Typescript for Bob Newhart routine "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue"
date: label: date made
content: 1960
label: date made
content: around 1960
name: label: Associated Name
content: Lincoln, Abraham
label: maker
content: Newhart, Bob
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Typescript for the Bob Newhart comedy routine "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue." The script is typed on three pages of typewriter paper in black ink. Newhart wrote the sketch in 1960 for his stand-up comedy act at Houston's Tidelands nightclub; that act was recorded and released as The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, a popular and acclaimed comedy album that went on to win Newhart two Grammy Awards.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The routine consists of an imaginary conversation between Abraham Lincoln and a Madison Avenue advertising executive. In talking through Lincoln’s upcoming Gettysburg Address, the ad man advises the sixteenth president on his image (“Abe, would you leave the beard on?”), suggests jokes and merchandising tie-ins, and bats down Lincoln’s speech revisions. The ad man’s insincere platitudes, prioritization of style over substance, and obsession with focus group testing poke fun at the popular perception of the advertising world’s asinine commercialism. His frustration with Lincoln’s earnest and thoughtful intelligence, out of its historical context, reads like relatable frustration with a coworker who just doesn’t get the point of a collaborative project. Meanwhile the sketch’s irreverent and ahistorical representation of Lincoln’s dithering deflates the mythology around the venerated leader. The routine even ends with the ad man suggesting that Lincoln “take in a play,” suggesting he may have been responsible for the president’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre. Newhart wrote in his 2006 book I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This that he was inspired to write the monologue by a 1957 study of the advertising world, The Hidden Persuaders, “which talked about the danger of PR men creating images in presidential campaigns to the degree that you were voting for a personality rather than a leader’s ideology.”
label: Description (Brief)
content: Bob Newhart changed the face of American comedy in his six decade-long career as a stand-up comedian and film and television actor. Newhart’s genial, halting, square delivery obscured a sly, subversive, and quietly revolutionary form of satire. Eschewing the more aggressive and controversial style of “sick comic” contemporaries like Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl, Newhart’s deadpan, stammering, straight man persona allowed him to subtly excoriate social mores, crassness and greed, hypocrisy, and the absurdities of modern American life. His debut comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart became first comedy LP ever to hit number one on the Billboard charts, first (of two) comedy album to win a Grammy for Album of the Year, and Newhart became the only comedian to ever win a Grammy as Best New Artist. He began acting in film and television, including two acclaimed and long running sitcoms, The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) and Newhart (1982-1990). Newhart has continued to play small roles and make guest appearances into his 90s, including a recurring guest role on The Big Bang Theory that won him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2013. Newhart won the 2002 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, has been inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame, and earned a 1962 Golden Globe award for Best TV Star as well as his three Grammy Awards in 1961.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Associated Place
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Gettysburg
label: Associated Place
content: United States: Texas, Houston
topic: label: Subject
content: Comedy
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
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content: Advertising
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2023.0059.01
label: accession number
content: 2023.0059
label: catalog number
content: 2023.0059.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: script
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 1/4 in x 10 3/4 in; 20.955 cm x 27.305 cm