See Also: Bob Newhart (Morty) People Guide

Bob Newhart suggested this weekend viewers will be able to continue to enjoy his character Morty over the coming seasons.

"It came along at the right time, and it exactly fits my schedule," thecomic told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The 75-year old actor, a veteran of such classic sitcoms as The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart and Bob, said that he no longer wants to have a lead role in a network show, but that a recurring role of about six to eight times a year is ideal for him.

Newhart said he was flattered when DH creator Marc Cherry asked him to play the boyfriend of Susan's mother, played by Lesley Ann Warren. "This is the hottest show on television right now, so they could have called up just about anyone in the world and asked him to play Morty. They could have called Bruce Willis, and he probably would have accepted."

But it wasn't just the hype that led Newhart to sign up for the show. "What attracted me was that it's just plain flat-out funny," he said. "The show is written on different levels, but, to me, it's satire on a genre. At this point, I can't see how anyone could suspect it isn't satire."

Besides his Desperate Housewives role, Newhart is still keeping busy with many other projects: he still performs at comedy shows, he's got a DVD set coming out for one of his eponymous TV shows, and he's writing a lighthearted memoir. The common thread between these endeavours? They're all funny. "I have a theory about not trying too deeply to figure out why you're funny," Newhart said. "It's kind of like being in a tribe that doesn't like to have pictures taken because they think it takes their souls away. I feel if you explore what's funny too deeply, you may somehow lose the ability to recognize what makes things funny. Maybe there's a funny gene. I don't really know. I just thank God it's there, because, otherwise, I'd still be an accountant in Chicago."

For more from Newhart, head over to the full Plain Dealer interview.

Discuss this news item at Talk Desperate!
 Add Get Desperate! RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!