a better following. But who knows? Maybe audiences were expecting too much of either Dr.Bob HArtley or Dick Loudon. Or maybe the loyal t.v. audiences didn't like what they saw in grouchy cartoonist Bob McKay. Or maybe the audiences were not warming to Newhart's dry,button-down style of comedy. Whatever,I thought this show deserved a better treatment,given the pedigree of the eponymous star.

"BOB" was Bob Newhart's return to television after 2 very successful sitcoms. Newhart stars as Bob McKay who is the creator of a '50s comic book superhero known as "Mad-Dog". But thanks to a senate sub-committee hearing on the moral goodness of comic books Mad-Dog is short lived.

Years later, Bob is a frustrated greeting card artist whose comic book creation gets a second life. Unfortunately the new owner of Mad-Dog Comics, American-Canadian Trans-Continental Communications Company, (AmCanTranConComCo), has different ideas about the comic than Bob.

Bob's boss Harlan Stone (played by John Cygan), wants to make Mad-Dog a vigilante while Bob argues that Mad-Dog is a superhero. This leads to problems in conceiving the first issue of the comic book. In fact, episodes of the show go by and the first issue isn't completed.

Kaye McKay (Carlene Watkins) and Trisha McKay (Cynthia Stevenson) are Bob's Wife and Daughter. Trisha's story lines deal with her being hopelessly single and Bob's wife really has nothing to do with the show accept to be hit on by Bob's friends and be there for Bob. Highlights include Appearances by Comic book legends Jim Lee and Jack Kirby and Trisha's roommate Kathy Fleisher (played by Lisa Kudrow). At the end of the first season the show was retooled and the comic book storyline is nixed and replaced with Bob returning to the world of greeting cards and becoming the president of Schmitt Greetings.

"Bob" didn't really catch on and only lasted a season and a half. Instead of the lovable Bob we all know and love, viewers found an irritable, scheming and more often than not, unlikable Bob. In more than one episode Bob is caught Plagiarizing. In another episode he takes credit for work that his daughter Trisha did. In just about every episode Bob faces conflict at work or with his daughter. What made "the Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart" so great was that Bob's character was never truly mean-spirited. He was the straight man in a world of off-beat characters and situations. Bob's main purpose in both shows seemed be to make sense of the situations brought to him by wacky next door neighbors, patients and co-workers. In "Bob" he seems annoyed when presented with similar situations that might have been funnier had Newhart's character been more patient and forgiving.

Another problem was that the cast lacked the chemistry that made his past shows so memorable. Even the additions of Betty White and Tom Poston didn't really work. To make matters worse the show's time slot was Friday's at 9:30. The younger audience didn't relate to the characters or the comic book. The show also lacked ideas. In 3 of the 30 aired episodes Bob is having difficulty making a speech. Changing the main focus of the show to the Greeting card Company was too little too late and felt like a last ditch effort.

Bob is one of the most talented comedians of all time & is truly a class act. But not even Bob Newhart could overcome mediocre writing and mismatched cast members. While highly unlikely, I would love to see Bob Newhart star in a fifth Television series.

"Bob" ran on CBS for 30 episodes. 3 previously unaired episodes premiered on Viacom's TV LAND 5 years later.

I thought this was a great show with much potential. It wasn't even given a chance. Though the character was less likable than the two previous BOB incarnations, he was still funny. It didn't hit the mark right off, but then again, NEWHART, another classic, didn't really hit its mark until the second or third season. Anyone know where any tapes of this lost gem are?????? I keep hoping they might release it, what with the recent release of many one season wonders like Lotsa Luck, Good Morning World, Gidget and others. I thought the show was good in that it had a more farcical flavor than The Bob Newhart Show. And WHAT A GREAT CAST. Ruth Kobart, John Cygan, Christine Dunsford, who was hilarious, Timothy Fall, Andrew Bilgore, Cynthia Stevenson, Lisa Kudrow, Tom Poston, Dorothy Lyman, Steve Lawrence, Dick Martin. I loved it when he played poker with his buddies. When they fired the entire cast and replaced them with Betty White and Jere Burns, it just lost all of its loopy charm.

"Bob" was never given a real chance, no question on that. The re-tooling and rescheduling was an act of murder, not simply the idiotic game playing that TV executive like to indulge in. It's been so long since I've seen an episode and details are fuzzy, but, like Bob Newhart's previous shows, it was something I looked forward to watching every week. I liked it better than "George and Leo" and that wasn't a bad show.

Bob Newhart is a genius at every turn and this was a chance for him to play a slightly edgier roll. No, not everyone took a liking to it, but it was never really given a chance to mature and hit its stride. Most of the finest television has needed a year or two to really get going and every person who truly loves TV knows that.

I don't know what kind of resume is needed to be a TV executive, but I can only imagine what's on the resumes of some of the meatheads out there and it's safe to say that some are UNDERqualified to empty wastebaskets.

When Bob (the show) began, I already loved it just because 8t was about a comic book character. Since I too am an illustrator, and a fan.of comics, I was happy to see it. Unfortunately, CBS decided to rewrite the show and make it about greeting cards. Even Betty White couldn't save it because the writers sucked. This is one of those great shows that was never given a chance. A true shame... like The Tony Randall Show about a judge and his caustic secretary.