There was a time when Bob Newhart used to advise kids to follow their dreams, whether or not it corresponded with their college major or the sensible job that didn’t fulfill them. After all, he was a Chicago kid who left his stable job as an accountant to try to make people laugh for a living. And that worked out, right?

“I did (say that) until 2008, and then after 2008, my advice became ‘Get a job and then try it, but right now, don’t screw anything up,’” the comedy stalwart says, with that deep trademark dry chuckle. “If you get a job, you keep it. It’s a scary time for young people, for everyone. If you’ve got a job, you’ve got something special.”

Of course, Bob Newhart knows something about an extra special job, one that’s taken him from a post-Army career crunching numbers to making now-classic comedy records, trying stand-up with his signature droll stammer, and then creating two legendary sitcoms - “The Bob Newhart Show” (1972-78) and “Newhart” (1982-1990).

He appears this weekend at Boca Raton’s Concours d’Elegance car collector and memorabilia show, to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County.

Even though the world is different than when he began, he says he’s never regretted taking the leap, believing “that at least you will have tried, and you won’t spend the rest of your life wondering about the road less traveled. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being an accountant. I was single with no obligations, and thought ‘I’m gonna give this a year, and if people keep saying (I’m) very funny, I will see if I can make a living, because comedy is what I really wanna do.’ I was very practical. Then one year became two years, and two years became three years. I figured ‘I’m gonna wait till that job falls through.’”

Before making people laugh professionally, it was a pleasure for Newhart, who remembers the first time he garnered a chuckle. It was during a family game night back in Chicago, when he was about ten years old. Apparently “one of the questions was ‘Do you have artistic temperament?’ and I knew what I was gonna say was gonna get a laugh. My response was ‘I can’t even draw!’ and the family laughed. And when I heard that first laugh, I thought ‘That’s a great sound.’”

Also, Newhart learned, “funny is another way of being popular, if you’re not the quarterback, or you’re not 6’8” and can’t play basketball,” he says.

For his show in Boca Raton, Newhart will be armed with stories, and with a clip reel of his career highlights, including the now-classic final scene of “Newhart,” where his character, Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon, wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, who played his wife in his first sitcom, revealing that the entire second series was just a weird dream.

The seeds for that clever and now much-referenced twist were planted at a cocktail party during “Newhart“‘s sixth season, and some issues with his then-employer, namely CBS.

“My wife knew that I was unhappy with CBS, that I had made 9 p.m. on Mondays a hit timeslot, where it had never been before. But then they moved us to 8:30, and then to 9:30, and I wasn’t real happy with CBS. I said ‘I think this is gonna be the last year of ‘Newhart,’” he remembers. “She said ‘You ought to end it with you and Susie (Pleshette) in bed, and I said ‘Oh, honey, that’s a great idea.’ Susie was actually at that party, and she said ‘If I’m in Timbuktu, no matter where I am, you have to call me and I’ll do it.’”

Newhart resolved his issues with the network, and the show ran for two more seasons. When it finally ended, with the whole fictional town being sold to the Japanese, Newhart went through with his wife’s idea.

“When we revealed the bedroom set, the studio audience hadn’t seen Suzie or I yet, but they recognized it from the ‘Bob Newhart Show,’” he says. “And they applauded the set!”

Newhart expects a lot of applause in May, when he and longtime friend and fellow legend Don Rickles will appear at an AARP convention in Las Vegas, just sitting on stage and telling stories about their 45 year-long friendship. Newhart says that he and Mr. Personality have been looking for a project to do for years, including “The Sunshine Boys” and “The Odd Couple,” and found a fit with this forum. He has no idea what the questions are going to be, and he likes that.

“When you do standup, you never know what’s really gonna happen. It’s always a gamble,” he says. “But I love it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. I get the question often, that I don’t have to do this, so why keep doing it? My answer has been like ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ The alternative is sitting in a darkened room having Erich Von Stroheim come in and ask me what episode of ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ I wanted to watch.”