Product Details

• Actors: Bob Newhart
• Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: September 19, 2006
• Run Time: 62 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000G6BLDI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,445 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For those who only remember Bob Newhart from his classic TV sitcom of the '70s, The Button-Down Concert may come as a pleasant revelation. Older fans will of course recall that Newhart's stellar career began in stand-up comedy, and by the time his phenomenally popular LP The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was released in 1960, the comedian called "The Dean of Deadpan" in The New York Times was playing to standing-room-only crowds at Vegas casinos and nightclubs across the country, offering a clean alternative to the "sick" humor of Lenny Bruce. Recorded in 1995 and originally broadcast on Showtime as Bob Newhart: Off the Record, this revival concert of Newhart's classic '60s routines is equal parts nostalgia trip and welcomed opportunity to appreciate the enduring quality of Newhart's most beloved "Button-Down" routines. Essentially a greatest-hits performance, the hour-long concert (from the historic Raymond Theater in Pasadena, California) runs the gamut from "Unemployment Office" and "The School for Rude Bus Drivers" to "Sir Walter Raleigh Explains Tobacco" and "The Tipsy Accountant's Retirement Party." In nearly every routine, Newhart masters his trademark style, delivering each sketch as a one-sided telephone call (as in "King Kong and the New Security Guard" and the classic "Abe Lincoln's P.R. Man") or as an officious drone or beleaguered everyman addressing a captive audience (as in "The Airplane Captain Speaks to his Passengers"), and in each case, Newhart's inimitable line deliveries and befuddled stutter render each line hilarious, even when the humor shows signs of its Rat Pack-era vintage. It's obvious that Newhart relished this opportunity to perform these time-honored sketches to a new and (mostly) younger audience, and his performance goes off without a hitch. In the "Buttoned Down" bonus featurette, Newhart places his early career in context, and describes how he learned to hone each routine to each individual audience, and for anyone interested in building a definitive collection of stand-up classics, this DVD is nothing less than essential. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

The New York Times calls him "the Dean of Deadpan." The Los Angeles Times calls him "a genius." You'll just call him hilarious when you catch your breath...Bob Newhart's return to the stand-up stage is a deliriously funny ride!

Newhart, whose unprecedented three successful TV series and guest roles in Elf, "E.R." and "Desperate Housewives" have endeared him to millions, delivers a winning performance in a rare televised special that recalls his days as a comedy-circuit cut-up. Tackling everything from crazy bus drivers and mad inventors to cheap airlines and King Kong, the Golden Globe-winning* Newhart takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinarily funny. It's no wonder he's "still a very hot ticket" (Parade)!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious 1995 comedy special makes its DVD debut, September 17, 2006

By	Wayne Klein "If at first the idea is not absu... (My Little Blue Window, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This is a great time for Bob Newhart fans. His TV series has been appearing regular on DVD and now we get this outstanding comedy special. All too quietly Bob Newhart became one of the funniest comedians to transition from stand up to TV and film. Newhart first became a fixture in the public mind with his TV appearances and record albums. This special named after his first record "The Button Down Mind" (which became a startling #1 hit on the record charts) captures Newhart in perfect form revisiting the past in a live venue, touching on previous performances by echoing those routines and moving forward to the 1995 (when this show was recorded) in a funny concert recorded at the Raymond Theater in Pasadena, California for Showtime.

In many respects this is almost like a concert by a band that's been around for a long time--Newhart uses some of his old routines which still sound surprisingly fresh over 40 years later--and integrates them seamlessly into his more contemporary take on the fragile and often funny human existence. Bob's an affable but often perplexed every man and as such his routines such as his hilarious routine about The Driving Instructor bounce around with the comic energy of the absurd that's right around the corner (or in this case the driveway) from all of us. Newhart takes this to even more absurd (and oddly enough contemporary again because of Peter Jackson's film "King Kong") situations when the night watchman for the Empire State Building calls his boss to figure out how to get Kong off the building without breaking any windows. I had heard many of these routines over the years courtesy of my parents (along with unusual items such as Olivier's "Hamlet" played on their treasured 78 long players at parties...yes "Hamlet" played at parties. Hey, if you have enough to drink Olivier can be VERY funny at least according to my parent's friends) but the delivery and the characters that Newhart inhabits continue to keep them fresh and funny all these years later.

A big bonus here is a 20 minute interview with Newhart where he speaks candidly about his beginning in stand up and how he came up with some of his more famous routines. We also get a photo gallery featuring Newhart from childhood to adulthood which is kind of cool as well to see this icon of comedy over time.

Some routines are timeless. Newhart's routines because they touch on the absurdity of every day life that we might encounter have that quality. This is a terrific concert for fans of Newhart and fans of concert performances. It doesn't matter how old you are these are still funny routines with resonance that the average person can relate to. Newhart takes the ordinary, injects an absurd element into and imagines how that person would handle the situation much like we might except, of course, most of us couldn't make it as funny as Newhart with his pristine, hesitant delivery.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughing Out Loud, September 24, 2006

By	Michael Burton (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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When a comedian can make audiences laugh at comedy routines he first recorded more than thirty years earlier -- when he can make a TV viewer (me) laugh out loud more than ten years after THAT -- boy, that comedian's really got something.

Some of the material was so familiar from Newhart's early '60s records that at one point in this performance he says, "I know some of you know these routines by heart, but it throws me off to watch your lips move along with mine as I'm doing them."

These are the routines on the DVD -- some titles from the DVD, some from the albums:

Bob at the Unemployment Office
Bus Drivers School
King Kong and the New Security Guard
Driving Instructor
Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Co.
Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue
Cruise of the U.S.S. Codfish
The One-Eyed Bullfighter
Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball
The Nude Police Line-Up
Edison's Real Invention
Introducing Tobacco to Civilization
Retirement Party

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Newhart does the old chestnuts, November 10, 2006

By	Joseph Torbay (Cambridge, ON Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all, let me say that it's great to have Newhart's old standup routines memorialized for the ages on this video. All the old chestnuts are here: the Driving Instructor, Abe Lincoln, Tobacco and others. The downside is that Newhart doesn't do a particularly good job of delivering the material. It seems as if his timing is off and often some important and funny lines are omitted. Having said that, if this is all we can get to watch, it's still worth watching. But if you want Newhart at his best, get the original audio performances, available on CD.