If you knew Bob Newhart only as an actor – most notably as the star of the legendary “ Bob Newhart Show ” but also in a minor though memorable role in the movie “Elf” – you may not have thought of him as a literary figure. However, Newhart, who died on July 18, 2024 , at the age of 94, began his rise to stardom as a stand-up comic, crafting and delivering such brilliant monologues as “ Driving Instructor ” and “ Bus Drivers School .” In those bits, he demonstrated a mastery of diction, dialect, character and dialogue worthy of the title “literary master.
” In my view, there is perhaps no more fitting recipient of the Mark Twain Prize than Newhart , who received it in 2002. As a literary scholar , I typically study traditional poetry and fiction by canonical authors such as Twain and Edgar Allan Poe. But the mastery of language and character is not the sole possession of poets and novelists.
Newhart demonstrated that stand-up comedy could also be an art form. ‘The old humble bit’ One of his masterpieces is his “ Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue ” stand-up routine, built around a quirky but timely premise.
Having witnessed the rise of advertising and public relations in the 1950s and 1960s, Newhart imagined a scenario from an earlier age. What if, he asked, there had been no real man with the mind and stature of Abraham Lincoln during America’s Civil War? The advertising industry, he goes on to say, “would have had to create a Lincoln.” He the.