The Bob Newhart Show
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The Bob Newhart Show is the name of two different television series.
The first was a comedy variety show which ran from 1961 to 1962 on NBC, and won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. The second, more well-known program, was a situation comedy which aired on CBS from 1972 through 1978. Neither is to be confused with the series Newhart or Bob, other series starring Bob Newhart.
The popular CBS series starred Newhart as Robert Hartley, a Chicago psychologist. The show divided most of its action between the character's home life and work, with Suzanne Pleshette playing Hartley's sarcastic wife Emily, and his neighbor, inept airline navigator Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily. At the medical complex where Hartley had his psychology practice, Marcia Wallace played his receptionist, Carol, and Peter Bonerz appeared as Jerry, a dentist who shared the office suite. Most of the situations involved Newhart's character playing straight man to his wife, colleagues, friends and patients.
It was nominated for an Emmy as "Outstanding Comedy Series" in 1977. Newhart was nominated for Golden Globes as "Best TV Actor - Musical/Comedy" in 1975 and 1976. The show ranked in the Top 20 for its first 3 seasons, but schedule changes eventually pushed it to #53 by its final season (1977-78).
In the final episode of the series, Bob & Emily moved to a rural setting from Chicago. However, all subsequent mentions of the Bob Newhart Show have forgotten this fact.
Newhart and Pleshette reprised their roles from the show for the surreal ending of his later series Newhart in 1990 and again as hosts for a segment of the CBS Television Fiftieth Anniversary broadcast. In between, the entire cast assembled for the one-hour clip show The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary in 1991, which picked up the morning after the Newhart finale.