MY TWO SHITS WORTH: EPISODE SEVEN

     This year is the 45th Anniversary of some very memorable TV shows including "M*A*S*H", "Maude", "The Waltons",  and the current incarnation of the daytime staple "The Price Is Right."  However, I'm focusing my admiration today for "The Bob Newhart Show."  This was Newhart's 1st sitcom after hosting the critically acclaimed but low rated variety show from 1961 also with the same name that earned him 'an Emmy, a Peabody and a pink slip from NBC' as he likes to tell it.
     This new show would be one of the first sitcoms to show a happily married couple.....without any children.  It would be a risk that would pay off big in large part to the great chemistry between the 'button downed' Newhart and the straight shooting Suzanne Pleshette.  The supporting cast was also crucial to the success as well.  Newhart, who played Dr. Robert Hartley; a psychologist with an emphasis on support groups, shared a floor of an office high rise with the happy-go-lucky bachelor dentist Jerry Robinson, played by Peter Bonerz.  They also shared a sardonic and feisty receptionist, Carol Kester, played by Marcia Wallace.  The other major cast member would be their absent minded neighbor, airline navigator Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily.
     These characters would be around for the entire six year run and of the series.  I was born in 1972 so I mostly found this show in reruns.  I liked the fact that it mostly stayed away from current events and trends an focused on relationships between friends, relatives and patients.  Simple but smart.
     The group sessions were almost like a second show at times.  Between foul tempered and neurotic Elliott Carlin (Jack Riley), bashful and obedient Emile Peterson (John Fiedler),  good self-image deficient Ed Herd (Oliver Clark) and nice, elderly and blunt Mrs. Bakerman (Florida Freibus), one would never know where the prepared topics would go but we all knew it would lead to somewhere with a well intended but hilariously wrong result that would somehow get resolved by the end of the show.  I also think it was one of the first shows to portray mental health patients as real people with everyday problems and not inmates in an asylum.
      The fourth season episode "Over The River And Through The Woods" is my favorite one even though Emily (Pleshette) is barely seen as all the guys bond at Hartley's apartment over Thanksgiving because everyone is alone on this special day.  Cerebral and physical comedy are all on display here as the gang proceeds the get more and more drunk as the day goes on while attempting to watch the holiday football games and try to cook something up for a meal.
     There are too many great moments in 142 episodes to mention so if you're a fan of intelligent and slightly warped humor, go out and purchase the complete series box set.  And, to overuse a phrase, this is 'my prescription for hours and hours of laughter,'  Just don't OD, okay?

P.S.  Did you know that Howard Borden's brother, Gordon is a game warden?  That's right, he's warden Gordon Borden.