Bob Newhart isn’t the type of comedian who needs to wear a plastic arrow through his head, speak in a goofy voice or bash watermelons with a sledgehammer to gain attention.

No, with the exception of employing his signature telephone, Newhart is among the most reserved, low-maintenance comics to grace the stage.

“I like saying the most with the least,” he says. “Subtlety — if you want to call it that — yeah, less is more.”

Newhart claims that tactic also involves giving the audience a certain credit for intelligence so they participate in the humor.

“That’s especially true in the telephone routines,” says Newhart, calling from his home in Los Angeles. “Like in the Abe Lincoln routine, the audience is really supplying the other end of the conversation. What I’m saying to Abe is not really funny. It’s Abe’s unheard responses that are funny. Then the audience at the end kind of applauds themselves for participating.”

Through the years, the comedian has heard plenty of different words along with “subtle” to describe his persona.

“There’s low-key and deadpan,” he lists.

How about laconic?

“I haven’t heard that one too much,” he says. “But sure.”

Audiences now have the opportunity to form their own terminology. After a time away from live performances, Newhart is making a rare tour through the Midwest. (“You can’t REALLY call it a tour; it’s Chicago and Topeka,” he clarifies.)

Newhart says he’ll likely present one or two of the old record routines during a Saturday show at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. These might include the aforementioned bit about Abraham Lincoln being coached for the Gettysburg Address or a twitchy driving instructor trying to handle an inept student.

Although these Grammy-winning routines are considered timeless, the fact that most of them are four decades old occasionally compels Newhart to modernize them for today’s audiences.

“I don’t know if I’ll do it in Topeka, but there’s a thing I do about potty training our kids when they were young,” he says. “Then I realized you have to explain that was in the era of nondisposable diapers. In that extent you have to retool them. Like there’s one routine I do where I’ve had to incorporate call waiting, which wasn’t around when I first did the original routine.”

Struggle for laughter

Audio interview with Bob Newhart Do you have to retool your routines for modern humor? Is subtlety a lost art? Have you ever played the “Hi, Bob!” drinking game?

While the 75-year-old entertainer is open to tweaking the material, one aspect about his concerts never changes.

“If the show is at 8 p.m., I generally start pacing at 5 p.m.,” he says. “If I weren’t apprehensive before a show it would be like a good friend wasn’t there with me.”

Occasionally, that apprehension has manifested itself into concrete terror — especially early in his career.

When the unknown Chicago accountant quit his job to perform stand-up in the late 1950s, his “low-key and deadpan” style resulted in gigs where the laughs weren’t as free-flowing as the drinks.

“Singers and dancers, they remember the great shows; comedians remember the terrible shows,” Newhart says, citing some of his lowest moments. “I was just starting out. It was like the second or third nightclub I’d ever played. It was in Windsor, Ontario. No one knew who I was because the record hadn’t come out yet. I would say I died EVERY night.”

Newhart admits that those shows were as important to his comedic development as later ones that were sold out with fans who hung on every word. He brings up an encounter that put those harsh nights into perspective.

“Years ago my wife and I were in Palm Springs and Harpo Marx came up and introduced himself,” he says. “He and his wife invited us to their house. He had all of this memorabilia. And he had a bill that the Marx Brothers played on — I forget which city it was. I said, ‘Why of all the places you ever played would you keep this one?’ He said, “That’s because we never got a laugh for a week.'”

Hi, Bob

On April 12, Fox Home Entertainment is releasing “The Bob Newhart Show — The Complete First Season” on DVD. The set chronicles Newhart’s acclaimed sitcom that ran from 1972 to 1978.

Although the comedian is reluctant to say how the program compares to other classic sitcoms (or to his later show “Newhart” that aired in 1982-1990), he does mention how proud he is of it — especially with regard to how it’s held up over time.

“I went to the writers and said, ‘If we do a Gerry Ford joke here about tripping or something, that isn’t going to be funny 20 years from now,'” he says. “‘So let’s not do Gerry Ford or Nixon jokes or what is popular at the time.’ I think that’s one of the reasons for the success of the show is that it never became dated.”

He can’t single out his favorite episode but he claims the one he still receives the most comments about is the “moo goo gai pan show.”

“It’s where Jerry and I and Howard and Mr. Carlin get together and watch a football game, and every time the team scored we took a drink from Jerry’s cider or something,” he says. “Then we decide to order Chinese food, and I have some difficulty in ordering moo goo gai pan — it was a high-scoring game.”

One byproduct of “The Bob Newhart Show” is it inspired a drinking game called “Hi, Bob.”

Bob Newhart will perform a stand-up comedy routine Saturday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center.

According to “The (Un)Official Internet Bartender’s Guide,” the rules are “whenever anybody on the show says ‘Hi, Bob,’ everybody calls out ‘HI, BOB!’ and takes a very generous drink of their beer. People on the show say ‘Hi, Bob’ so often, that even the guys who can hold their alcohol the best will get at least a good buzz.”

“I’ve never played it,” Newhart says. “I don’t know where it started. I heard SMU. I’m ambivalent about it, because obviously the college kids liked the show or they wouldn’t have watched it. I just hope they stay in the dorms after they played it.”