Newhart | |
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Newhart opening title card
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Created by | Barry Kemp |
Developed by | Sheldon Bull |
Starring |
Bob Newhart Mary Frann Jennifer Holmes Julia Duffy Tom Poston Steven Kampmann Peter Scolari William Sanderson Tony Papenfuss John Voldstad |
Theme music composer | Henry Mancini |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 8 |
No. of episodes | 184 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Barry Kemp Mark Egan Mark Solomon Dan Wilcox |
Producer(s) | Sheldon Bull |
Running time | 24 minutes |
Production company(s) | MTM Enterprises |
Distributor | 20th Television |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | October 25, 1982 – May 21, 1990 |
Chronology | |
Preceded by | The Bob Newhart Show |
Followed by | Bob |
Newhart is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from October 25, 1982 to May 21, 1990, with a total of 184 half-hour episodes spanning over eight seasons. The series stars comedian Bob Newhart and actress Mary Frann as an author and wife who own and operate an inn located in a small, rural Vermont town that is home to many eccentric characters. TV Guide, TV Land, and A&E named the Newhart series finale as one of the most memorable in television history. Newhart was recorded on videotape for Season 1, with the remaining seasons shot on film.
Bob Newhart plays Dick Loudon, an author of do-it-yourself books and travel books (including "Many Moods Of Minnesota" and "Captivating Kansas".) He and his wife Joanna move from New York City to a small, unnamed town in rural Vermont (possibly Norwich) to operate the 200-year-old Stratford Inn. Dick is a sane, mild-mannered everyman surrounded by a community of oddballs in a town which exists in an illogical world governed by rules that elude him.
Near the end of the second season, Newhart was retooled and Dick began hosting a low-rated talk show on the town's local television station. As the series progressed, episodes focused increasingly on Dick's TV career and the quirky townsfolk. As the years went by, some characters were dropped and others were added.
The iconic opening credits feature many landscape scenes to set the tone for the series, set to an original theme by Henry Mancini. Most of the scenes used in the sequence were actually leftover stock filmed for the opening sequence of the film On Golden Pond which was filmed the year before the Newhart pilot. Most of the scenes were filmed in the Squam Lake area of New Hampshire, including the town of Sandwich, while the Stratford Inn exterior shots used throughout the series were actually of the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury, Vermont.