Bob

Bob is an American sitcom television series created by Bill Steinkellner, Cheri Steinkellner, and Phoef Sutton. It aired on CBS from September 18, 1992, to December 27, 1993. The series was the third starring vehicle sitcom for Bob Newhart, following his previous successful CBS sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. Synopsis First season Newhart portrayed Bob McKay, the creator of the 1950s comic book superhero Mad-Dog. Mad-Dog was a casualty of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), a real-life self-regulation authority formed to assuage concerns over violence and gore in comics in the 1950s. In the wake of the CCA, Bob became a greeting card artist. In the pilot, Mad-Dog is revived when the American-Canadian Trans-Continental Communications Company buys the rights to the series. Complications ensue when Ace Comics head Harlan Stone (John Cygan) insists Mad-Dog should be a bloodthirsty vigilante rather than the hero Bob originally created. Bob initially turns down Harlan's offer to revive the series with the publisher, but after his wife, Kaye (Carlene Watkins), reminds Bob that Mad-Dog would never give up dreams in the face of defeat, he decides to compromise with Harlan on creative direction, and go back to do the revival. In the final episode of the first season, AmCanTranConComCo is sold to a millionaire who hates comic books, and the entire Mad-Dog staff, including Bob, is fired. During the first season, Bob balances his work life with his personal life. Bob's wife Kaye is loyal and sensible, and a busy career woman herself. Their grown daughter, Trisha (Cynthia Stevenson), frequently bemoans her perpetually single state. At work, Bob has to deal with the more eccentric staff members: klutzy gofer Albie Lutz (Andrew Bilgore); spaced-out cartoon inker Chad Pfefferle (Timothy Fall); and curmudgeonly artist Iris Frankel (Ruth Kobart). Eventually, Bob also hires Trisha onto the Mad-Dog staff, where Chad develops a crush on her; she also moves into an apartment with her best friend, Kathy (Lisa Kudrow), where Albie also joins them temporarily.