Bob Newhart

By Rebecca Winters

What would you do to reinvigorate the sitcom? I'd get rid of the laugh track, 'cause the writers don't write as funny, the actors don't act as funny.

Do you hear much from the generation that discovered you in syndication? I started getting a whole lot more fan mail in crayon when we went on Nick at Nite.

Ellen DeGeneres calls you an influence. Do you see it? I influenced Ellen, but Ellen then developed her own sound. People would say to me, "Do you stammer, or did you develop it?" That was just the way I talked. I didn't say, "There's no stammerer out there in comedy. There's an opening!"

You played a psychologist so memorably. Did people ever assume you could dispense advice? I did get a letter from a woman who said her son was having problems. They went to the boy and said, "We think we should go to therapy." And he said, "Will he be like that man on television?" So that's when I felt we were having a positive impact.

You're on Desperate Housewives. What do you make of the show's success? Some people are watching it because they think it's a soap. That's why I'm attracted to it--it's a send-up of a genre of television.

PBS is preparing an American Masters program about you. Why still do stand-up when it's official--you're a master? The alternative is Sunset Blvd. You sit in a darkened room every day, and Erich von Stroheim comes in and asks you what episode of The Bob Newhart Show you want to watch. I'd rather keep making people laugh.