At this year’shost-lessEmmy Awards, Bob Newhart stole the show.
When the comedy iconturned up at the awards ceremonylast month to present an award withBen Stiller, he was introduced standing beside wax figures of fellow comedy “legends”George Burnsand Lucille Ball. Only there was one big difference. “I’m still alive,” Newhart, whoturned 90in September, reminded Stiller.
Speaking to PEOPLE in this week’s issue, Newhart says of the routine, “It was a very funny moment. I was amazed at the reactions.”
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According to Newhart, the idea for the skit came from Stiller, 53, and Jon Macks, who has written for over 20 of theEmmy Awardsshows, as well as the Academy Awards, theGolden Globesand the Tony Awards.
“[They] told me the idea, the two statues of George Burns and Lucy, and then the statue of me, and that I keep trying to tell him I’m still alive,” Newhart explains. “I thought it was a very funny idea. So we threw ideas back and forth.”
Continuing, he recalls, “One of them was I said to him, ‘If your parents knew you were telling people that I was dead, they’d wash your mouth out with soap and water.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t think you can use soap anymore.’ I said, ‘Well, that just leaves water, right? That’s some punishment!’ Kind of a comment on the millennials and how everything is made easy for them.”
“We talked about various things [along the lines of], ‘I don’t want people thinking I’m dead,’ ” he adds. “It was fun. It was great. I loved working with him. Ben is such a great actor.”
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After six decades in show business, Newhart was pleased that the joke, which was well-received at rehearsals, was such a hit the night of.
“They had maybe 100 people doing various things [at rehearsals]. We ran it once in front of them, and they were laughing a lot,” Newhart says. “So we thought, ‘Yeah, I guess this is going to work. Just imagine when 4,000 more people are in, what it’s going to be like.'”
And luckily for comedy fans everywhere, Newhart has no plans to retire.
“I get this question a lot: ‘Why do you still do comedy?’ ” he says. “Why would you ever get tired of making people laugh? You never want to give up that sound, that great sound that you fell in love with 60 years ago.”
source: people.com
