Product Description

Unique among even the most cutting-edge standup comics of the '60s, Bob Newhart entertained his audiences not with snappy patter and jokes, but with long monologues in which his voice represented one side of a conversation, the other side left to the listener's imagination. This idiosyncratic format proved endlessly adaptable, as Newhart spun seemingly endless scenarios from it. Before he became a beloved TV star with the Bob Newhart Show, he released several popular comedy albums, from which the best moments have been culled for inclusion on this definitive two-disc compilation. Whether he'sadvising Abraham Lincoln, confronting King Kong, or gettingblitzed at a retirement party (among other comedic situations to be found here), Newhart employs his patented mild-mannered, "button-down" personality to subtle but sharp comic effect.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Abe Lincoln Vs Madsion Avenue
2. Cruise Of The USS Codfish
3. Merchandising The Wright Brothers
4. Driving Instructor
5. Grace L Ferguson Airline (And Storm Door Co)
6. Bus Drivers School
7. Retirement Party
8. Ledge Psychology
9. Rocket Scientist
10. Uncle Freddie Show
11. Introducing Tobacco To Civilization
12. Siamese Cat
13. Defusing A Bomb
14. Friend With A Dog
15. Expectant Father
16. On Poodles And Planes
17. Man Who Looked Like Hitler
18. King Kong
19. Returning A Gift
20. Buying A House
21. Ben Franklin In Analysis
22. Daddy Of All Hangovers
23. On Trains And Planes
24. Modern Witch Doctor

Disc 2:

1. Introducing Tobacco To Civilization
2. Siamese Cat
3. Defusing A Bomb
4. Friend With A Dog
5. Expectant Father
6. On Poodles And Planes
7. Man Who Looked Like Hitler
8. King Kong
9. Returning A Gift
10. Buying A House
11. Ben Franklin In Analysis
12. Daddy Of All Hangovers
13. On Trains And Planes
14. Modern Witch Doctor

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1148 in Music
• Released on: 2001-04-23
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Double CD

Amazon.co.uk Review
Something Like This... is a generous sampling of Bob Newhart's best stand-up bits. Part of what Bob Newhart mastered, earlier on stand-up albums like The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! and later on his long-running American television series The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, was capturing a brand of Everyman neuroses and heightening it, bringing mundane, common scenarios into the realm of the absurd--and the absurdly funny. Newhart also perfected playing a character involved in a conversation with the other party in absentia, as in one of his most famous routines, "King Kong", in which he plays the part of an Empire State Building security guard who calls his boss the night King Kong makes his famous ascent. ("Yes, sir, I looked in the handbook index under "unauthorized personnel" and "people without passes" and "apes", and "ape's toes", but it's not in there...."). While some of his topics--airplanes, hating to fly--have now been so overdone as to be comic faux pas, rather than making his material seem dated they often serve to demonstrate just how rare a talent he is simply because the routines still elicit involuntary snorts of laughter some 30 years later. --Mark Hunstman

Customer Reviews

Laugh until you ache !!
My husband is a driving instructor so I felt this CD was a "must have" gift for him.

We are both were familiar with Bob Newhart's brilliantly funny sketches from years back - once hard - never forgotten. It's not only what he puts into his sketches that are so funny, as what he leaves out, with well timed pauses skillfully setting the scene in the listener's imagination.

The Driving Instructor is a pure classic - I defy anyone not to laugh have until they have tears rolling down their cheeks. The Grace L Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door co) is brilliantly funny also, as is the Retirement Party and the Bus Drivers' School.

This is wonderfully funny humour which still works today and very cleverly constructed leaving so much to the imagination. If you have never heard of Bob Newhart - try this terrific CD. He is class act - a legend in the world of humour.

funny guy
he's quite a funny guy, i bought this for my mother and have overheard it in the house; some items are pretty funny, others don't quite hit the mark

Classic comedy
Bob Newhart was one of the first stand up comics to 'make it big', and from this CD it's not hard to see why - he genuinely is funny. Not 'funny' as in the majority of today's so-called comics who focus on flatulence and 'adult material' for laughs, but 'witty'.

Newhart's material consists of him talking to an imaginary 'other person', either on the 'phone or in a variety of situations. Amongst the best are the policeman using the new guidelines to perusade a would-be suicide not to do it, and the policeman trying to defuse a bomb he's found. My favourite is the phone call between Sir Walter Raleigh and his agent in London, about the boatload of tobacco leaves he's shipped over.

The sound quality's not brilliant, and if it were music would be cause for compliant, but in reality it makes little difference as you're only listening to someone talking.

The trouble is, of course, that you can only listen to this a couple of times before it looses its edge, but it's still definately worth getting.