“When I graduated from college, I worked for three years for an advertising agency, and one of the people who we used to hire to do voiceovers was a man named Bob Arbogast, who had a once-a-week television show," Bob recalled in an interview from 2015. “So I said to him ‘I want to go on your show tonight as the guy who puts the stars' names in the sidewalks of Hollywood.'”
Arbogast was evidently swayed. Einstein appeared on the show portraying character Arnold Fillmore, where he cracked several deadpan jokes, ranging from puns to full-on gags about bribery. Although this may have been Bob's TV debut, comedian Steve Martin says he was amazed upon seeing the segment for the first time while filming the documentary, specifically how indicative it was of his colleauge's comedic voice. “This was Bob's mature style,” he explained.
And Martin isn't alone. “That's all you need to know about Bob right there,” former late-night host David Letterman said. “The framework for that got bigger, but the consistency of his attitude is what's delightful.”
Beyond impressing his peers, this segment swayed Tom Smothers to bring Bob onto his show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. “The next day I'm at work and my secretary said ‘Tom Smothers is on the phone for you.'” Bob explained. Although he initially shrugged off the call as a prank, picking up the phone and saying “’hi Tommy! I'd love to talk to you but my uncle is a hunchback but he's straightening up today, I'll see ya later,'” he soon realized he was not, in fact being punked when Smothers called him again ten minutes later.
“I go ‘Hello?’ and he said ‘Bob? Yeah, Tom Smothers again,” he recalled. “I go ‘oh my god,’ I said ‘I am so sorry.’ He said ‘that’s ok, ‘I saw what you did last night and I loved it. We’re doing a summer show with Glenn Campbell would you like to write on it and perform?’"