Pleshette still handles the punch lines

Suzanne Pleshette is very much alive -- and ever her saucy self.

In a rare public appearance this week for a 35th-anniversary tribute to “The Bob Newhart Show” (1972-78), her most enduring work, the veteran actress showed that a year of serious personal and health matters hasn’t dampened her spitfire personality.

“I’m cancer-free, my [breasts] are great and . . . I’m extremely, extremely rich,” she said in response to a question, generating howls of laughter from a packed audience during a panel discussion at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills that featured the cast of the beloved sitcom.

In August 2006, it was announced that the actress, who is 70, was being treated for lung cancer. In April, her actor-husband, Tom Poston, died from respiratory failure.

Pleshette, looking fresh in a black pinstriped suit, was asked what she thought the classic show’s secret of success was. “The sexual energy between us,” she responded dryly, inspiring a belly laugh from Newhart.

“I don’t remember that,” he shot back.