Bob Newhart toasts his chart-topping 1960 debut album: 'It was back to accounting if comedy didn't work out'

Bob Newhart encountered a major setback when he recorded his chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning debut comedy album, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” at a Texas nightclub in early 1960.The setback had nothing to do with the fact that — until two weeks earlier — the former Chicago accountant had never done a single stand-up performance in his life and was unknown to his Houston audience. Nor was it related to the fact that Newhart, who became a standout TV sitcom star in the 1970s, arrived in Texas with just three routines and had to quickly write three more for the flip side of his first...

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