Bob Newhart, Mr. Normal

It's the perfect Newhart moment: modest to the point of absurdity, with just the right note of self-parody.

But can the button-down mind of Bob Newhart really be that button-down? Apparently so, possibly to the point of being slightly weird.

Contrary to Hollywood tradition, the 71-year-old comedian has been happily married for decades to the same wife he started out with. But as you can see from the "Biography" special, this is an especially good thing because even after he became a star, Newhart lived with his parents until he was in his late 20s and rarely dated.

"We didn't need to dig for dirt to make this interesting," one of the "Biography" producers noted.

After a perfectly timed pause, Newhart added, "Luckily, the bestiality thing never came up."

Newhart and his wife are devout Catholics who took their four children to Mass every Sunday even (maybe especially) while in Las Vegas. A memorable "Biography" clip from the '60s shows the comedian in vintage Rat Pack sunglasses, ushering his brood up the church steps. He is known for being remarkably unprone to celebrity tantrums, but his flashes of displeasure get the point across in a lethally button-down way.

"That's great!" Newhart famously responded, when the writers of "The Bob Newhart Show" suggested that Bob and Emily having a baby would be a good new story line. "Who are you going get to play Bob?"

"The character that seems to run through the whole thing," Newhart said of his comic persona at a press conference, "is a man convinced he's the last sane man on earth, surrounded by people who say, 'Yeah, but that's just the way we do it.'"

Pretty much everyone feels like that sometimes, of course.

"I think that's what comedians do," he added. "We take annoyances and seemingly explain them away and let you get on with life."

What's his favorite monologue? "The press agent for Abe Lincoln," Newhart said. "Lincoln keeps getting things wrong, and the press agent says, 'Please read the bio! You were a rail-splitter, then an attorney. You wouldn't give up your law practice to become a rail-splitter!'"

Watching the old clips on the "Biography" special is something of an object lesson in how times have changed. But there's a pointed moment in a recent clip that shows Newhart at once updating his act while at the same time refusing to update it.

"Oh ... I hear a little murmur," he interrupts himself at the beginning of his vintage monologue, "The Driving Instructor," which we've first seen him perform decades before. "Why does it have to be a woman driver? That's sexist!"

"OK," Newhart continues amiably, "let's make it a Chinese driver."

He begins the monologue in pretend Chinese before informing the audience, "Now I can do the next eight minutes of this in Chinese, or we can go back to the woman driver."

The last episode of "Newhart," in which he wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette of the old "Bob Newhart Show" and realizes the entire second sitcom had been a dream, was named one of the best TV moments ever by TV Guide.

"It was my wife's idea," Newhart recalled. "CBS was being unkind to us, and I said, 'Honey, I think I'm going to pull the plug on the show.' She said, 'If you do, make it a dream sequence.'

"There'd been some trepidation about it, because of the bad reaction to the end of 'St. Elsewhere' [which imagined the entire show as the dream of one character's autistic son]. But when people started applauding on the set we knew we had a winner."

Newhart's act is famously wholesome, but he would not criticize the tone of contemporary comedy.

"Working clean, you always felt good after the show," he said. "At the same time, one of the funniest men ever is Richard Pryor. It's just the way I choose to work, but I don't find fault with people who feel they have to use stronger language."

"I love television, I love being on it, and I'm hard-pressed to put down the shows today," he said. "It's what people want to watch. It's democratic, and who am I to say, 'No, this isn't what you watch, this is what you watch.'"

The Bob Newhart special will air Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. on A&E.