SanteeFats
I own the series and I find it very funny and well done. Bob Newhart plays the "how to writer" and innkeeper. He is almost always getting checked by his wife or getting into some other kind of trouble. The casting is excellent although I must admit I liked the first maid, Jennifer Holmes, better than Julia Duffy. Julia plays a much snootier person than Jennifer did. Since they are both from the same family in the show it must be the writers fault!! The three brothers who will do just about anything are pr4etty funny most of the time. Tom Poston as George the handyman was a great casting call. A lot of the humor evolves Newhart's dry wit and dead pan expression. This is one excellent series.
Aaron1375
This was Bob Newhart's second series with his name in the title. This one along with "The Bob Newhart" show were both very successful shows. He would also do one called "Bob", however that show for the most part was a bust. Still, two out of three is not to bad. This one stars Bob as a city man who moves to Vermont to open an inn with his wife. Kind of the fish out of water routine, but not played up as much. Basically, the husband and wife blend in a bit quickly compared to say "Green Acres". The show had a nice off beat humor, though as the show progressed it slipped more and more into the silly range. Kind of like the show "Night Court" though it never got quite as silly as that show did. The cast was great, though they did have a few to many shows near the end featuring Larry and his two brothers both named Daryl. They were great in small doses, but the more they were in the show the less impact their appearances began having. The show also started as more of a live show, then converted to film which I always think that looks better. Julie Duffy and Peter Scolari joined the cast later and were very nice additions to the cast as the two they replaced were okay, just not the characters as these two were. All in all a funny show that had a very good run.
DeanNYC
I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a bold statement. Without "Newhart," "Seinfeld" doesn't happen. Now, I'm not saying the shows were identical by any means, but they share a lot more than you would think at first glance.Certainly "Seinfeld" had the urban setting of New York City, but if you can imagine it happening at a Vermont Bed & Breakfast, with a slightly older fellow in the title role, you can see how the parallels do exist: A world-weary, humorous guy at the center of a bunch of wacky characters that entangle themselves in his life. Which show am I talking about? Exactly.Now, "Newhart" had a lot more going for it than "Seinfeld" did when they started. Audiences knew Bob from his Grammy winning comedy album, guest appearances on every variety show of the day and his two sitcoms: the first being a standard gentle comedy from the early sixties and the more famous and beloved one from the 1970s filled with winking innuendo, and was pretty racy by television standards, even though Dr. Robert Hartley and his beautiful wife Emily were married. It seemed like a look into a "real" relationship, with the ups the downs and the charm, and it was genuinely laughable and lovable."Newhart" was different, and it was supposed to be. Even so, many unfairly compared the actresses who played Mr. Newhart's wives on these two programs: Mary Frann's Joanna to Suzanne Pleshette's Emily, throughout the run. Really, the characters were never meant to be compared in that way. It was a different era, for television, for the nation, and even for the star. On "Newhart," Joanna's role was as a pillar of strength for Innkeeper Dick to hang onto when everything was going crazy, while Emily and Dr. Bob took turns skewering each other and their friends and situations with devilish 70s glee.When "Newhart" began, it was shot on videotape and had more of a "soap opera lighting" look to it. The visuals are odd in relation to the rest of the series. Also, the characters that first season were more pedestrian and the alternating heartwarming/difficult story lines flip-flopped between borderline 1950s trite or 1980s mean! But when they switched to film and they added the talented Peter Scolari and Julia Duffy, things took off! Some of the wittiest dialogue and funniest moments in a sitcom of... just about any era. Brilliant writing, and well played performances, even with the stock characters Larry, Darryl and Darryl.Let's get to the famed final episode, which is arguably the greatest "last episode" of any television show ever created. But the question is, why is it so great? You need to know a couple of facts.There were two other programs of the era that utilized a similar plot twist device around the time of "Newhart's" end: NBC's medical drama, "St. Elsewhere" (from the same production company as "Newhart" - MTM) and CBS's own nighttime soap, "Dallas," which had an important storyline involving Patrick Duffy's character, Bobby Ewing.Without going into specific detail about any of what these other show's plots were about (in case you haven't seen those programs), I can say that if the "St. Elsewhere" and "Dallas" plot points were not played out the way they had, "Newhart's" ending, though still funny, wouldn't have had the incredible explosive impact it had. It was a joke with an exponential punch line: you're not just laughing about the concept, you are laughing about the context of the concept in history. In other words, you were laughing not only at the moment within the show, but it was a big fat joke on all of television, itself!Really, this was one brilliant, brilliant last laugh. It is so breathtakingly unexpected, yet perfectly fitted, it's almost impossible to think that it wasn't somehow planned from the first episode! That only makes it that much funnier!Perhaps best of all, they did it before anyone conceived the notion of a program sentimentally "paying tribute to itself," or having "celebrity commentary," and they managed to stick to their thirty minute format, not "expanding" the program to milk it.Genius.
chasmilt777
Bob Newhart is probably one of the funniest comics in American history. He brought clean and wholesome entertainment to American television before the days of cable access. This show, his second TV series, is very enjoyable to watch and the characters are funny to the bone.There are several episodes that make me laugh by just thinking about them. Examples being "The Great White Buck", "Pick on Dick", or the episode where Dick stays on the air to do a TV marathon in which Stephanie has to sing "Old Man River" to get him off the set. Not to count any of the Larry , Darrell, and Darrell or "Sweater Girl" episodes.I can't wait for this classic sitcom to come to DVD. Newhart is a classic ! Bob Newhart is a great American !
