What I learned from the world's funniest straight man.

Bob Newhart, who died yesterda at age 94, was the kind of individual artist who comes once in a generation. His three breakthrough comedy albums from 1959 to 1961 -- beginning with the legendary “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" -- sold more than any other records in those years. No one could touch him.

Part of his genius is in the title: the reference to the button-down business shirts suggested he was the straight man, not the funny one, and it was a unique way to approach the medium. He set it up as if he weren’t the funny one, the situations and characters he described, they were the funny ones. He was just describing what he'd seen.

Newhart was a pivotal artist in my life. When those three albums were coming out and changing the world of comedy, I was in fifth and sixth grade. My Dad, who had a tremendous sense of humor, bought all three and would play they regularly when he was home, on the night where he wasn't on the road building his executive career.

It didn't take long before I had many of the monologues memorized and would do them for my father as he sipped his martini. And if he had a business guest over for dinner, even better. I was determined to crack them up because it was the only way I could get his attention. After all, his interest in baseball was limited and my skills with a bat and ball even less so.

Years later, I heard an interview with Newhart where he described his father's general disinterest in his family and his kids. Bob said he thought all his drive to be funny was simply to get his Dad's attention, something he continued to work at even when his Dad was long gone. And I think the same was true for me. In fact, I know it was.

A few years ago, I had the chance to work with Bob Newhart. At the time, I was busy working on events for IBM, producing segments with comics and other celebrity speakers. I worked with Patrick Stewart, Maya Angelou, Dick Cavett and Pat Oliphant, among many others. On the road with them for weeks at a time, we had some great dinners and even a few friendships.

But Bob Newhart stayed off at arm's length and made it clear that I should do the same. It probably didn't help that part of my job was to suggest that IBM would prefer that he not do jokes about Catholics anymore. That was the last time we actually spoke.

But that's okay. Because he gave me a gift. The time I spent performing his monologues as a kid was the time my brain was learning to write and to stand in front of an audience. It changed the way my mind put thoughts and sentences together and, even then, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

In sixth grade, someone suggested I run for the office of Hall Monitor. I remember my speech to the assembled kids killed and I was a runaway victor, even if not well suited to the responsibilities of the office.

And that was the start of the "button-down" mind of Dain Dunston. Thanks, Bob. I'll miss you.

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