Image: The New Yorker/Screencap
The New Yorker website is currently streaming Judd Apatow‘s documentary, Bob and Don: A Love Story. The 20 minute video shows the lifelong friendship between comedy icons Don Rickles, who passed away in 2017, and Bob Newhart, who’s now 94.
Apatow showed up at Newhart’s house to ask him about the two comedians’ mutual respect, the closeness of their families, and more. The story comes together via personal memories, archival footage, and anecdotes – like this one, which Newhart told about the first time his wife Ginnie met Rickles:
“We went and we met them [Rickles and his wife Barbara] at the coffee shop at the Sahara. And Don was a pussycat. And as we’re leaving, we were going to see Don’s third show in the lounge. And Ginnie said, Ginnie said to me, she said, “He’s such a sweet man. He’s such a lovely man.
“I said, Well, honey, it may be a little different once we get into the lounge. So, we got in the lounge, sat down, and he said, ‘I wanna introduce very good friends of mine, the stammering idiot from Chicago, Bob Newhart, and his hooker wife from Bayonne.'”
Yep. That’s friendship, alright.
Love, Dr. Scott James
