Bob Newhart's performing career really began with a 1960 record called The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart that still ranks as the 20th best-selling comedy album of all time — not bad for a guy no one had (then) heard of. Before that, he'd done a little comedy writing, including a monologue he submitted to Don Adams in which the comedian would play the commander of a submarine. As Newhart later told the story, Adams declined to buy the monologue…then went on TV and performed it anyway. There are other tales of Mr. Adams allegedly doing things like that.
Having his material stolen was among the factors that moved Newhart into performing what he wrote…and that first record of his did include a monologue in which he played the commander of a submarine. Here on The Ed Sullivan Show for January 8, 1961, Ed pretends that it wasn't decided in advance that Newhart would perform that particular piece on the program…and Bob pretty much gives away that it was planned. So here's Bob Newhart in one of his first TV appearances favoring us with "The Cruise of The U.S.S. Codfish"…