As I wrote previously, the Swiss Travel Board has put out a series of long ads the past few years that are pretty amusing. They each star Swiss tennis star Roger Federer, along with another celebrity he’s supposedly got to join him, and I’ll post the best of them. The first I posted was with Trevor Noah here. The second was this with Federer and Anne Hathaway Finally, completing the trilogy, here’s one with Federer and Robert De Niro.
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I wish this clip started five seconds earlier to make the set-up surprise better, but it’s still a treat. It’s from an episode of “Murphy Brown.” If you watched the show, you’ll recall that Murphy had a ongoing, hellish time finding a secretary. And one episode, she found someone she finally liked who liked being there. A woman named Carol – played by Marcia Wallace, who had played the secretary, Carol, on The Bob Newhart Show. At one point in the episode, the elevators opened in the office, and out stepped – Bob Newhart! And he played…oh, you can guess – This is one of more offbeat, strange and special TV ads you’re likely to see. And one of more offbeat and strange pieces you're likely to see from Mike Nichols and Elaine May. It’s Nichols and May, early in their careers doing what is almost a two-minute, high-British drama sketch advertising GE refrigerators. I was so sorry to hear about Bob Newhart passing today at the age of 94. But I was so glad to have had him around for 94 years. And active almost to the end, and popular and beloved to the end. And for all the people who only know and love Bob Newhart's work from his various TV series, it's hard to explain what a massive phenomenon he was years before that from his wildly popular comedy albums, starting in 1960 with "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," where he always played basically a one-man straight man, reacting to someone else on the other end of a phone. "The Button-Down Mind..." was such a huge hit that it became the first comedy album to make number one on the Billboard record charts and also won two Grammy Awards -- Album of the Year and Best New Artist. And yes, that was "Album of the Year," not just best comedy album. He began in Chicago as an accountant (of which he'd later quip that his motto was "That's close enough"), but would occasionally do some comedy telephone bits with a fellow-worker would send as audition tapes to radio stations. When the partner left to take a job in New York, Newhart continued with his telephone comedy efforts. Tapes of them came to the attention of a local Chicago DJ Dan Sorkin (a weird, though funny guy my brother and I used to later listen to) who took the tapes to Warner Bros., who signed Newhart as a result of just hearing them. His monologue sketches are so inventive, whimsical, human, funny, smart, timeless and supremely performed that they're a rarity -- comedy pieces that could be repeated for decades and still be funny. And for all the people who know of his work mainly or only from his television series, even they largely are unaware of his 1961 TV variety show. It was unsuccessful, lasting only a year -- yet it was so wonderful that it was nominated for an Emmy and won a Peabody Award! I don't remember much about it, I was a wee kidling at the time, but I do remember just one sketch. It was about a new baseball stadium being built in a formerly residential neighborhood, but one family didn't sell their home which still stood around third base. All I recall is that the sketch took place in the family's living room, with third base in the center of the room, along with the umpire and third basemen, who were very friendly with the family. And runners would have to open the door to get to the base. I also liked his film work, though it was limited. I particularly enjoyed him in Hot Millions, opposite Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith. And Catch-22, as 'Major Major.' (I'm still hoping to see Norman Lear's Cold Turkey, that starred Dick Van Dyke, but as far as I can tell, it's still not available for streaming or on DVD.) My favorite Bob Newhart line did not come from a sketch, but an off-handed comment he made, in reaction to -- of all things -- Clint Eastwood's odd attempt to ridicule President Barack Obama at the Republican Nation Convention. Here's how he tells the story about it to the Los Angeles Times -- During Thursday’s telecast of the Republican National Convention, legendary comedian Bob Newhart, 82, got a call from his daughter Jennifer, who runs his Twitter account, @bobnewhart. There are so many great Bob Newhart classics, it's near-impossible to say "This is his best" or "This is my favorite." Leading contenders are, of course, The Driving Instructor, Lincoln meets Madison Avenue, Security Guard's First Night when King Kong Climbs Up, and Bus Drivers Training Class. But shifting gears slightly, I'll make a leap and say that my favorite little known piece is probably "The Grace L. Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door Company)". I always laugh at it from the whimsical lunacy of the name alone. But there's a lot more to laugh at in it than that. I'm going to include a bonus, for two reasons. One, because I think it's important to show Bob Newhart doing one of his monologue sketches on video, and two, because he's said that this is probably his own favorite piece. It's Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue. If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show -- well, actually, no one did, since he did it on Tuesday. And here it is. And happily, he's back on track. It's a look at the first night of the RNC Convention and the shooting on Saturday. And he's wonderful -- pointed, angry and extremely funny. A while back, after watching the HBO documentary on Albert Brooks, I decided to start posting some of my favorite of his comedy bit, mostly his inspired, lunatic appearances on The Tonight Show. As they mention in the documentary, he never used material from his act but always came up with new material for the performance. And they are just classic gems. I've previously posted his Rewriting the National Anthem (a great sketch from one of his albums), his lunatic ventriloquism act with his little pal Danny, and his Home Kit for doing impressions, which I believe was done specifically for The Tonight Show. This time, it's another of his Tonight exclusives -- and another his Home Comedy Kit, this time returning to ventriloquism, all for amateurs who don't even need to know how to throw your voice |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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