What To Binge This Weekend: ‘The Bob Newhart Show’
Chris Morgan
Friday, November 1, 2019
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The Halloween season is over. November is here, and I am not ready to turn my attention to Christmas yet. That is a post-Thanksgiving turn for me. Between now and Turkey Day, it’s all about football and waiting for Thanksgiving. However, there is not as much Thanksgiving-related pop culture content as there is for Halloween and Christmas. There’s one Thanksgiving episode of The Simpsons, but I can’t recommend binging that. You know what other show has an iconic Thanksgiving episode? That would be The Bob Newhart Show.
The Bob Newhart Show is one of those ‘70s sitcoms I inexplicably watched as a little kid that I checked back in with as an adult. Back when Hulu didn’t require a subscription, I watched the first three seasons on there. Then, I bought the final three seasons on DVD to complete the viewing process. It’s a really good show! It’s one of the better classic sitcoms, and definitely one worth bringing back into the conversation.
In his first sitcom, legendary standup Bob Newhart starred as Bob Hartley. He’s a psychologist living in Chicago. Bob is married to Emily, played by Susanne Pleshette. She works as a substitute teacher. Basically all the action is divided between the Hartley home and Bob’s place of work. Yes, we see Bob with patients, but we spend as much time with him as he interacts with the other people on the floor of his building. Mostly, there’s his friend Jerry, a womanizing, arrogant dentist, and Carol, the secretary for the floor. She’s played by Marcia Wallace. You may remember her as the voice of Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons. It all comes full circle.
Newhart’s stock in trade is deadpan, so a lot of what he does is under react to crazy situations. He’s usually the straight man, but he’s got some great people to play off of. Take, for example, the Thanksgiving episode. It’s called “Over the River and Through the Woods.” Some consider it the best episode of The Bob Newhart Show, and one of the all-time best sitcom episodes. The premise is simple. Emily is out of town for Thanksgiving, so Bob invites over a few of the single guys he knows to watch football and hang out. There’s Jerry, Bob’s neighbor the daffy flight navigator Howard Borden, and Mr. Carlin, a self-loathing misanthrope who is the most-frequent of all of Bob’s patients we see on the show.
All they do is watch football, get drunk, and try and fail to order Chinese food properly. That’s it. And it’s great! It’s hangout comedy before that was a common thing. I also personally feel like the show laid some of the groundwork for the “no hugging, no learning” ethos of Seinfeld. However, I will also say that Bob and Emily have one of the best TV marriages ever.
The Bob Newhart Show is still available on Hulu, but of course now you need a subscription. There are some other places to see it too. You won’t be able to watch the entire series over one weekend, but at least be sure to check out that Thanksgiving episode!
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