Bob Newhart’s Comic Book Series Coming to DVD

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January 10, 2012

Via TV Shows on DVD comes the news that Bob Newhart’s TV show about being a comic book artist, Bob, is coming to DVD on April 3. List price for Bob the Complete Series is $39.98 for 33 episodes, but I’ve already preordered it with Amazon’s 30% discount.

In the show, which ran 1992-1993, Newhart played Bob McKay, who had created Mad Dog, a 50s superhero put out of business during the Wertham era, when Seduction of the Innocent made comics bad for kids. Then his hero was revived by a huge media company, who wants to make the character a “bloodthirsty vigilante”. His boss was played by John Cygan, his wife by Carlene Watkins, and his daughter by Cynthia Stevenson. Also appearing were Lisa Kudrow, Tom Poston, and Dick Martin. Between seasons, the show was greatly retooled, bringing in Betty White to have Bob work for her at a greeting card company along with Jere Burns and Megan Cavanagh.

Jack Kirby (!) even appeared as himself on one episode. Marvel actually put out six issues of a Mad Dog comic, done as a flipbook. One side was the old-fashioned version, done by Ty Templeton, while the other was the “updated” 90s version, written by Evan Dorkin.

8 Responses

Diana writes:

January 11, 2012 at 1:40 AM

About time. I have a few episodes transferred to DVD from VHS, but I’m eager for a proper collection. And the comic was pretty good- nothing Earth-shaking, but fun!

Johanna writes:

January 11, 2012 at 7:05 AM

I don’t recall seeing any episodes, and I know I wouldn’t have gotten the comic-related stuff back then, since that was before I got back into the medium as an adult. I’m looking forward to watching the show, knowing what I know now.

Toonsmyth writes:

January 11, 2012 at 11:37 AM

HOORAY! MAD DOG LIVES! Fingers crossed for bonus features and commentaries! This was an AWESOME show with great celebrity cameos before the needless retooling. Especially the episode with “the guy who played Norm on Cheers!”

Richard J. Marcej writes:

January 11, 2012 at 2:21 PM

I remember really looking forward to this series when it was announced back in the early 90′s.
• It had the always great Bob Newhart who had not one but two previous excellent TV series (The Bob Newhart Show & Newhart)
• It was set in the world of comics, cartoonists and artists.
How could it not be great????

Unfortunately….. it was… while not terrible, not nearly as good as it should/could have been.

All the producers needed to do was surround Bob with odd, strong characters and let him do his stuff, there’s no reason why it couldn’t have followed the same blueprint of his earlier successes.
The writing was never there and with the exception of his daughter (Cynthia Stevens was very good) none of the rest of the cast stood out to me.

~chris writes:

January 11, 2012 at 2:33 PM

Hooray! And don’t forget Otto the cat!

Steely Dan writes:

January 11, 2012 at 10:29 PM

But when is the rest of “Newhart” going to be released beyond season one? That’s what I’m actually more interested in.

LAST WEEK on the ‘net | Ty Templeton's ART LAND!! writes:

January 16, 2012 at 5:45 AM

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El Santo writes:

January 16, 2012 at 4:29 PM

Oh. My. God.

I am totally squealing like a fangirl over here.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!