TV REVIEW : Newhart’s Monkey Business

Bob Newhart disregards the old dictum never to work with animals in “The Entertainers,” a TV movie that has him partnered with a chimp as part of a man ‘n’ beast vaudeville act. And, unfortunately, he’s no match for the sheer inevitability of the curse. (The movie airs tonight at 8 on ABC Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42.)

There’s also a dictum, possibly even older, that has something to do with never working with a bad script. Chimps-- they can be survived; this kind of writing can’t.

Charles Leinenweber’s teleplay has Newhart and his aging 29-year-old chimp partner trying desperately to get into “the big rooms” in Vegas--or at least make enough cash to pay their meager motel bills--against the tide of time, which hasn’t been kind to old-fashioned animal acts. And with good reason it hasn’t been kind, judging from how dreadfully unfunny Newhart and his three-foot best friend are seen to be in any of their extended screen time together, though Vegas audiences are seen to laugh uproariously against all common sense once the duo takes the stage.

Newhart walks through this sentimental, seriocomic scenario looking pitiable and befuddled. Luckily, we don’t have to pity him too much or too long; romantic interest Linda Gray, playing a successful singer working the Strip who loved the unlucky comic 15 years earlier, shows up shortly to rekindle their old flame and give her ex and his hairy sidekick the break they’ve always deserved.