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Bob Newhart

You’re right. That’s a drawing of Abraham Lincoln. Not Bob Newhart. Also, who’s Bob Newhart?

You might not know Bob Newhart by name, but I bet you know him from his role as the adoptive father—Papa Elf—of Buddy the Elf.

However, before being Will Ferrell’s fictional adoptive father in Elf from 2003, he was a famous standup comedian, known best for one-sided phone conversations in his act.

My favorite of his one-sided phone conversations is his imagination of if Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address got the Madison Avenue (i.e. Mad Men) advertising treatment…think applying market focus groups to Lincoln’s speech writing process.

Without giving away too much, a highlight of the phone conversation is whether or not to keep “fourscore and 7 years ago” or swap it out for “87 years ago.” Which do you think would test market better?

If you still have the attention span for longer, subtler comedy—and not just TikToks— I promise this 5 minute and 42 second routine will not disappoint.

Thank you for reading and have a fulfilling weekend!

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