What Bob Newhart's 1960 routine about Abe Lincoln tells us about politics today
Newhart died July 18, but America needs more wit, less rage and anguish
The best comedy finds an uncomfortable truth and tells us a joke.
Bob Newhart, who died July 18 at 94, excelled at this.
Newhart read the 1958 book “The Hidden Persuaders,” by journalist and social critic Vance Packard.
The book argues that applying marketing techniques to political elections, particularly presidential campaigns, meant that voters were picking personalities rather than discussing substantive issues.
This is a heavy, cerebral topic which is a brutal bummer to read.
Yet Newhart turned it into one of the finest stand-up comedy bits ever recorded.
His timeless routine is “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue.”
Newhart imagined marketing tactics applied to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
He delivered the routine, as he often did, from the perspective of his half of a telephone conversation.
Newhart was the voice of the marketing man, who answered the call from Lincoln: “Hi, Abe, sweetheart, how are you, kid? How’s Gettysburg? … Sort of drag, huh? Well, Abe, you know them small Pennsylvania towns, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
Lincoln had made changes to the Gettysburg Address, which Newhart’s firm had written for him.
“You changed four score and seven years ago to 87?” Newhart says. “Abe, that’s meant to a grabber. We test-marketed that in Eerie (Pennsylvania) and they went out of their minds.”
Newhart pauses to indicate Lincoln’s complaint.
“Well, Abe, it’s like Mark Anthony saying, ‘Friends, Romans, countryman, I’ve got something I want to tell you.”
Lincoln quibbled with the “People will little note nor long remember …” line from the speech.
Newhart retorted, “Abe, it’s the old humble bit. You can’t say it’s a great speech and everybody ought to listen. You come off as a braggart, don’t you see that?”
Newhart admonished Lincoln for making changes to the Gettysburg Address, not only to how it was written but what it was written on.
“You what? You typed it?” Newhart says. “Abe, how many times have we told you, on the backs of envelopes. We’re getting a lot of play in the press on that.”
A myth holds Lincoln wrote one of the most important and eloquent orations in presidential history on the back of an envelope while riding the train from Washington, D.C. None of the five surviving copies of the Gettysburg Address are written on envelopes.
Newhart performed “Ave Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue” throughout his career, shortening the routine as audience attention spans dwindled.
Audiences in the 21st century laughed as hard as they did when it was released on his Grammy-winning 1960 album.
The remains timeless because it pokes at an uncomfortable truth about America: Our politics are as much of a show as any scripted movie or TV show.
A modern reenactment might be done over text messages, but the voice of a slick, amoral marketer pushing an image rather than truth through the political process remains as relevant today as it was 65 years ago.
Newhart achieved national stardom through two beloved sitcoms that carried his name, “The Bob Newhart Show” from 1971-1978 and “Newhart” from 1982-1990.
Newhart started life as an accountant and he carried himself unassumingly, spoke with a slight stammer, and appeared somewhat nebbish.
But his self-described button-down mind continued to find humor in the strange truths that make up our lives.
In his 2006 autobiography, “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This!: And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny,” Newhart cut to the center of what ails the American soul.
“The problem is that we live in an uptight country,” he wrote. “Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.”
These days it seems people can only laugh if the joke is at the expense of people they dislike, which appears to be people with whom they disagree on anything from politics to sports team loyalty.
Liberals watch “The Daily Show.”
Conservatives catch “Gutfeld!”
Newhart had a different agenda.
“All comedians are, in a way, anarchists,” he once said. “Our job is to make fun of the existing world.”
Here’s a classic Newhart line: “I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, ‘denigrate’ means ‘put down.’”
A person has a couple of options when they hear something like that.
They could say, “Hey, I like country music and he’s making fun of me. I must ask for my money back and post terrible reviews on social media.”
Or they could laugh, because if we can’t laugh at ourselves, all we have left are rage and anguish.
We see what kind of America that gives us.
As Newhart himself advised: “All I can say about life is, ‘Oh God, enjoy it.’”
Daniel P. Finney is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please visit their page to view a full roster of writers and consider subscribing to their columns.
I like country music and that laughed at that joke. Now more than ever, we all need to laugh.
Have never seen this routine! Thanks for sharing.
Man, I did love the Bob Newhart show from the 1970s.