DAHHHH!!! An impossible to write page. See with almost every page I can either hunt down and watch the crossover itself or I can find some degree of information about it online. Even the oldest most obscure show has SOME info on it out there. With this one I found about one freakin' sentence. Blast it all!!!

   Okay, let me tell you generally about the shows involved. That I can do!

   The Bob Newhart Show was a classic 70s sitcom. Bob Newhart played Doctor Bob Hartley, psychologist. Bob and wife Emily lived next door to goofy airline pilot Howard Borden. At work Bob's patients were equally oddball. He shared the floor of the building he worked in with several other professionals including dentist Jerry Robinson.

   After The Bob Newhart Show, Bob next did a sitcom called Newhart where he played an innkeeper in Vermont which, in the end, turned out to be a crazy dream Bob Hartley from his previous show was having.

   So now Newhart has had two hit shows named The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. Newhart himself said the only thing left to name his next show was Bob.

   Bob was a bit of a change of pace from the other shows. Newhart played Bob McKay. For the first time Bob played a married man who had a kid. Bob McKay also had a bit more attitude. His previous characters had largely been pretty easy going as the craziness of their lives hit them. Bob McKay actually had a little piss and vinegar in him. The setup for the first season had Bob McKay working as an artist for a greeting card company. But years before he had created a comic book character named Mad Dog. Turns out a comic book company wanted to revive Mad Dog. So following his dream Bob quit his job at the card company and went back to work drawing Mad Dog.

   The show was pretty funny but it didn't pop in the ratings. Some folks blamed it on the show. Me? I blame it on CBS putting it on Friday nights, the worst night for ratings. Then by the time they moved it to another night it already had the reputation of being a failure. If CBS moved the show to a new night and just gave it a chance to develop naturally and to find its audience, the show might have eventually taken off. But that's not what CBS did. Nope. They tinkered!

   Season 2 of Bob was a major revamp. Mad Dog, gone. The whole comic book company, the characters who worked there... the guts of the show... gone. The company that published Mad Dog was sold and the new owner shut down the comics division leaving Bob out of work. Luckily for him the greeting card company he had worked for needed him back. Seems the president of Schmitt Greetings ditched his wife Sylvia – and his job – to run off with his dental hygienist. Needing someone to run the family business Sylvia Schmitt turned to Bob who became president of Schmitt Greetings.

   Nothing says comedy like a show about writing greeting cards! Yikes. Even with legend Betty White playing Sylvia Schmitt, this was a bad move. The revamp of Bob was just a disaster. It just wasn't funny. If the plan was to attract more viewers it failed. If the plan was for the revamp to drive viewers away so it could be cancelled in just five episodes, mission accomplished! CBS actually had three additional episodes shot but decided, no, let's just end it without airing them. The problem, for me, is the crossover happened in those unaired episodes that CBS never aired.

   Cut to a few years later and the TV Land cable network. TV Land specialized in showing classic TV and whenever possible would try to find TV rarities to air. They decided to do a huge event celebrating all things Bob Newhart. They had marathons of episodes from all three of his shows. They showed all the episodes of Bob including the previously unaired final three episodes. The very last episode, Better To Have Loved And Flossed, is the crossover episode. It aired that one time on TV Land and has not been seen again. I didn't watch because that second season was so bad I really didn't want to see any more of it. How was I supposed to know there was a crossover??? Dahh!!! And apparently nobody else watched either because only the most basic of descriptions of the plot can be found online.

   The basic plot is that the dental hygienist who stole Sylvia's husband reappears. Sylvia decides to get a little "closure" by going to see her. The character of Jerry Robinson from The Bob Newhart Show puts in an appearance. Again, Jerry was a dentist so it's safe to assume that Jerry shared a dental practice with the homewrecking hygienist and that Bob McKay tagged along with Sylvia for the confrontation. And hopefully for once in that second season hilarity ensued.

   Until more details pop up or the episode airs again, that's all there is. Move along people! Nothing more to see here!

Other Bob Newhart Show Crossover Links
The Bob Newhart Show and I Dream Of Jeannie
The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart
The Bob Newhart Show and Murphy Brown
The Bob Newhart Show and St. Elsewhere

Click here to return to main Crossover List

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