DVD The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season:
Rate:
Editor: 20th Century Fox
Category: Comedies - Movie - TV Shows - Television
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Our Price: $24.19YOU SAVE $5.79!
Buy it
DVD The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season
In addition to inspiring a college drinking game that's never gone out of style, The Bob Newhart Show gave one of America's greatest stand-up comedians a perfect sitcom showcase. This wasn't Newhart's first TV show (following the success of his comedy albums, he hosted a short-lived variety show in 1961-62), but it was the first to transfer his wry, inimitable wit to an effective alter ego, and as mild-mannered psychologist Bob Hartley, 43-year-old Newhart found a sublime character conduit for stone-faced sarcasm that was biting but never malicious.
Watch our exclusive interview with Bob Newhart: high bandwidth or low bandwidth
Living in a Chicago high-rise with Emily, his wife of three years and a third-grade schoolteacher (played with underrated smartness by Suzanne Pleshette), 40-year-old Bob divides his time equally between happy (but not too happy) domesticity and time at the office, where he employs a feisty and frequently lovelorn receptionist Carol (Marcia Wallace, who later enjoyed a thriving career providing voices for The Simpsons and other animated shows) who also works for Jerry (Peter Bonerz, who became a respected TV director), a bachelor dentist and Bob's best friend.
The first season (of six, on CBS until August 1978) offered the same high quality as The Mary Tyler Moore Show (also produced by Moore's MTM Enterprises) and established many of the memorable characters who contributed to the show's enduring greatness. Bill Daily (late of I Dream of Jeannie) would thrive as the Hartley's divorced neighbor Howard (his uninvited "Hi Bob!" intrusions inspired that infamous drinking game), while married neighbor Margaret (Patricia Smith) would disappear by season's end. Among Bob's hilarious group-therapy patients, the miserable misanthrope Mr. Carlin (Jack Riley) was a comedic goldmine as the series progressed, but it's Newhart's own comic genius--including his perfected phone-call routines and deadpan reactions to everyday dilemmas--that remained the show's greatest asset. These 24 first-season episodes are remarkably consistent under the direction (mostly) of sitcom veterans Jay Sandrich and Alan Rafkin, and guest stars include Penny Marshall, Louise Lasser, Allen Garfield, Chuck McCann, and a host of other '70s TV stalwarts, all meshing nicely with one of TV's funniest ensemble casts. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season
Intelligent comedy
The Bob Newhart show is filled with rather intelligent comedy.
As you watch the shows, you also learn about relationships,
psychology, and love. Would highly recommend watching,
and enjoying the series. We have made a family program out
of it, where situations lead to rather interesting conversations.
A Great Mystery
Like many others here, I watched this show when it was on TV (although I'd not heard of the accompanying drinking game until today). Being born and bred in Chicago, though, there was a great mystery here...
In the opening sequence, we see Bob leaving his downtown Chicago office. We then see him repeatedly going back and forth across the north branch of the Chicago River. Which leads any reviewer to speculate on the causes for this:
1. Did he find Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) too hard to take, and was debating whether to go home or not?
2. Did Bob have undiagnosed ADHD?
3. Was he looking for the Billy Goat Tavern?
The audio commentaries on the DVD, while great, leave these questions unanswered. What we do get here, though, is great TV: no innuendos, no racial humor, nothing but straight, funny writing and acting.
Bob Newhart - First Season
I highly recommened these DVD's! How exciting and refreshing it is to pop in a DVD and go back in time to the 1970's again! Its wonderful to rewatch such a a classic piece of tv! Truly worth adding to your collection!
Related DVD's The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season
In its sophomore season, The Bob Newhart Show became an integral part of CBS's phenomenal Stay Home Saturday lineup of now-immortal shows that included All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Carol Burnett Show. Audiences were initially slow to pick up on Bob, but by its second season, the show was on a roll, and enjoyed the highest ratings of its six-year run.
Watch our exclusive interview with Bob Newhart: high bandwidth or low bandwidth
... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 04 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $20.99YOU SAVE $8.99!
Buy it
She finally made it after all... to DVD! Created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, The Mary Tyler Moore Show is the very model of a tailor-made star vehicle. It transformed Moore from Dick Van Dyke's wacky housewife to empowered thirtysomething single woman determined to make it on her own. Moore was the anchor of a peerless ensemble who brought to life characters so indelible that three of them, Ed Asner's Lou Grant, Valerie Harper's Rhoda, and Cloris Leachman's Phyllis, would each get their own series. The 24 episodes that comprise the Emmy-winning first season (1970) hilariously set the stage for what would become one of television's most beloved sitcoms, ranked by TV Guide in 2002 as the 11th greatest of all time (it should have been higher!). The classic pilot episode... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 24 September 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $21.99YOU SAVE $7.99!
Buy it
The Emmy-winning first season was an auspicious beginning. By its second season, the classic theme song "Love is All Around" has been revamped with an even more optimistic outlook: "You're gonna make it after all." In the sophomore season of this instant gold-standard sitcom, the ace writing staff and peerless ensemble begin to flesh out the iconic characters. Gruff Lou Grant (Ed Asner, enjoying his second Emmy-winning season) reveals his more loveable side when he discovers his son-in-law out with another woman in "The Six-and-a-Half-Year Itch." Vain Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) becomes a more sympathetic character in "Cover Boy," featuring the hilariously preening Jack Cassidy as Ted's competitive brother, and "And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter," in which a substitute anchor earns higher... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 26 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $23.09YOU SAVE $6.89!
Buy it
In this third season, Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore), she of the "bright smile and infectious vivacity," got to display some of that celebrated "spunk" of hers. In the season–opener, "The Good-Time News," she demands to be paid the same amount of money as her predecessor. In "The Georgette Story," she defies her boss, Lou Grant (Ed Asner), and vainglorious anchorperson Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) by counseling Ted's new girlfriend, whom he takes for granted. And in "Romeo and Mary," she finally stands up to an overzealous suitor (guest star Stuart Margolin), which hilariously backfires on her.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show endures because its timeless comedy is drawn from the wellspring of its fully drawn characters, who were allowed to grow beyond one-note caricatures. Mary's... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 17 January 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $21.99YOU SAVE $7.99!
Buy it
