Comic Bob Newhart in futile hunt for his dark side

LOS ANGELES, Dec 14: Seated in the cavernous den of his Bel Air mansion the other day, not far from some American Flag throw pillows, comedian Bob Newhart insisted that he had a dark side and that there are even learned papers written about it -- well, at least one.

Newhart, needless to say, is a comedian beloved for his meekness, gentility and sheer befuddledness.

He has had two legendary television series and is inadvertently responsible for getting thousands of college students drunk. Every time someone said ''Hi Bob'' on one of the shows, it was time for a drink on campuses everywhere.

Usually regarded as an American comic icon, he made some people genuinely worried when 2006 Emmy's host Conan O'Brien put him in a capsule and said he would suffocate if the awards winners talked too long and sent the show over three hours.

Newhart, of course, looked perfectly petrified and totally believable.

So when he mentioned in an interview that he had a dark side, a listener's ears perked up. If you believe he might die in an airtight capsule, maybe you would believe that he has a dark side? ''I heard people say that I have an edge. I participated in a project called Comedy College in which one comedian analyzed another comedian and Steve Martin wrote the one about me,'' he said. ''One of his points was that there was a darkness and anger in me, but it was kind of hidden and concealed, but it is still there.'' Groping for an example, Newhart, a former accountant, who lived at home until he was 29, said small things upset him.

Take drivers who cut in front of him. ''That upsets me. I start honking my horn. It is like the rules apply to someone else 'because I am have so much more in my life than you do.' I get mad at indifference.'' It was a not very convincing argument, and Newhart may be the only person who thinks he has a Darth Vader side.

CRIME AND COMEDY

But then again, he may also be the only person inspired to write and create humor by the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and a man not previously associated with punch lines or hearty guffaws.

''Comedy and a crime story are kind of similar. You kind of hide the guy who did it until the very end and you throw out a lot of false leads. You disguise the punch line for as long as you can,'' he said.

Take, for example, the title of his just published autobiography, ''I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This.'' You might think it a reference to the unusual route he took to comedy, but it isn't. It is the punch line to one of his favorite jokes.

''The joke is simple. An employee is making passionate love to his boss's wife when she shouts 'Kiss me, kiss me.' He responds, 'I shouldn't even be doing this,''' Newhart said. ''I was an accountant and not a very good one. I didn't enjoy it, it was too mundane for me so I decided to try comedy for a year or so and see if could make a living at it. Well, the year became two years, then then three and finally I did a record album that kicked the whole thing off,'' he said referring to his 1960 comedy album ''The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart.'' Newhart's entry into the world of comedy came as a whole new group of comedians were grabbing so much attention in the late 50s and early 60s that Time Magazine called them ''The Sick Comedians.'' Their comedy was franker and more absurd than the usual ''Take My Wife'' fare that dominated early television.

''There was a whole bunch of us. It wasn't like a cabal in which we all got together and said let's change the face of comedy, but this is what we did. There was Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Shelly Berman, Lenny Bruce, myself and Jonathan Winters. We were all lumped together because we were so radical.

''For example, I did a routine in which a press agent coaches Abraham Lincoln on how to make the Gettysburg Address.

'What else, Abe? ... You changed four score and seven years to 'eighty-seven'? I understand it means the same thing, Abe.

That's meant to be a grabber. Abe, we test-marketed that in Erie and they went out of their minds.' That skit resonated with college kids,'' he said.

Newhart is a careful reader of newspapers, never knowing what is going to jump out at him and make it into his act, like when a court ordered United Parcel Service Inc. to hire deaf drivers. ''The first thing I thought of was, How do you tell a deaf driver that he delivered the package to the wrong house? Then I thought, what would the court say about blind drivers.'' As he takes it further, the picture gets more and more surreal. Maybe the guy does have a dark side.

REUTERS