Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart built an American comedy and acting career around deadpan delivery, carefully timed pauses, and one-sided telephone routines. I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This! combines memories from his career with observations and excerpts from classic routines; Grand Central Publishing issued the book under its fuller subtitle, And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny. Newhart first worked as an accountant and advertising copywriter before The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart became the first comedy album to top the Billboard album chart. The recording helped earn him Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best New Artist. He later anchored two enduring television comedies, The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. His performance style made hesitation, understatement, and the unheard half of a conversation into precise comic tools.