Some of Newhart’s most fondly remembered routines hilariously skewered Madison Avenue. In “Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue,” an increasingly flustered imagemaker tries to get Abe to stick to the Gettysburg Address script (“You changed four score and seven to eighty-seven? Abe, that’s meant to be a grabber.”)
That routine kicks off The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, his first album, which catapulted Newhart to stardom. It not only topped the charts (it sold over a million copies), but won a Grammy for album of the year, beating out Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Newhart also received Grammys for best new artist and best spoken-word comedy performance. His follow-up album The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! was also a Grammy-winner and both took the one-two slots on the Billboard album chart.
Hold it. How does an accountant become a No. 1 recording artist? While working at Glidden Company selling paint, he and a colleague, whiled the monotonous hours on the phone making each other laugh with improvised dialogues. They recorded and marketed them to local radio stations. Newhart was forced to go solo when his friend took a job in New York.
Chicago radio personality Dan Sorkin not only played some of Newhart’s routines on the air, gave some of the tapes to an executive at Warner Bros. Records, which asked to record his next nightclub performance. Here’s the funny thing: Newhart had never performed in a nightclub. Strings were pulled and Newhart was booked in the Tidelands Motor Inn, where “The Button-Down Mind” was recorded
Newhart did not tell jokes. Like Shelley Berman (and a reported sore spot with him), Newhart did monologues that played out over a phone call between, say an Empire Building security guard whose first night coincides with the appearance of King Kong on the roof, or a game marketing executive fielding a call from Abner Doubleday pitching the game of baseball, or an officer addressing his crew following a truly disastrous voyage. Audiences only heard his end of the conversations.
Newhart was a mainstay of game, talk and variety shows. He parlayed the success of “The Button-Down Mind” into hosting his own 1961 variety show, which lasted one season, but won Emmy and Peabody awards.