Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #385219 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 307 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Beginning with his 1960 Grammy-winning album, The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart, the comedian's 46-year career has included nightclub standup, TV series (The Bob Newhart Show), animation voices (The Simpsons), feature films (Catch-22, Elf)—and now his first book. At age 77, Newhart is clearly in his anecdotage, with mirthful memories of his successes and failures. Treating the reader almost as a personal friend, Newhart covers everything in this guided tour through his button-down brain, from his 43-year marriage and fear of flying to fatherhood, Vegas, sitcoms, golf and assorted antics with celebrity pals. Aware that digression is the better part of valor, he interrupts the low-key autobiographical flow with amusing asides, and this rambling look at "the absurdist side of life" is just as effective in print as on TV, adding depth and dimension to the familiar image of Newhart as a frustrated, flawed everyman. In the tradition of Max Eastman's Enjoyment of Laughter (1936) and Steve Allen's The Funny Men (1956), he analyzes and compares comedy styles. The hilarity is heightened as he reveals how he created his best satirical sketches. Influenced by H. Allen Smith, Robert Benchley, James Thurber and Max Shulman, Newhart himself has now joined that lofty pantheon. (Sept. 19)
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From AudioFile
Bob Newhart makes you laugh. He talks about his life and people he has known and why he didn't remain the accountant he was trained to be. Each incident is funnier than the one before it. And only Bob Newhart could have read this memoir because no one else has his sense of timing or his stammer or the honesty of his humor. But now a word of warning from this reviewer: Do not listen to this production in public. In the waiting room of a medical facility, for example, you will find that people in pain and on walkers do not like being in your company as you try to hide your heaving laughter and you fail. J.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine