Bob Newhart's wife doesn't seem that bad, but everyone agrees that she's terrible and that he's a saint for staying with her. They're upper-middle-class and she inherited their money from her mother so he'd take a hit financially if he left her. She tells him she won't give him a divorce, so Newhart tries to convince her that he's plotting to murder her. He leave boxes of poison open in the kitchen where he fixes her coffee, he keeps appearing suddenly with a knife or a straight razor and he digs what looks like a grave in the garden.
Should I give away the ending? He makes it look like she tried to murder him and she ends up in prison.
It was an earlier time and TV characters had to be punished for their crimes. So, in the end, Bob Newhart's comeuppance is that he has to give up his stripper girlfriend and start dating a less attractive woman. She knew what he had done but hadn't come forward while his wife was on trial.
It wasn't funny. Hitchcock's introduction was especially unamusing. Now I understand why Orson Welles hated that crap.
Bob Newhart's second acting credit. He took an odd path to stardom. His record, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, came first. The record was a huge hit and it was only then that he started performing stand-up.
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