I’ve been relentlessly scolded over the years for my obituaries, and particularly for saying that this or that dear and departed enjoyed a peak period. Which every single person of serious fame or accomplishment has come to accept because it’s true, like it or not.

The great and widely beloved Bob Newhart was the first noteworthy WASP standup comic…respect! And a droll, soft-spoken guy who may have invented the classic, quietly subversive middle-class attitude that began to emerge in the 1950s.

Popular narrative notwithstanding, Newhart didn’t peak in the mid to late ’70s, which is when The Bob Newhart Show was on.

Newhart peaked for two or thee years in the early ’60s, particularly ’60 (“The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart“) through ’62, when he delivered one of the most tonally out-of-synch cameos in in a straight WWII film — Don Siegel‘s Hell is For Heroes (’62). The bit is mildly funny, but it stops the film in its tracks.

An ex-accountant who didn’t really connect as a comedian until he was 29 or thereabouts, the mild-mannered Newhart was, many felt, a magnificent cultural presence during the Kennedy era.

My WASPy adman father loved his skits, and brought home and relentlessly played a couple of his albums.

Born at the start of the Great Depression (9.5.29), Newhart passed earlier today at age 94. Hugs, condolences and endless respect.