Retro : The Original Bob

What about Bob?

No, we don’t mean the current Bill Murray come dy or even Bob of “Twin Peaks” renown.

We mean the original, that mild-mannered guy with the button-down mind, Bob Newhart.

There’s good news for fans who love their Bob. His delightfully daffy 1972-78 CBS comedy “The Bob Newhart Show” has recently joined the TBS lineup Monday-Fridays, while continuing weekdays on KDOC Channel 56. (His 1982-90 series “Newhart” also is seen weeknights on San Diego’s KUSI Channel 18.)

“The Bob Newhart Show” was part of CBS’ legendary Saturday evening lineup of comedy during the 1970s, which over the years included “All in the Family,” “MASH,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Carol Burnett Show.”

But unlike those series, “Bob Newhart” never received an Emmy, critics didn’t froth at the mouth over the comedy and its set was never donated to the Smithsonian Institute. But “Bob Newhart” was an audience favorite and placed among the Top 25 series its first three seasons.

“Bob Newhart” marked the first sitcom for the stand-up comic and sometimes movie actor (“Hot Millions,” “Cold Turkey”). Newhart’s laid-back, relaxed style made him the perfect foil for a supporting cast of looneys.

Newhart played Bob Hartley, a successful Chicago psychologist who lived in a fashionable high-rise with his caustic wife, Emily (Suzanne Pleshette).

They seemed to be the only sane folks in the Windy City. At work, Hartley shared his man-crazy, plain-Jane receptionist Carol (Marcia Wallace) with a wild and crazy bachelor dentist, Jerry Robinson (Peter Bonerz), and a timid urologist, Dr. Bernie Tupperman (Larry Gelman).

And Hartley’s patients were a mixed bag of people who provided a lot of the laughs, like the memorably neurotic Elliot Carlin (Jack Riley), Miss Larson (Penny Marshall, who went on to “Laverne & Shirley”), Mrs. Bakerman (Florida Friebus, who had played Dobie Gillis’ mother a decade earlier), Michelle Nardo (Renee Lippin), Mr. Peterson (John Fielder), Mr. Gianelli (Noam Pitlik) and Mr. Herd (Oliver Clark).

Rounding out the cast was Bill Daily as the the Hartley’s neighbor, Howard Borden, a divorced commercial airline pilot who made Barney Fife look cool and collected.

“The Bob Newhart Show” left the airwaves in 1978; “Newhart” began its eight-season run in 1982. Although Newhart nay-sayed any reunion of the “Bob Newhart Show,” he had a mini-reunion with Pleshette in the last episode of “Newhart.”

“The Bob Newhart Show” airs Monday-Fridays at 4:35 p.m. on TBS (cable) and 6:30 p.m. on Channel 56.