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NEWHART
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NEWHART
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Newhart
THE SERIES: Comic Bob Newhart had honed a unique humorous identity; that of "funny straight man." This was demonstrated in its purest form in Newhart's 'telephone' routines from his stand-up act (heard on his classic comedy album, "The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart"), in which his 'comedic foil' was on the other end on the phone conversation, and thus inaudible to the audience.
Like Bob Newhart's previous self-titled series from 1972, The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart was designed to accommodate Newhart's deadly deadpan delivery.
The 1982 series Newhart kept Bob Newhart's familiar character intact and transplanted it to a new setting in which he was surrounded by a cast of characters that grew increasingly eccentric during the span of the series.
Bob, named 'Dick Loudon' here, owned a historic Vermont inn where he lived with his wife Joanna (Mary Frann). While the inn was a great resource for supplying characters to serve any plot need, the show usually relied on the cast of townspeople for its humor. This cast included spoiled, shallow heiress Stephanie (Julia Duffy), who came to work at the Stratford Inn as a maid; zoned-out handyman George Utley (Tom Poston), and a trio of unfathomable mountain men, Larry, and his two mute brothers, both named Darryl (William Sanderson, Tony Papenfuss, John Voldstad).
In the 1984 season, Dick became the host of a local TV talk show, and met up with ultra-yuppie producer Michael Harris (Peter Scolari), who eventually wed Stephanie.
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Newhart
FINAL EPISODE:
THE STORY: The tale, bizarre even by Newhart standards, opens on a town meeting at the Stratford Inn at which (among other such important business as a vote to declare the flounder the Official Town Fish) the townspeople have assembled to celebrate the Inn's 216th anniversary.
Dick, as proprietor of the establishment, rises and gives the same speech he's given for the past seven years. The town knows it by heart and recites along. Dick is presented with an anniversary plaque.
As the festivities in the inn adjourn to related events in town, including a local theatrical presentation of Fiddler On The Roof, a Japanese visitor, Mr. Tagadachi expresses his love for the town and puts forth a proposition: He wants to buy the town and turn it into an incredibly large golf course. Any expected sales resistance crumbles quickly at the offer of one million dollars for each home.
Dick, ever the lone voice of reason, is shocked that the villagers would so readily sell out. Dick is steadfast and refuses to sell. Mr. Tagadachi is not deterred; he'll simply build his course around the Stratford.
Soon thereafter, Stephanie, Michael and their new baby pay a visit to wish the Loudons adieu. They are now rich and can't wait to hit the road. It's an oddly sentimental/unsentimental farewell, as is to be expected from Stephanie, who until this moment when Joanna tells her so, didn't realize that the Loudons were her friends and more than just employers. Dick remains untouched as Michael blubbers his goodbyes.
George also shows up to say goodbye now that he's "rich, rich, rich." George sold a few acres to Tagadachi that he'd been planning to use to build "Utleyland", an amusement park for handymen.
Dick, uncomfortable with goodbyes, nevertheless triggers a round of group hugs with his stammered confession that he'll miss them.
Michael breaks out into "Anatefka," from "Fiddler on the Roof" as they leave. Other villagers file in and join in. As the procession drones on like a demented reception line. Larry, Darryl and Darryl file past Dick and Joanna, introduce themselves and announce plans to go to "Chicago, America" where they have an uncle. Other townsfolk file through, quoting lines from "Fiddler" and out the door. NEXT: FIVE YEARS LATER
THE SERIES | FINAL EPISODE | OUR TAKE | TRIVIA | TV GUIDE | INFO NEEDED TOP OF PAGE INDEX OF SHOWS Newhart, cont.
The story then takes a five year leap into the future. Things have changed at the Stratford. Joanna is dressed in traditional Japanese garb to match the renovated decor and speaks a Japanese greeting to Dick. They sit at a low Japanese table and instinctively duck when the sound of "fore" comes from outside. "I hate living on the 14th fairway", says Dick. Joanna has grown accustomed to the new routine, however, speaking Japanese and serving sushi for breakfast. There is a new maid named Sedaka who is an Asian clone of Stephanie. Likewise, an Eastern version of George named Sunatra lopes into the room. Both helpers are merely biding their time until they can get jobs at the luxurious, 5000-room Tagadachiville Hotel and Country Club. The handyman nearly commits hari-kari with a screwdriver when Tagadachi mentions that it may be five years before a suitable position opens up at his hotel.
Tagadachi arrives to play a round of golf with Joanna, as has become a custom. Dick declares to Tagadachi that he hates his life and made a mistake by not selling out. Tagadachi respects Dick's tenacity, however, and won't buy him out now.
Michael and Stephanie and their youngster, five years older, arrive from Zurich. The little one has grown in Stephanie's image, and recoils at the touch of Dick's sweaty hand.
It seems the whole town has planned a reunion for this date, and George arrives next. He has been gaining and losing twenty pounds during his time away, and also smoked a peace pipe with some Indians in Arizona. The rest of the town arrives and updates the Loudens as to their whereabouts. Larry, Darryl and Darryl show up in suits and shades, with wives in tow. They are "Wanda, Zada and Flora," gum-chewing floozy sisters from Long Island, whom they met in Atlantic City. As the three hens cackle on and on about how they met, the two Darryls, finally pushed to the breaking point, yell "Quiet!" to shut them up! They had never been P.O.'d enough to speak before.
The townsfolk have grown to miss their little town and ponder moving into the Stratford. They quickly decide to stay "forever" over Dick's protestations. An emergency meeting is called to decide who will bunk with who. It collapses into a bickerfest with Dick's bile rising quickly from being ignored. Unnoticed, he decides to "get out of this madhouse." He swings the door wide and declares the lot of them crazy, unfortunately ignoring a warning call of "fore" in his anger. A golf ball strikes Dick in the temple and he topples to the floor. Fade to black.
But Dick awakens in his bedroom. It was a dream. NEXT: THE DREAM IS OVER
THE SERIES | FINAL EPISODE | OUR TAKE | TRIVIA | TV GUIDE | INFO NEEDED TOP OF PAGE INDEX OF SHOWS Newhart, cont.
He nudges his wife awake to tell her of the crazy dream. The wife is not Joanna, however, it's Emily-- Suzanne Pleshette, from the earlier Bob Newhart Show. "All right Bob, what is it?" she asks. Bob (not Dick) tries to describe his dream about life as an innkeeper in Vermont and the three strange woodsmen, the heiress maid, and so forth. Emily can't muster the interest, however, and rolls over to sleep, advising her husband to knock off the Japanese food before bedtime -- except to ask him about his beautiful blonde wife. He says nothing, save for a suggestion that Emily might try wearing more sweaters (as Joanna customarily wore in the series). They shut out the light to the Bob Newhart Show musical "sting."
The cast takes a curtain call over the closing credits and sings "For He's A Jolly good Fellow" as a cake bearing the inscription "Congratulations To Newhart Cast & Crew For Eight great years April 1982 to April 1990." The MTM Kitty of the logo shouts "Quiet!" Ala Darryl & Darryl. NEXT: OUR TAKE
THE SERIES | FINAL EPISODE | OUR TAKE | TRIVIA | TV GUIDE | INFO NEEDED TOP OF PAGE INDEX OF SHOWS Newhart, cont.
OUR TAKE: Many sitcoms during this era were ending their runs with sentimental whimpers -- flaccid summations of what and why they were about -- But Newhart had never been about sentiment; it was about comedy. And in this final episode, it was determined to take a baseball bat to the collective funny bone of the viewing audience.
For the viewing audience, there was a reason for apprehension and doubt -- a possibility that Newhart could have ended in tears. The April 21 issue of TV Guide reported a circulating rumor that the episode was to culminate with the death of the Dick Loudon character! According to the magazine, Tom Poston, who played handyman Utley, described the scenario. Quote: "...Dick storms out of the inn one day and into the path of a flying golf ball, very soon after which he finds himself having a conversation with his Maker."
The story as leaked was essentially correct, but without the vital revelation that the episode would expose the series as a dream. The audacious notion that the entire series had merely been a restless night in the life of psychiatrist Bob Hartley, and the surprise presence of Suzanne Pleshette, was a comedic equivalent of a grand slam. The dream gimmick, which was being overused in TV Land (and had produced grumbles from fans when Dallas used it to excuse an entire season) was played like a virtuoso here. The last minute "save" was also a great tension breaker for the audience, which was set up by the media to believe Dick would indeed die. It was the healthiest TV laugh in years.
If only they had left it there. NEXT: THE REUNION SHOW
THE SERIES | FINAL EPISODE | OUR TAKE | TRIVIA | TV GUIDE | INFO NEEDED TOP OF PAGE INDEX OF SHOWS Newhart, cont.
THE REUNION SHOW: In 1991, CBS aired The Bob Newhart Show 20th Anniversary Special, commemorating Newhart's earlier series (the one about psychologist Bob Hartley). The format of the show was the expected highlight clips from classic episodes, interspersed throughout a new Bob Newhart Show episode (with the entire reassembled cast) set twenty years later. The producers attempted to gild a lily by having the anniversary show pick up right where the dream sequence ending of Newhart left off, but it came off more like the flogging of a dead horse.
"When Last We Saw Bob and Emily..." the legend on the screen read, as we looked in on the Hartleys in their bedroom, with Bob concerned about his strange dream of being a Vermont innkeeper. He spends the rest of the special fretting about his sanity and trying to interpret the dream that comprised the entire series of Newhart.
As far out of left field the Newhart ending was, this special was just that predictable. Once the theme of the show was evident, it seemed inevitable that Larry Darryl and Darryl would turn up for a cameo in Bob's "real" world, which they did.
Instead of leaving the ending of Newhart as a gag meant to be enjoyed as a simple wink to the audience, this show belabors the notion that all of Newhart was merely a figment of Hartley's imagination.
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TRIVIA
- The presence of the song "Anatevka" continues a tradition of incongruous "swan songs" in MTM productions. Others were "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Oklahoma" in The Bob Newhart Show and ______ in St. Elsewhere.
- Larry, Darryl and Darryl made an unofficial encore when they stepped into the 11/3/97 episode of Newhart's later series, "George and Leo." That sweeps month episode also featured cameos by actors who had been regulars on previous series of both Newhar, and of George and Leo co-star Judd Hirsch.
TV GUIDE LISTING
CLOSE-UP:
THE LAST SHOWAfter eight years at the Stratford inn, Dick (Bob Newhart) has grown too attached to the place to accept the million-dollar offer for it extended by a Japanese investor (Gedde Watanabe) planning to turn the whole town into a golf course. But the rest of the townsfolk aren't so sentimental. As Michael puts it, We're out of this village of the darned."
Dick is the only holdout, and winds up bidding goodbye to Stephanie (Julia Duffy), Michael (Peter Scolari) and George (Tom Poston) with a hug. Then the locals bid farewell, singing "Anatevka" from their community theater "Fiddler on the Roof" Production.
Five years pass, and the inn acquires a definite Oriental cast, as does Joanna (Mary Frann), who's dressed like a geisha. New maid Sedaka (Shuko Akuneo has a familiar impertinence, but suit-and-tie clad handyman Sunatra (Sab Shimono) is no George -- and golf balls pelt the clapboards. can it get worse? Yes: everyone returns for a reunion.
Larry: William Sanderson. Darryl No. 1: Tony Papenfuss. Darryl No. 2: John Voldstad. Jim: Thomas Hill. Chester: William Lanteau. Miss Goddard: Kathy Kinney. Rusnak: David Pressman. Baby Stephanie; Candy Huston. Ed: Frank Kopyc.
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INFO NEEDED: Please drop us a line if you spot any factual errors, or know of additional information that might be appropriate to include. Please provide documentation, if possible.
In addition, we are looking for a source for episode Neilsen ratings.
Plus, we are interested in contacting anyone connected with the series or final episode of Newhart, for interview purposes.
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