So Long, Bob
A big part of my life as a kid was watching Bob Newhart and, looking back, developing my own, slightly deadpan, sense of humor largely from those hours of steady Bob-isms.
Drafted into the Army during the tail-end of the Korean War, 5′ 8″ Bob had a business management degree from Loyola under his belt so spent most of his two-year stint in OD Green as an enlisted clerk. This made his first film, Hell is for Heroes, so perfect. At the time doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs around Hollywood and just a few years out of the service, Newhart portrayed a hapless Army clerk who stumbled into the high-action combat and provided comedic relief.
Bob as PFC Driscoll in Hell is for Heroes. SGT Newhart had just left the Army seven years prior
While he didn’t do many other war films, his portrayal of Major Major Major in 1970’s Catch-22 is classic.
And any bubblehead from the Cold War has probably heard his still very funny “USS Codfish” bit.
An interesting anecdote from when I was a kid that was Bob-adjacent was when the old battlewagon USS Wisconsin was towed to Ingalls for reactivation during the Reagan/Lehman 600-ship Navy build-up, the crew unofficially named her three main 16″/50 turrets “Larry, Darryl, and Darryl” due to the then running gag on the Newhart Show, which was a big hit at the time.
I remember seeing those t-shirts all over Pascagoula for years after Wisconsin left.
Mr. Newhart, you will be missed.
