Bob Newhart gets Kennedy Center's Mark Twain prize for humor

WASHINGTON (AP) _ TV and film comedian Bob Newhart has been awarded the fifth annual Mark Twain prize given by the Kennedy Center for American humor. Newhart commented with a quote: ``Mark

Wednesday, April 3rd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ TV and film comedian Bob Newhart has been awarded the fifth annual Mark Twain prize given by the Kennedy Center for American humor.

Newhart commented with a quote:

``Mark Twain once said, `It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail,' which is certainly true in this case.''

Newhart, 72, started as an accountant, advertising writer and a performer in his home town, Chicago.

``Like Twain,'' said a statement from the Kennedy Center, ``Newhart looked at the great and the small of American life and found the befuddling lunacy that lurks beneath the surface of deceptive calm. ... His trenchant comedy signaled the end of the complacent fifties.''

In 1959 he signed a contract that led to ``The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,'' a comedy album that rose to the top of the popular charts. His now famous one-person telephone conversations got their start in long calls he recorded with an advertising colleague as audition tapes for a radio show.

Previous winners of the award are Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner and Whoopi Goldberg.