George & Leo Create Comedy & Chemistry

Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch are holding court at a corner patio table at the Paramount commissary, bantering around jokes and exchanging quips and stories like they’ve been buddies for years.

But the fact of the matter is, before teaming up this fall as TV’s newest odd couple in the CBS comedy, “George & Leo,” the Emmy Award-winning funny men had only encountered each other once before.

“We met on a plane, I think, one time when you were trying to give up smoking,” the affable Newhart says to Hirsch. “I had just given up smoking.”

Newhart recalls, though, that the two hit it off at the first “George & Leo” table reading. “We knew the chemistry was there,” he says. “It was incredible.”

“We had the funniest table reading I’ve ever had in my life,” adds the gregarious Hirsch. “ ‘Taxi’ and ‘Dear John’ were nothing like that.”

In “George & Leo,” which airs Mondays on CBS, Newhart plays George Stoody, a mild-mannered bookstore owner on Martha’s Vineyard. His quiet lifestyle is turned topsy-turvy with the arrival of Leo, his future daughter-in-law’s long-lost father. A small-time hood and part-time magician, the fast-talking operator ends up moving into the room above George’s store and taking over George’s very ordered life.

Executive producers Rob Long and Dan Staley wrote the role of George for Newhart, who previously starred in the classic CBS sitcoms “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart.”

“They came to me and what I liked about [the script] was that they captured my voice,” says Newhart, 68. “I found the words so easy. They came out of my mouth so easy. Then we sat down and talked. I said, ‘Leo is crucial for it being a success. If we have a soft or weak Leo, we’re in a lot of trouble.’ They said, ‘How about Judd Hirsch?’ ”

Newhart didn’t know if Hirsch, who won Tonys for “I’m Not Rappaport” and “Conversations With My Father,” was interested in returning to series TV.

“We called and sent him the script,” Newhart says. “I never saw anybody but Judd in it at all. It wasn’t written for you, but boy, I don’t know who else [could have played the part].”

Hirsch, 62, was playing Willy Loman in a production of “Death of a Salesman” in Toronto. He was thrilled because Leo was 180 degrees different than Alex in “Taxi” and John on “Dear John”--roles he describes as the “softer, insight person.”

“I loved the idea they asked me to [play the part],” Hirsch says. “A long time ago, the only part I thought I’d ever play in my life was something like this. I always expected to play the somewhat New York fast-talking wise guy. I thought that was going to be my career.”

“He’s Larry, Darryl and Darryl, Jack Riley and everybody rolled into one,” Newhart says of Leo, laughing. “He’s all the loonies I’ve ever worked with in one person.”

“Luckily, they don’t have me putting on all different clothes and different masks,” Hirsch says with a smile. “I just play one guy.”

Hirsch may come from the Broadway theater, and Newhart from the world of stand-up, but they approach comedy much the same way.

“He’s a better trained actor than I am,” Newhart says. “But the kind of stand-up I did, the kind of stand-up that was being done [in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s], was character commentary. I always say it wasn’t, ‘Take my wife, please,’ because everybody could do that joke. [My comedy routines] were little vignettes.”

“We’re storytellers,” Hirsch adds.

Besides lighting up CBS, Newhart and Hirsch are also mainstays on cable’s popular Nick at Nite. Nick is currently airing “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Newhart” and “Taxi.”

“George & Leo” is in a tough fall time slot, competing with ABC’s “Monday Night Football” in most parts of the country. But it has generally been outperforming NBC’s “The Naked Truth,” and Newhart believes that is good enough for the time being. He points out that “Newhart” was on Mondays for its entire eight-season run.

“We did respectably against [football],” Newhart recalls. “In January, we went through the roof. So the season starts in January.”

Even with the proliferation of channels now, both performers believe television was actually more competitive two decades ago when there were only three major networks.

“They weren’t fighting against anyone else but themselves,” Hirsch says. “If you were last in the ratings, you were out. If you didn’t reach 24 million people, you were out.” What’s critical, he says, is “the longevity of the network executives who believe that the show will get its audience.”

“It was true of ‘Seinfeld,’ ” Newhart offers. “ ‘Seinfeld’ didn’t do numbers at all when it first came on. But they believed in it.”

“ ‘Cheers’ was in the toilet,” adds Hirsch. “I think our competition will change. The other networks will start shuffling. We might be against someone else by the time football is over.”

Both Newhart and Hirsch were pleased with the reviews for “George & Leo,” though Newhart opted not to read one that he was told “wasn’t very good. I said, ‘I’m only going to get upset, so why bother reading it?’ ”

“There’s always one kook sitting someplace [watching the show] and you wonder, ‘Did he see the same thing the other people saw?’ ” Hirsch states.

“George & Leo” airs Mondays at 9:30 p.m. on Channel 2. Repeats of “Taxi” air weeknights at 11 p.m. and Sundays at 12:30 a.m. and midnight; repeats of “The Bob Newhart Show” air weekdays at 1 a.m. and Sundays at 1:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.; repeats of “Newhart” air weeknights at 11:30 p.m. and Sundays at 11 p.m., all on Nickelodeon.