Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart/The Windmills Are Weakening CD

Though not the first standup comedian to release a live recording, Bob Newhart was probably the first to really capture the public's attention, thanks to his debut, 1960's THE BUTTON-DOWN MIND OF BOB NEWHART. Of the six pieces included on this album, five of them are set up as part of a conversation (usually by phone), something that became Newhart's trademark. The material here would have been novel in any age, and very little of it has dated substantially ("The Kruschev Landing Rehearsal" being the main exception, though it would still be funny even if you had no clue what the sketch was referring to). Though "Abe Lincoln Vs. Madison Avenue" and "Merchandising the Wright Brothers" are both top-shelf Newhart bits, "Driving Instructor" rises to the top of the heap.

Even if you could complain that Bob Newhart was starting to get a bit stingy with the amount of material on his albums by the mid-'60s, at least the quality level was remaining pretty high as evidenced by 1965's THE WINDMILLS ARE WEAKENING. "King Kong" imagines a security guard's first day on the job, trying to deal with a gigantic ape climbing his building, while another cut finds Clark Kent arguing with a dry cleaner who's managed to lose his Superman suit. In the past, Newhart has always been at his best when psychoanalyzing historical figures, and that's the case here, with a fairly lengthy cut featuring a psychiatrist trying to work out just what was wrong with Ben Franklin that would cause him to fly kites in thunderstorms.

Liner Note Author: James Ritz.