Hi Bob!: A Self-Help Guide to "The Bob Newhart Show"

1996, first edition, from St. Martin's Press
Joey Green
Hi Bob!: A Self-Help Guide to The Bob Newhart Show
Bought new for $14.95
Worn paperback
B

This equally as good as Green's Gilligan's Island book.  Green had the disadvantage of Newhart refusing to be interviewed, but everyone else seems to have been cooperative, many of them enthusiastic.  The cast was justifiably proud of the show, which incredibly was never nominated for an Emmy in six years.  Green, as usual, has his own insights, including on Dr. Hartley's various neuroses.  Green himself might seem obsessive to some, but I enjoy him pointing out contradictions in, for instance, how long the Hartleys have known Howard.

This book of course came out after Newhart's '80s series, where Tom Poston was a regular, but Poston made a few appearances on BNS as Bob's college chum Peeper.  Five years after this book, Poston married Suzanne Pleshette.  (They'd dated back in the '50s.)  He died in '07, she the following year.  Newhart is still alive at 84 and doesn't seem to have aged much in the past 50 years.  As for Green, it appears he mostly writes household hints books these days.