Veteran comic just can't put down stand-up

TOM MAURSTAD finds 72-year-old Bob Newhart needs an audience as much as ever.

His debut album went gold and he won the Grammy that year for best new artist. He won another Grammy for his follow-up album.

But performing live is his first love. On stage is where everything comes together for him.

While that description might make him sound like a musician, he's anything but. He's Bob Newhart.

Newhart may be one of the most instantly recognisable names, faces and personalities in pop culture. And the source for that instant-recognition fame is, of course, television.

He was the star of two of television's classic sitcoms - The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), which stands as one of TV's greatest comedies, and Newhart (1982-90), which had one of the greatest finales.

The shows are a recurrent part of pop culture's electronic wallpaper, shared by each new generation of viewers.

But while everyone knows TV Bob, the most important part of Newhart's career - to Newhart at least - has always been Stand-Up Bob.

That's why Newhart, at the age of 72, is still in touring and performing mode.

It's what keeps the calendar on his website booked into next year.

"I've just always felt that if you're a comedian, you have an obligation to do it [perform live]," says Newhart.

"I know a lot of guys who got going in their movie or television careers and just dropped their stand-up life.

"I can't imagine doing that - I can't just stop being who I am. I am a comedian. That's what I do - I go on stage in front of an audience and tell jokes. Well, they're kind of jokes."

Newhart feels that need to perform, to make audiences laugh, is especially important now, since the terrorist attacks of September 11.

"In times like these, times of crisis, when people are feeling anxious, I think it's even more important to give them a time and a place to take a break for a little while.

"The feeling I've gotten from audiences since then is that they want to laugh."

Newhart has some experience in dealing with times of crisis. He was one of stand-up comedy's newer, brighter stars when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

"I was booked with Dinah Shore, playing a theatre in the round in Los Angeles," he recalls.

"The theatre went dark the first two days afterward, but on the third day, the theatre owner said, 'Let's go back on and see what happens'.

"The place that night was packed, and the feeling was overwhelming. I think everybody there just needed to get away from reality for a couple of hours."

With more than 40 years of performing and dozens of famous routines behind him, Newhart is kind of the comedy equivalent of a beloved band.

Everybody comes to see him with a favourite "song" they want to hear - maybe a track from his classic debut, 1960's Grammy-winning The Button-down Mind of Bob Newhart, or one of his later routines such as The Introduction of Tobacco to Civilisation.

"Early on I would say to the audience, 'What routine would you like to hear?' But I found that really doesn't work.

"I realised that's a decision I'm going to have to make. I size up an audience and decide which two of 40 routines I'm going to do, since the rest of the show will be material that hasn't been recorded.

"Some audiences seem like a 'driving instructor' crowd, others seem more like a 'submarine commander' crowd," Newhart says, naming two classic routines.

He pauses for a moment, starts and stops a sentence a couple of times, his phone conversation suddenly sounding very much like a Bob Newhart routine.

"Really, I can't explain what I do or how I do it. I can just feel what's right. And to be honest, I don't want to explain it. I'd be afraid to.

"I'd be afraid if I ever figured what makes me funny, that would be it. I'd never say another funny thing again."

- NZPA

Bob Newhart