Ep 154 | Taxi: "The Great Race"

The Tubers hop back into Taxi once more to round out their coverage of one of network TV's saddest and dirtiest sitcoms. This week, Alex and Louie engage in a cab battle for the ages, one that threatens to shred the fabric of life itself (for Elaine, at least)

Brian quizzes Spencer and Van about their knowledge of taxi-based entertainments in between bouts of admiring Danny DeVito. Van provides some less-than-thrilling examples of comedian Jan Murray's work. Spencer brings the BTBs much closer to the present day with his new show pick. It's an episode so good you might not even notice if your cab driver circles your destination twice while you're listening!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Perhaps more than any other theme song to a sitcom
that we've covered. I think this one conveys that you're
about to hear three sad, middle aged guys talk. This
is Boob two Boys, a TV show podcast. I'm Brian Vaughn.
We're talking about taxi. Spencer Hendricks is going to do
that too.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yep, I have no choice. I'm here for that exact thing.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Van Lee. I'm not giving you any options either.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
It's a seventies so I'm on a lot of drugs.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, And you've been talking about Jimmy Carter a lot lately.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I thought you're going to go Jimmy Hendrix and make
me cool. Instead you're like, no, Jimmy Carter's he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's what people like to deal. I like to get
in a bunch of drugs and talk about Jimmy Carter.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
All the time. And you've been talking about the pirates, huh,
that we are family pirates?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah? Sure?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
What are some other things you might be talking about?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Probably that time that Jimmy Carter was in that boat
and he claimed that a rabbit was coming to get him.
He was like on a lake or something or other.
But rabbits don't swim. But then Jimmy Carr, he was like,
but tell you, I saw this rabbit and it did swim,
and I beat it with an oar and he did.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Wow. I'm not surprised that you had a Jimmy Carter
story that just pull out like that. Was he the
one that did the peanuts peanut farm?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, And in fact, when he became president, he didn't
give away his peanut farm. He gave it to someone
else essentially, and then could take it over after the presidency,
because back then there was this thing where like, we
don't want our presidents to profit off of their position,
And so he basically sold his peanut farm. By the
time he got it back, whoever he'd given it to
or sold or whatever had run it at the ground

(01:33):
and he ended up actually having to sell it never
got it back.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
I was checking my notes here and it says later
in America history, if you're president, you can own and
profit off anything and commit any crime you want.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
You can sell state secrets while your son somehow gets
a two billion dollar contract with Saudi Arabia despite the
fact that he has no actual work in the field.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
He's inn But we made this fucking mister Rogers president
sell his peanuts.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yep, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Oh can you sell government secrets?

Speaker 4 (02:01):
Good?

Speaker 3 (02:02):
What about corporate and government secrets?

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Secret?

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Government?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah? I was gonna say what about their secret?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh that was quite an intro there.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Oh boy, we're gonna be talking about taxi, but first
I want to talk about entertainment that has taxi cabs
in it? Is that a lot of us?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (02:17):
In a segment I.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Called did you just say, is there a lot of them?

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah? Like what is there? Just like a lot of
taxi related entertainment?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well then you think so it's time for our usual segment,
hailing entertainment colon cabs and cab drivers from film and
television history.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
See, I know it. I knew we were going to
do Haley Entertainment colon cabs and cab drivers from human
history like we often do. Did I get it right?

Speaker 1 (02:39):
You're real close? Okay, probably we haven't done it in
a few episodes, is why that's that on? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Remember how we wanted to call the podcast that.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
At first, the very first, but we decided to be
better as a segment because it's not this is going
to come to surprise the listeners it's not that catchy
doesn't roll off the tongue.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
We did, however, know that we could get to one
hundred and fifty plus episodes on just that subject.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
For sure, that was out there. We're gonna get a
couple minutes on it at least, because what I want
you guys to do, I'm gonna give you, guys brief
synopsis of cab centric entertainments from American media.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
First thing you're gonna do is tell me whether this
movie or series I present you with is reel or fake.
And if it's real, I want you guys to guess
what it's rotten tomatoes score is. Okay, if you win,
we'll keep doing the episode. If you lose, we all
so will we all die? And you can work together
because this is more just a stupid thing we're doing
than a real game, as you know from when we've

(03:33):
done the segment before.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yey, precisely, we're doing it the way we always do it.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
We'll start out with when you might know, you guys
might know.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
As we play cab drivers coal in the American dream,
of which there are cabs and movies. Right, So that's
what was right that time you nailed it. Okay, Spencer,
you say it.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Hailing entertainment Okay. Taxis also nailed Colan taxis colon subcolon.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Stuff in other stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Driving and crying the alternate name for taxi the show Okay.
In the nineteen seventy six Martin Score says a classic
taxi driver, Robert de Niro, would like to know if
you were talking to him or not? Is that real
or fake? That movie?

Speaker 3 (04:13):
That one's real. I didn't do the bit I was
going to do, which was I was going to be like, Oh,
I'm so glad to be here to talk about taxi.
I really want to discuss You know someone who watches
a movie and then identifies with the heat to discussed
the first in cell. Yeah, exactly. But I didn't do that.
So that's real.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
That's real.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Good, it is real. What do you think it's Rotten
Tomatoes scoring ninety five?

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Wait are we talking audience score.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
We're talking only critics scores.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Okay, critical score.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
This does include reviews from the time.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, critical scorees got it well from the time. I
don't think they liked it as much, So I'm going
to say seventy five. Okay, eighty nine poster Spencer.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Okay, I should have stuck with my first one ninety
and then I was like, wait, no, everyone loves it
ninety five.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well stay.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
That's the thing though, if this were Joker, if we
were discussing that, it'd be a hundred and fifty because
it's so much better.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Because Joker is like, what if taxi drivers sucks? Shit?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
What if we took taxi Driver and then put it
in the biggest media conglomerate thing in the world. Because
no one will watch anything unless it starts with superhero and.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Then everything compelling about it. We'll just suck that out
of there, get rid of it. No more. Don't make
it interesting, don't make it gritty. Okay. A cab driver
and a reckless detective played by Queen Latifa and Jimmy Fallon,
respectively team up to solve a crime involving a garbage
collector's wife in two thousand and four's Taxi Is That

(05:34):
Real or Fake?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
I actually think this is real.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
It could be.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I didn't know what it was called. I didn't know
the plot.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
By Gum, it could be by Gum. I think it's real.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Okay, we're going real.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
You guys got me butt good. It's real. Now, what
do you think that thing's rotten Tomatoes? Score is critic
thy forty six, you're being generous ten it's nine. Whoa
Really everyone hated the fuck out?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Well yeah, that's I was.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Being facetious and I overshot it. You overshot it by
point somehow.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
But you just about nailed it on the right side.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
I mean, that's what I think about it.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
I was thinking, there's no way Jimmy Fallon did that,
and then I remembered that was around the time he
did that fever pitch thing. I was like, okay, yeah,
he was doing.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
End of the Podcast. Justin Hughes loves that movie because
it's stupid.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Thought you were going to say friend of the podcast
Jimmy Fallon.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Oh no, it might be. We don't know, Yeah, we
don't know that he's I don't know what he does
with his Don't they ever play any games where they
have celebrities throw.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
A ping pong bawl?

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Okay, so like that we've been the best of friends, right,
celebrity that I'm talking to right now, like, so funny.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
You do like me? Right, I'm in deep neat of validations,
kissing me so hard? Okay. Nineteen eighty two's Cosmic Cab
That's in Space features a wayward space cab he named Zincord,
who becomes the unwinning captain of a warship and a
battle deceive his people. I guess there's never a bad

(06:55):
time to become a hero, am I right? Guys? Is
that real or fake?

Speaker 3 (06:59):
The name sold it that it's not or coorb or whatever.
That was a Brian name.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Okay, that's not real and so as such was not
reviewed by major.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Critics ninety which is what that would be one.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
High Famed art House director Jim Jarmush's Night on Earth
from nineteen ninety one features cab drivers from all over
the US and Europe navigating memorable fares. What does the
Knight have in store for memorable characters such as Winona Writers,
Kirky or Jen Carlo Esposito's yo, yo, hmmm, that's pretty cool?
Is that real or fake?

Speaker 3 (07:32):
That sounds kind of real to me? It does sound
like the artound real. Yeah, it's real and I want
to watch it.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see when on A
writer is a is a cab driver. Also see it.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Jean Carlo Esposito when he's like twenty.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Well, that's it because I know I've seen him in things,
but really, until Breaking Bad, I didn't know who he was.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Same here, I didn't have a name to put to
the face. So now he came elaborated. Yeah, he's everywhere like, well,
that's mof Gideon. So what did that get on Rotten Tomatoes?
What the critics I'm gonna say, like art House pretty high.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, I'm gonna say like seventy eight.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Id by that, We'll go seventy five, so we're a
night in that range.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Seventy six. Oh, guys, pretty much drilled that. An ex
cop played by David Morse has to reset his life
as a Philadelphia cab driver after getting booted from the
force in this early two thousand CBS series called Hack.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
I've got to say that's sound.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
The thing is, he's also a vigilante at night.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
I think that sounds very possible. David Morse would totally
do something like that.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
The vigilante thing kinda made me come back to earth
and say maybe not. Maybe I was leaning yes initially,
so your confidence leads me to agree and say, yes,
it's real.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
It's real. What did the rotten tomatoes folks think of this?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Ooo? Like a like a thirty eight. I'll go a
little lower since I overshot the last bad one.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
I was thinking fifty five, so we split the difference
to say forty two twenty.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
These bad ones are really bad.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
These bad ones. People hate this shit. This is a
TV show, Yeah on Sea. I wonder how long it
lasted two seasons. I think more than I would have guessed.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, okay, Well, Melanie Griffith is almost done with her
shift when she picks up a potentially dangerous client in
nineteen eighty nine's Fatal Fare. Is the well dressed man
in her back seat the business executive? He claims? Or
is he harboring a deep dark secret? Is that real
or fake?

Speaker 2 (09:23):
My instinct was no, fake, Okay, I'll go with that.
I don't know if it's a fake one. You played
it real safe to fool.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Us, But I think that's precisely one.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, it could be. I'm willing to go with that
it is fake.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
And the exercise here was I was really excited about
putting together like what I did as I thought of
the year nineteen eighty nine. I was like, what would
you do with a cab movie if you were making
a movie and.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
That fits the era, that fits precisely what it is.
It's sexy, you've got Melanie Griffith there, but also it's
not and you've got this suspense kind of thing going
on with who is cause you're in that.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Thriller era kind of which I really it's kind of
fun to do, weirdly, to think about an era of movies,
about what were they doing? I'll make one up? Did
I make up this? Though? Eli Roth's Checkered Past Because
Cabs Checkered Cabs two thousand and seven tells the story
of Mickey played by mc ganey, an aging cab driver
who hasn't always used his vehicle solely for transportation?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
What else is he easy?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
When an intoxicated treu of college students, including Chris Pine
in an early role, find out his secret, will they
make it out of his cab alive?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
It sounds awesome, it does, which is why it's not real.
Mc ganey. Come on, well, now I could make the
argument that because it's mc ganey, Brian picked it, but
I see it's too This is too niche of a subject,
the cab driver thing that I think he made it up.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
I can go with that I did make it up.
It sounds pretty good, yeap.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I like throwing Chris Pine in there too.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
I'd probably Eli Roth would make it a little too obvious, though.
I think they should have picked a different fake director.
So again, no critics reviewed my mind. And we have
one more before we start talking about the show we're
actually talking about, and that is this one. Mel Gibson
plays an ultra paranoid cab driver who turns out to
be right about everything despite having no concrete evidence in

(11:13):
Richard Donner's nineteen ninety seven thriller Conspiracy Theory. Is this
real or mel Gibson's fantasy? I remember that movie, but
I didn't remember he was a cab driver.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Maybe that's not the focus of it, and it just
happened to be a bit.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yet at it. I'm not doing any tricks like that.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Okay, Yeah, so that's real because I remember seeing that
on TV a little bit.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
That's real and I have seen it. What did the
people on Rotten Tomatoes think about this thing? Mel Gibson nine,
I'll really quickly tell you what I thought about it
when I was twelve or thirteen or whatever.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
You loved it.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
I thought it was pretty good.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
I remember being like this fun, this is interesting. I
would say maybe average, Like let's go like fifty four.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
I'd say a little higher than that, probably big budget,
so sixty eight fifty seven.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
But you guys, again, you've got the general gist on
all of these. That's our final one. So until next
time when we returned to healing entertainment colon cabs and
cab drivers from film and television history. This is it
for for the segment.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I wanted to make a brief mention here. Wow, towards
the end of this segment, I don't think there's gonna
be a better spot to put this in. I have
a taxi movie that I thought of when I watched this,
and there's just one. It's that one where Jamie Fox
right around with gray haired Tom Cruise for a couple
hours while Tom Cruise kills some people.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
The movie is good.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's my taxi movie.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
I never saw it, but it looked interesting.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Do you have a taxi movie that you do remember?

Speaker 1 (12:33):
No, I can't say I do I really have that many?

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah? No, I guess not. All I could think of
was that Mel Gibson movie where he was a nope
to Patrick Swayze I'm thinking of. I think there's Black
Dog where he's a trucker who transports goods or whatever.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
They had the same haircut at that time.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
They did. And Patrick Swayze decides he wants out of
the racket. He's got a wife and kid at home
and he wants to be with them. And you know,
he's been transporting stolen or illegal goods. But in someone
kidnaps his wife and four sem to do one last
job transporting something like guns across the country.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Who's meat Loaf by the way, he's a bad guy.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I like this.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
But then it turns out the FBI's in on this,
and they know something's going down, so they send their
their secret agent undercover. And it turns out that that
actor who plays that FBI agent is Randy Travis, noted
country music singer. It is a wild hour and a half.
You should go watch it.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
It has Randy Travis and meat Loaf.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
And then huh, meat Loaf is handling it up as
the villain. Randy Travis is drunk. Patrick Swayzey's Patrick Swayzey.
It's Great Black Dog.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
I would have thought you'd want someone in the cast
to maybe tie the shit down. You know. It feels
like like that thing's going to go off the rails immediately.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
No, and it did.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
I was also imagining, you, like with the Mel Gibson thing,
be like wait, Braveheart, never mind, like that was going
to be a taxi movie.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
The taxi episode we're covering today is called the Great Race.
At season two, episode eight, Alex and Louis get in
a cab battle. But that's not how it starts. We
start off with the credits again and we're all going
to die one day is the general feeling that I
had while watching the credits once again.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Bummer.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Then the episode starts when we hear like a disco
tinge song kind of plan as we go into the
Sunshine Cab Company. It was a real jarring transition from
the theme. Louis descends his staircase, He's got a handful
of papers, and he's yelling at everybody about how little
money they're bringing in. He specifically calls out Elaine and
Tony's totals and then starts bragging about he was the
best cab driver they ever had in a very Louis move.

(14:26):
Tony cuts him off, but Louis tries to continue anyway. Well, please,
are you embarrassed, Manda? You should be ashamed of be
in a shame garage with me. I'm ashamed to be
in the same species with you. And this is multiple
times in this episode because jud Hurst does it later
where people Inferry that Louie just is not a human being.

(14:47):
Another thing that I like that's kind of implicit in
Louie is everybody can give him shit back and he
doesn't ever do anything about it, no matter how you
know loud.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
His bark is yeah, and he's a willing villain, like
he doesn't love mind and he's kind of like and
is relatively harmless act so it seems like he's not
afraid to play the part, but he's not like truly
bad the character.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Also, I didn't mention this last episode. He lives with
his mom and tries to take care of her, and
she's not always doing well, but she's also awful, like
you can kind of see where he got it from.
H and his mom was played by Danny de Vito's mom.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh that's awesome, Yeah, pretty cool. And Rhea Pearlman shows
up in a few episodes, right, well, I.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Think she even plays his love interest and they were married,
So the whole DeVito family basically was in this show.
Louis says, look, we need drivers, not a bunch of
fucking Jan Murray's, which, upon hearing that, I said, who
is that?

Speaker 3 (15:38):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (15:39):
And it turns out, think of a fifties person, A
fifties man, that's.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
What he is.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, that is he's a comedian, sir, that's what he
claims to be. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Well, in searching for who the fuck this was, because
I just, much like you, sat down and said, huh
whenever they said this, I found this thing and it's
a clip. I'm going to play it for you. It's
a clip of mister Jan Murray doing his and I
do air quotes here comedy on something called George Slatters,
just for last.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
He's supposed to be a guy that your whole family
can appreciate.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Oh yeah, Well this took place in nineteen seventy eight,
so he'd actually been around for a bit. He was
a fifties guy, but he's still doing comedy in the seventies,
so I think through the eighties that's a year before
this episode. For some reason, he was introduced on the
stage in this show, this George Slattery Show by Tommy Lasorda,
who's wearing full Dodger's regalia.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
He's in his Tommy Lasorta.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's very weird. But anyway, this is an example of
Jan Murray's comedy.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
But I didn't come here tonight, ladies. I'm going to
talk to you about hotburn. I want to discuss a
little subject that can create hotburn, can cause hotburn, and
that subject is marriage.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Do you realize it.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
It's more difficult to get a driver's license than it
is to get a marriage license. They don't even give
you an eye test to get married. Perhaps that explains
all the ugly couples you see nowadays.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
You see, it's funny because ugly people exist.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
The thing is that you're seeing these pluff They don't
all look good, do they.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
He was kind of a whiz bang comedian.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Like he was. He hosted a lot of game shows.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Oh that kind of guy. Well, I have another clip
from that same thing. This happens at the very end
of his little stand up set, and this is him
discussing aging getting old.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
He should know.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
You're right about NaN's clinic. Ser all a rich old
millionaires from all over the world go there and they
give him these injections. It's the placent of unborn sheep.
I mean that's what they do. I swear they take
the placent of unborn sheep. They take these little old guys,
they give them seven eight injections. You see ninety year
old men chasing young dames. They forget why, but they're running.
They're going to look you. I'm not going to heck

(17:36):
with them. Ain't nobody going to inject me with the
placent of unborn sheep. I don't think it's good. I
think it's bad, and I'm not going.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
I take it back. Hilarious.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
He made it as a multifaceted joke. Ad actually just
sounds like an old man ranting, oh the percenters of
sheep and injecting and.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
And I love that. The character of Louis and this,
I mean, this is a bunch of writers thinking of
this stuff, right, But the character of Louis is so
uncultured that he's like, this is a comedian that comes to.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Mind having seen that, Though it does make me want
to watch like stand up sets from the seventies by
lesser known comedians, just to see what it would be like.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
That's really interesting. It wouldn't be funny, but it would
be fascinating.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
It would be this I'm not even familiar with hardly
any The only ones I've seen are the like a
couple of the really famous ones like Red Fox or Yeah,
I saw that I with my cousin Brent. I wanted
to watch a George Carlin special, right right, I've seen
a Bob Newhart special that I still think is funny.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
I want to get deep in the dregs. I want
to find Jan Murray and and other white guy Jan
Murray just at a club.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
I bet he's super dirty and he's like, yeah you
have a fuck anybody underwater in a closet And what
Jan Murray, what are you talking about? I'm on a
lot of drugs. I'm only twenty five. While I'm talking
like this, he's probably like fifty five on those clips.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, he sounds like a lot of people at that
time period, Like he sounds like some one who was
dead pretty soon after No I was dead, Darrin. I mean,
when did January die. Let's assume like pretty close to
that act.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
I'll look it up, but yeah, my guests would be nineteen.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
He didn't eighty four. Yeah, he didn't see the nineties.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
He might not have seen us being born. It's it's
really hard to tell. When I first heard Dannie video
c Jan Murray. Also, for whatever the reason I or
for I think an obvious reason, I expected it to
be a woman who was in for some reason, I
thought in a sitcom or something. I thought it was
like a contemporary joke, like a seventy sitcom.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
What a weird joke.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, I really like it.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
I just went right over my head and I didn't
think anything of it.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Jan Murray definitely did watch us be born and turn
twenty one. Who yeh other life events because he died
in two thousand and six.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
At the edge of one hundred and thirty four, nineteen sixteen,
so ninety that's no good job. I guess, good job,
good job, Jan Murray, you survive. I hope he hears
me from the corpse grave we get Necromanson. Nah, I
gotta use on somebody better.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
They didn't do it at that hospital when he was done.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, there was their chance they could freeze him. After
talking about Jan Murray. Louis reminds everyone I could book
out book any of you still, even now at age
thirty three. Bobby thinks Louis is full of shit, and
he's like, look, there's gonna be a one on one showdown,
and you're it's gonna be with Alex though, because I'm
not very good at this, Bobby says Louis needs to

(20:22):
shut up if he doesn't accept the challenge with Alex too.
I mean, you can't just boast and not back it up.
And during this, Bobby is pointing his index finger in
Louise's face because his arm at his hip is about
Louis's face level, and Danny video proceeds to with the
very angry face bite Jeff Conaway's finger, and actually he
does bite it. At first, he kind of misses it,

(20:42):
and then he goes in and gets the rest of it.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
He gets a hold of it, and you know what,
I bet Danny Veto could absolutely rip through a finger.
Yeah he wanted to. He's got strong teeth, He's probably
got the jaw strength of a t rex. Like he
could do some damage.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
And this is an actual thing with me. If someone
points at me and gets their anger too close to me.
I get really anxious. You bite him, I bite him now,
I'll eat it all right offust I get confused, and
I'm like, what if it's a hot dog.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
That was one of the only times at a job
that I actually could feel myself lose my temper. When
I had a it was just an older guy who
was mad. I worked at an old person's home and
he was mad about something we didn't do for his mom.
He put his finger in my face and I seriously
saw red. And I'm usually quite calm, but that was
one thing where it was just like, I cannot deal
with this.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's like they've invade. They really have inverted invaded your
personal space.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
It's aggressive and just yeah, don't do that, don't horrible thing,
don't point at people's faces, don't whistle at people. Just
don't do this shit.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Imagine how you would treat a dog, and then how
you would treat a human, and then go ahead and
treat him like a human. Actually treat your dog better too.
Correct well, Alex tells Louie, I don't want to do
this competition. It's taken me a long time to get
over being really competitive. He used to have a gambling
problem in the show, and he doesn't want some big
cab battle messing all of that up. And Louie seems

(21:59):
to respect that very briefly before doing a lot of
chicken noises and hopping back up into his safety cage
so that no one could get mad at him, like
cage the coop.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Do you think Alex has like an alter ego when
he's in his gambling.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Face, maybe like Alex k or something.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
I couldn't help it.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, he can't get away from the tables and even
though like he's done, he sawved what he came there
to do, right.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
So this is weird because before we recorded the podcast,
I also made a Bones reference. Today, I don't know
what's happening to him now. You remember you were there,
I said, just like the Grave Diggers.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Oh yeah, you did.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
It's happened that. I think we all knew at some
point Bones would take over it.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
You know, we secretly love it, so not so secretly now.
So all this chicken stuff is going on, and I
you know, we've seen this a thousand times. I don't
really care about it. But what I do like here
is Jeff really egging on Louis and smiling and nodding
while Louie's doing the chicken thing to mock Alex. This

(22:58):
does bait Alex into the challenge, and Alex is now
fired up, and he says, we're not waiting until tomorrow.
We will do the cab battle tonight. Everybody's adrenalized and
they're throwing out bets. Tony puts down one hundred dollars,
which is probably like three hundred fifty dollars or some
shit on Alex. Louis says, I will cover that, and

(23:18):
as other cabbies all start to line up, he says,
I'll cover all of these bets. I don't give a shit.
I'm that confident that I will beat jud hirsh at
cab driving. Louis and Alex start getting ready for the
cab battle in a segment that I like more than
I should, because they're putting on ripped up leather jackets
that have actual like gashes in them, and Louis has
a little cabby hat with buttons on it and a

(23:40):
white scarf get he gets full ass into it. It's
it's pretty funny. I like it.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
I'm assuming those outfits are supposed to have special meeting
like those for his prime taxi driver days.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yes, definitely, and he puts them on so proudly.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Put on my driving pants. Now you're in for it.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Alex and Louie confirmed there are no rules, just whoever
brings the most money in. Elaine adds, I really wish
I could bet on you too, Alex. I know you're
gonna win, but I mean, rinse, coming up, I am broke.
This is also refreshing just in general of seventies sitcoms,
people had consistent financial problems. In modern sitcoms, everyone has

(24:18):
money and works for a magazine or some shit, and
they have the nicest houses, and if there's a financial problem,
it is a one episode arc that then gets solved.
But this is a sitcom where everyone is poor and
stays poor the whole time, and everything is dirty, every
thing's gross, everyone's sad.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Reminds me of how when he did the episode Everyone
Loves Raymond. The big fight in that one amongst the
married couple was whether or not he could go on
a golf vacation. That's what you're talking about there. There's
no financial element at all to that, which is like,
can I take our wealth and go away?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
From the house, and these aren't people that have vacations
versus everybody loves Raymond, which those are people that can
argue about anything because they have so much time on
their hands and hate in their heart. Yeah, exactly, Spencer,
thank you. Louis says, oh, you don't need any money
to place a bet with me, Elay, and you can
bet a date on it. Something Louie is constantly trying

(25:07):
to get to happen, and Elaine says, no, that's not happening,
and he's like, well, how much is it worth? And
she finally blurts out five hundred dollars, thinking there is
just no way Louis agrees to this, but he does,
which again, I don't know how much money that would
be in today's like a couple thousand.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Probably He just needs to get some man, Danny DeVito
needs to get his dick with.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
I would feel like, if you're Elaine, that's alarming that
the person that you kind of work under is willing
to put that much on having a day with you.
That would be you gotta get out of there, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
You got to. They're off. Lot Kad gets the cars
ready and finally gets out of the way. And the
competition begins, and we see some early night driving scenes
around New York. Louis calls Alex over their little walkies,
those little cab walkies to boast about an early lead.
He has a pretty significant one. And Alex's problems are
about to be confounded because a pair of nuns getting

(25:58):
his cab and they cannot decide what move they want
to go see, so Alex can't get the fair started.
They don't know whether to see the Muppet Movie or
the Revival of the Sound of Music. I actually really
liked this scene.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Muppet Movie. The Sound of Music is boring and yeah,
you feel like that shit whatever, it's fine, But Muppet
Movie's fun. There's music in that they're singing, there's muppets.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
It always sounds really convincing. When you say that's fine.
If you like that shit, I know you believe it.
When you say that, I got it.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Christopher plumbers dancing in the hill.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
She spends in the camera zooms in. It's a helicopter.
Whatever is you, Muppets? Gonzo is not in the Sound
of Music.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
No, neither is animal for God's sake or wolf. No,
he's a dog. He's a dog man.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Puppet or what about your muppet doctor Bunzen Honey.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
I love that guy. He's fucking great, obviously, I love
that guy. This is one of the scenes that happened.
Taxi has a lot of these because it's New York.
You get a lot of different fairs when they start
their routes, like you get nuns in this one. You'll
get people from different nations. And this is every episode,
and I think that that's something as a kid, I
like a kid in the Midwest. I liked to watching

(27:06):
the show just seeing a lot of different cultures and
professions represented. And it is pretty funny to see nuns
arguing about what movie they want to see.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, that seems very unnunlike. It's such subtle sort of
approach they took there, but it does. It's kind of
like its own comedy, just in the setting itself there,
and it's such a small sliver of the episode, and
there's so much content in context of that one little thing.
It's great.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
It took me by surprise because and I guess this
is true, but nuns can go watch movies. Yes, I
feel like they should just be nunning all the time,
and they're not allowed to go out and do people
things pretty much.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Just beating people with rulers. Right, that's what nuns do.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
I think, yelling about God.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
You never hear about them seeing muppets.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
Or being Whoopie Goldberg. That's one thing they can do.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, sing it is they sing.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Being Whoopy Goldberg again back in the habit. You get it,
because nuns live in a habit.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I did not get that until I was embarrassingly old.
Alex is frustrated by the nuns because they're costing him time,
and he boots him out of the cab. He eventually, though,
invites them back in because I mean he thinks he's
turning into Louis.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, he realizes out of his hea he's.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Turning into a real jerk. Louie's beating Alex one hundred
dollars to forty at this point. That is pretty bad.
And Alex picks up a Chinese businessman who does not
know English. And this is the guy from Seinfeld. Yeah,
the maj D for the major D from the Chinese restaurant,
James Hong is James Hong. He's also in Big Trouble
from Little China, Big Troll in Little China. Rather, he's

(28:35):
in a lot of stuff, especially of this era. This
would be very common in New York to have a
Chinese fair if you're a cab driver, I would imagine.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
I mean, it's the financial capital of the world at
this time, so everybody comes here.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
So I really like some of the ways that this
scene is played. Alex is really anxious and trying to
get everything to hurry up, so he's frustrated. But when
he starts talking really loudly at this guy, he backs
off and says why am I talking loudly? Which I
immediately liked because usually you just have the American scream
without realizing that this isn't gonna help comprehension at all. Similarly,

(29:10):
he gets handed a business card and starts handed back like, ah,
this is stupid. This is in Chinese, and then immediately
looks at he goes, oh, this is actually helpful. I
understand how what this means.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
It's kind of a self aware scene where he does
the stereotypal typical stupid kimself but then realizes like, wait,
why am I talking like Tonto like this? This is fine?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Kind of an advanced approach for the seventies.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Yeah, it took me by surprise. It didn't feel really
aggressively mean or anything, so.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
I expected I was bracing. I was like, this scene
is going to be very racist.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
It's almost like they had an opportunity to kind of
ask people who do that, like why do you do that?

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Which do you think about it a little bit? Although
no one who did that one?

Speaker 1 (29:45):
And you'd think they probably talked to some cab drivers.
I think the the impetus for this show James L.
Brooks saw some documentary I think about cab drivers.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Sounds fascinating too. With James L.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Brooks come to my Housejames hill Brooks.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Friend of the podcast, James elpre.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Him and who do we just save him? And Jimmy Follon.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
This is just a strange combination.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
I would be interested in being friends with one of those.
It's not Jimmy Follin. The passenger James Hong. He offers
this massive wad of cash to Alex, clearly not understanding
the exchange rate. Alex realizes it's nine hundred bucks. It's
enough to destroy Louis right then and there and make
the whole shift. He calls Elaine for advice and she

(30:28):
cheers out of joy, which that's the answer he needs.
She wants him to keep it. He doesn't, though, and
Jennhers plays this the way he should, which is he
does the right thing, but he's kind of dejected about
doing it.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
At first, it seems like he's going to do it,
like he's talked himself into it. He's like, fas fine,
I'm just going to do it.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
But once again Alex is tested and does the right thing,
and the passenger, you can tell, is grateful. James Hong
shakes his hand, gets out, goes to the airport whatever
he's doing. Elaine calls and goes, he didn't. He didn't
take the money, did you?

Speaker 3 (30:58):
She knows she has pression. She knows right in that
moment he's finished his fare. Now I need to ask.
I will ask both of you. Would you keep the money? Yeah, Spencer, I.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Mean I don't think I do it like Alex could.
I would in my head, I'd be doing the math like,
oh my god, this would change mine because I would
change that. It's not just the contest that would change
his whole life. I would think much money. Yeah, I mean,
you got to think about the world in which I
wish I could. But you really wouldn't be able to
I don't think. I don't think you could. I think
I could finish it. You would have at the end.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
This is a super wealthy businessman, and the wealth disparity
is so bad.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
You don't know what that is. If I went to
a foreign country, this couldn't happen to me. If you
don't know how much money that really is, then you
don't need it.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, I think I'd wind up taking it, but I'm.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Pretty sure I wouldn't because not for that, not for
a normal more reason.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
You'd be afraid, you want to get in trouble. Yeah, yeah, No,
I think what would happen is I would take it,
and then at the end of the day, when I'm
trying to do the contest, I would have pocketed eight
hundred and ninety dollars.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
You'll only leave in what is necessary.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, so I probably lose the contest, But hey, I
eight hundred ninety dollars in my pocket.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Hey, your rent with that?

Speaker 1 (32:07):
It's right, Probably a few rents in this era, in
the late seventies, not in current era. No, you could
pay half a rent or something. Continuing the theme, Louie
gets what seems to be an easy fair. Once again,
he gets this older, crew cut gentleman, and Louis is
just happily circling the block past the un building where
the guy asked to be dropped, smiling the whole time.

(32:27):
When the passenger says, hey, you passed where I wanted
to be the second time, and lou goes, uh, whoops accident.
The guy says, no, it is not and turns out
to be with the New York Cab Commission and accuses
Louis of running up the meter on him and makes
him pull over.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I guess this is an actual position.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Probably it probably the guys reveal. It's like he has
the intensity of like a bookman type, and the way
he's the way he does he seriously reads it, just
kind of like how you did, Brian, where he actually
says like, I don't think so and then reveals who
he is right and the same.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Breath, and he seems like a guy who would work
in this sort of position. Yeah, just like a no
nonsense man.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And my favorite part about this whole scene is how
much Louis does not give.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Off, doesn't even kind of care about this, and I
mean technically he's driving under someone else's license, so it
won't come back to him.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
But even though he's the boss, but he doesn't care.
He just wants to win this, so when asked for
his credentials, he goes ahead and hands this guy's Tony's credentials,
which obviously Tony Danza and Danny Divito do not look
the same. And this is what happens when the commissioner,
the cab commissioner asks him about that.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Shit doesn't look like you have picture.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
It was taken when I was sick and stupid. Yeah,
this made me laugh out loud when he said it
perfect and he hits the stupid really hard too. Louis
goes on to call this man's family a bunch of apes,
and when it's all over, he simply puts Bobby's license
in the window.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, he sees the picture of the guy's kids in
his wallet or whatever. He says, he's your kids. I
think I saw him in a chimp act. Now, since
this is nineteen seventy eight, that means it might have
been Gargantua have been.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, this guy looks average sized, so yeah, it could
he could be. It could be involved with.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
That Gargantua is almost as big as Danny DeVito.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Almost No, he would look seven feet standing next to Dvito.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, I really just like how Louis at no point
feels any stakes here and then continues to harass the
guy who is already telling him I'm going to do this, this,
and this is just so it's so bold.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
This is the I think the charm of his character
in the whole series is that he just does not
ever back off anything. He's always a dick.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
He throws the ticket that he was just written out
the window in like a cutesy way, and he knows.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Like, I'm driving for one night. I don't fucking care.
He's just trying to win this thing, and you know
he's a jerk. Louis holds a forty dollars lead with
an hour left too, and Alex is getting what appears
to be his worst faeryette, which is a little old
lady with a bunch of bags of groceries.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
He's basically given up. He's like, yeah, the contest is
overscrew it. I'm just gonna help this, and he's pretty
about it.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
He's resigned to his fate, just as he is in life.
So he's helping the woman get the bags into the
cab and she's telling him what she needs, and it
turns out to be a godsend because she needs Alex
to drive her all over the Five Burrows and then
back home to New Jersey. She's bringing groceries to all
our friends. This is a nice little old lady.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Old lady groceries. What do you kind of groceries do
you think she has? I see a bag asparagus.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
There's definitely a bag at Maybe there's a marble rye
I know from Seinfeld to have those in New York.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
In the seventies though, I think it was just soup.
It's all you could get in the seventies.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Some cream for like muscle soreness.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, Walter mathow Brand soup.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
It's very flappy.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Everything's just in a big bulky paper bag. At that
time too, couldn't do any plastic. We love those things.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Just canned goods. That's it. Canned food is nasty. I'm
just gonna say it. There's some canfoods I'll eat. But
for the most part, something when.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
You get older, it's you just don't want things out
of a can.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
You can't really digest it either.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
I don't want brined vegetables that were packaged six years ago.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
It's like your body just finally says, like enough, I
know you did this before, but this is not before
any longer.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Now, get me some taco bell.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, you'll be fine, trust me.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Taco bell and a can.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
I would do it now it worse. No, I mean,
I'd crack the can open and just dump it down
into my gullet.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
To be honest, I bet that's all the ingredients come
from cans. So okay, it makes sense. Even the tortillas,
canned tortillas, can burrito, and then the burrito falls out.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Oh there's the flower tortillas sort of just melted into
all of it.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
This reminds me of like ten years ago. I probably
told you guys this. I saw an article about a
thing that they were trying to market called a burger
and a can, and you did. The guy who wrote
the article was he hadn't tried it, but he was like,
I really want to, and I get that premise. It
might be terrible, that horrible. I gotta try it.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
I'd like to try it, but give it.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
I would be afraid that when I open it, those
snakes would pop out, you know, those that's what happens
those snakes.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yes, except real snakes in this scenario, that'd be pretty
metal though, or just a bunch of bees. There's just oh,
this can's full of bees.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Well, because the whole time I'd be like, why do
you want me to open this can?

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Burger?

Speaker 1 (37:07):
That can't be? What's really that? That can't be? What
that is?

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Why did you tell me to point it at my face?

Speaker 4 (37:12):
I do?

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Alex is so fired up because he realizes this this
fair is going to bring in a lot of money
that he plants a big old smooch on this old
woman turns away to get in the driver's seat, but
she's not done. She yanks them down into the back seat,
which was legitimately pretty funny. This old woman, it was
surprising she wants some judd hirsh well. I mean, she
gets this kiss and then her animal instincts kicked.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
In thought about it for about three seconds. She was like,
how do I feel about this? I like this?

Speaker 1 (37:37):
What this?

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Like?

Speaker 1 (37:37):
How often am I going to get this young whipper
snapper into me?

Speaker 2 (37:40):
So is the insinuation that it actually happens, because they
kind of fade out like and it doesn't really.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
This is another one of those sitcom things where they're like,
we don't you know it's well, yeah, but I think
she blew him.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
At least he's, you know, sat on his knees in
the back seat with his head back and she's blowing
in the middle of New York City and nobody bats
an eye.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
He's got to have his hands behind his head and
what we've referred to several times as the BJ physition. Louis,
while all this old woman stuff is going on, he
thinks his final fare is yet another piece of cake,
because he gets a blind man who is in New
York for the very first time in his life, and
Louis tries bullshitting the guy once the fair is over.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
By increasing the cost by what triple four times almost
four six dollars to.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Twenty two to fifty, But the man says, I have
been counting the clicks the whole time and the total
should only be six dollars, as Van just said, And
Louie is irritated. Not again, he's not repentant at all,
he's just irritated. From the beginning. Louis tries to intimidate
the guy, but uh, the guy dishes out a pretty
good burn.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
I think I better warn you.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I had to be a very big, muscular guy. Then
you must be talking out of your belly button, him
believing that anyone thinking was I feel like you could
you really could tell you would just.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
Know, well, anyone with Danny DeVito's voice, they may not
be as small him, but they're very much old and crouched.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, just should believe.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
This is what he sounds like at thirty three, right,
and he realizes he's been had even by this blind guy.
When he's like, yeah, I don't think so, he's like, fine,
I'm not. But he just gives that up right.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Away, gives it up right away. It's a speed game
for old Devido here.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
I like how matter of fact the old guy is.
It's like, that's how I made it. It's very much
like an old radio in it.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
That's how he talks. And Louie is so mad that
the guy caught him cheating too. At the end, he
says something to the effect of like, and you call
yourself handicap, Like he's mad that a blind guy is capable,
which is, you know, a very Louie thing to do.
The sun rises. The contest is over and we're back
at the Sunshine Cab Company. Elaine is pretty much comatose

(39:45):
as she awaits the results and the possibility of going
on a date with Louie because they know it's going
to be close thanks to that final fare. Jeff is
on the chalkboard as the money is counted to see
Jeff has something to do. Louis brought in two twelve
thirty and sensing Victor, he sits down next to a
very stoical lay and starts talking about how warm and
thrilling and vulnerable he can be. I did not find

(40:06):
this very funny, but James L. Brooks in the audience
sure did. He's the guy in seventy sitcoms who laughs
like h oh really, yeah, that's him. He would sit
in on his own tapings, and apparently he found this
scene really funny.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Huh. Well, he has had distinct laugh so I guess
that really does add to the scene. I'll give him
credit for that aspect of it. Yeah, it's not that funny.
It's just like I'm forcing myself on a woman and
she doesn't want it. But hahaha.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
And I have a theory when you hear him laugh,
because I always had this with the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I think there are scenes that would not be funny
to me, but I'm like, he knows this person. There's
probably something about this that makes that funnier to him.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Well, that's off of the thing, Like, you know, we
can sit back and watch an hour and a half
long movie and really summarize our thoughts on it really quickly.
These people sat for six months filming this movie, writing
this movie, so there's that personal stake in it, and
I forget that sometimes the.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Other level of appreciation that the spectator can have. And
like James L.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Brooks sits around and watches Dandy DeVito make jokes every day.
He's really close to this person. It's really funny watching
him hit the beats on the jokes.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
You can, yeah, maybe even do a facial tick that
you're like, I didn't know he was going.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
To do that.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
And Danny DeVito decided, because it's the seventies and everything's diturdy,
I'll grow out my unibrow if it is in full force.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
He did not care.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
He could have combed that thing back over. Tony announces, well, oh,
Alex only brought in one hundred and ninety seven good game.
It was close.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Okay, first and foremost, Yes, we've seen Tony Danz in
the background counting the money. I would never, yeah, recount
that any circumstance. Let Tony Danza count my money. Not
because I think he's going to steal anything, but because
I don't think he can count to ten.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
I think, in this the context of this show, you
don't let Tony or Christopher Lloyd count this money. No
one of them is going to spit it on drugs.
One of them won't count it.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Everyone's very dejected about Alex's loss, well except for Louis
Hughes thrilled right up until Alex pulls a big lot
of money out of his pocket and it says tips.
He starts counting him, and Elane says, wait, wait, wait,
tips should absolutely count. The only stated rule was whoever
brings back the most money. And she has a real
tossed off reading of this when she gets excited, where

(42:14):
she just says tips are money. I've seen them, they
are and it's very very casual, and I thought that
was very funny too. It's like kind of overlapped by
some of the other lines.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I didn't even hear that but that's great.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Louis box at all of this and says, no, no, no,
the grand total should only be what the meter said.
And I could have made more than eighty cents in
tips if I'd known we were getting tips. Alex reveals
that he made forty dollars in tips. That's enough to
win if they count it. Bobby says, look, this is
a big argument. A lot of money's on the line
and a date. We need an objective bystander who did

(42:47):
not participate in any of the gambling. There's only one
person who could fit that bill, and it turns out
to be Lot Cup.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
And he's standing here in a grease covered, filthy mechanics jumpsuit.
But what's he doing eating a piece of chicken a
chicken leg, chicken leg, but he has it wrapped in
a napkin. And that's my favorite detail is because Andy
Kaufman probably didn't want to get his finger.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
That's Brian core move right there.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
But also he's wearing this filthy jump steat like this
guy wouldn't give a shit his hands were dirty.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
It is kind of a funny juxtaposition, But.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Him eating one sole chicken leg or whatever is kind
of funny it is, and.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Louie approaches him and starts sucking up to him, knowing
that he's a dividing vote, and Locka does offer him
part of the half bitten into chicken.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Leg a little bite.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Louie's trying to intimidate and scare a lot guy, just
like he did his blind passenger earlier. Alex hates this
and says, Louis, if you do not stop doing this
a lot the whole contest is off. We'll just give
everybody their money back whatever. And Louis doesn't want this.
He wants this date with a Lane especially, so he
acts like he's being nice to Lotka, being like, no, no,

(43:50):
just use your best judgment Locket while he's making throat
slitting and gun gestures with his back to the rest
of the staff, and I again the Davido face expression,
especially during the throat slitting when his eyes go really wide.
Pretty great. Lotka doesn't want to decide. He confirms I
love you both Louie and Alex, and I love working

(44:11):
here and then just walks away, but Louie grabs him
and says we need a decision, and it turns out
Locke didn't actually even know what they need him to decide.
He doesn't know what this is about. He's like, okay,
well what do thin And after a bunch of people
trying to figure out how to phrase it, Alex just
sports out do tips count, and Locka goes, of course they.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Do, just like a throwaway line.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
It's great and that ends it and everyone is jumping
up and down counting their money, celebrating. Louis goes back
into his little tyrant cage and it seems like he
might be a little conciliatory, but then he tells everyone
that he hopes they die and we go to credits.
That's the end.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
That was a great finish.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
It's a good fake out because yeah, of course you
get that vibe. You're like one of those times he
lets his guard down and all shows him that he
actually cares about him, and.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
He announces it too. He's like, hey, everybody, I've got
something to say. And then what he has to say
is fuck you.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
And that's one of the things that I think, like
we've covered it comes even earlier than this. This one
doesn't really need the whole thing to end happily, and
I do like that.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
When they make the final decision. He takes it surprisingly
well as it is anyway, like he's already gotten all
worked up about it. So by the time Lotca says,
the guy's like, fuck.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Whatever, he's presumably out hundreds and hundreds of thought it'd
have to be just a ton because five hundred to Alane,
he said, he's spotting like ten different people. So yeah,
he's probably out fifteen hundred bucks. Yes, that's a nuts,
poor Louis. Maybe he's loaded, who must see.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
So that's it for Taxi. So I know what I think,
which is it was fun to revisit it. I again,
I thought it was very good for its era. I
was surprised a lot of the things that did, and
I was thrilled to get to see all of these
people young in their careers and see what made them stars.
I don't hold this up as high as I do
the Marytowner Moore show, which I liked more upon revisiting,

(45:51):
but I really did enjoy watching it. What did you
guys think?

Speaker 2 (45:54):
The setting was everything I hoped for when he said
it was seventies New York cabbies. That was my favorite
part about it, Just the fact that they went straight
towards this very unglamorous lifestyle and just showed you the
ins and outs of it, like the day to day
of like blue collar workers sort of at this time

(46:14):
period was very appealing. And the fact that you, as
you mentioned, the emphasis on it being a character show
and having that kind of appeal where you get a
chance to get to know the people. I know that
you would have to see at least a good chunk
of the show to fully appreciate it. Seeing just this
little snapshot of it was enough to get There's a

(46:35):
lot of content, a lot of substance in the show.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
It definitely is, and it could be a function of
the writing team being overlapping. But I remember Van when
we covered the Mary Tyler Moore Show, when you watched
just one time, the first episode that we were covering,
You're like, I don't like this. Then you watch another
one and then rewatch the other one You're like, now
I get what everybody is. Taxi is a lot like that.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
If I were to try to do like a measured
take on it, I wouldn't say that I necessarily got
all the comedy parts. Yeah, it wasn't necessarily super funny,
except in its bits where it did work really well,
but mostly I just kind of respected it and was like,
this is quality.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's a good way to put it, that I is.
I respected it more than I laughed at it. I
smiled more than I laughed. Also that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
It's funny you bring up the Mary Tyler Moore Show
and how I reacted to it, because literally I reacted
the same way but lesser, because I watched the first
episode and I was like, this is this just doesn't
do it for me, even though I loved every bit
about Christopher Lloyd, his performance and his character and everything.
But overall, then I watched second episode and it kind

(47:37):
of warmed me up a little bit more to it.
So it's really I wasn't as hated of it in
the beginning, but also I didn't recover as much right
in the end. I do think this is a case of,
like you were saying, Spencer, if you've been here the
whole time, you probably like these characters more and more
into it. I don't have the nostalgia factor. I haven't
seen these characters. They're not beloved to me. Therefore, this

(48:00):
just didn't hit very strong. I get it in a
grand scheme of things, and this is not a bad
sitcom by any stretch of the imagination, but this is
not one I'll probably watch.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Right sure?

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Is it just done to know? It just didn't hit.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
This is a situation too where I think we're all
in the same ballpark here, Like I did watch a
couple other Mary Tyler Moose after the fact when we
covered it, and I might with Taxi, but I might
not because it doesn't quite reach the same heights for me.
But when we talk about it, we we clearly talk
about it with a level of respect we don't with
a lot of other older sitcoms we've covered. And I

(48:34):
think that's kind of what you talked about Van. It's
like I get it more than I like it in
certain moments, and other older era sitcoms we've covered, it's
just like what on earth this was popular? You know,
and I I can't even figure it out. Well that
was well no, but like this isn't a sitcom, but
like The Waltons was the most popular show on television

(48:55):
around when this when Taxi was on the air.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
And we were all kind of befuddled at that.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
You know, it's just really bonkers that some of those
shows were popular. So it's good to get one where
I at least understand to what the deal was, like
what it did that was different.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
And when it comes to the theme song, you know,
at the very beginning of our first episode, I was
very kind of critical of it. I actually think it
does fit Taxi because Taxi does tend to hit on
the more serious notes occasionally. Yeah, and there's sadness involved.
For example, Bobby, Jeff Conaway's character was only in I
think the first three seasons, then he was written off.
His character was supposed to be struggling actor. Well, then

(49:28):
he gets a role behind the scenes. Jeff Conaway really
struggled with drugs and apparently that's supposedly why he was
written off. He was brought back for a once off
in like season five or something or other. Jeff Conway
struggled throughout his whole life with that. He died, and
I think twenty eleven he was on that celebrity rehab
show when it first stbuted and was not painted in
a pretty light. And I do remember watching this weird

(49:51):
Babbylon five cast, like comic con kind of thing where
you know, all the fans get together and ask questions
or whatever, and there was a woman who was in
the fifth season who I don't know, I haven't made
it that far in the show, and she was real
good friends with Jeff Conaway, and she was in tears
because he had recently died close to that comic con saying,
you know, his presentation on Celebrity Rehab was not the

(50:13):
real Jeff Conaway. It's all sensationalized. Doctor Drew was doing
some nasty stuff and they make him go like cold turkey,
which is not a good way to get off any
sort of drug. So anyway, all this ties back to
the fact that Taxi did tackle the serious subjects. Therefore,
I think the theme song kind of fits.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
I think that's kind of my argument is there's an
underlying depressive quality to the show, and they did like
the things that happened to the characters are serious subjects
that I think sitcoms ten years later were not really
talking about the same way like they're they're dirtier subjects.
It's almost like everyone's divorced and has to pay alimony
and stuff. It's like murky and sad, and that's not

(50:53):
in the eighties. The Reagan era got rid of that
in popular sitcoms started in the fifties where they wouldn't
show anything. It got to the seventies they would, and
then it disappeared.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
The comedy elements they kind of drew it from, Like
these are potentially serious and bad things are going through,
but we can make some of the comedy happen from
going through it together, that sort of element, like the
characters provide the comedy instead of the circumstances being this
is so fucking weird thing are we doing now? Say
any events.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
I think it's really identifiable as like the three of
us have gone through a lot of struggles that like
you kind of joke and lean on people that you're near,
and you don't want to be totally serious all the time,
you know, because when your life isn't you know, pulling
back the curtain. None of us have some big fucking
thing we're waiting on to happen where it'll all quote
unquote work out.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
We're just we're getting through. And I think that's most people.
So I think that taking that away from sitcoms was
a mistake because a lot of people watch these things.
It's good to have them be more representative of what
people really go through.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Like if for example, Willie Tanner really ran into alf
and how that would up end his life. Instead of
a zany manner, he strangles the puppet. Oh wait, that
actually happened.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
We have no shows about realistic takes on taking an
alien into.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
Your home, and we should. It's about damn time.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'll have to revisit
The Strange Journey of Alan Strange.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Let's do the thing because you had a comment man
about how the second episode didn't need you didn't do
as much heavy lifting as the Mary Tyler Morwin did
for you, but it didn't have to. Did you prefer
the second episode you did? I the straight up like
duel between the two.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I agree, it was just kind of fun, whereas the
other one wasn't as fun.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
The setup was much cleaner in the second one, the
context of what we were dealing with. It just had
a good back and forth and it just ran so smoothly.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I could have really watched another Like ten minutes of
them picking up different.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
People and laying off was actually just really well done.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah. I like this sort of thing. And this show
also centers on the workplace a lot. It's and what
they do, which I like that's kind of rare in sitcoms.
So I really like this being the extrapolation of that,
like let's have a cab contest. It's why I picked
this one, where as.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
The first one, you're basically saying it was carried by
Christopher Lloyd. I'm assuming is there.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, and I didn't find I appreciate the efforts, but
that one was more leaning on the comedy values than
this other one.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
And you can tell they're trying to make him in
that episode, like we're gonna we know we've added this guy,
we've paid it. Yeah, so we want to really make
him a big character.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
It is.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
It's kind of like I guess his origin story, like
here's how he started with the company.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
This is the first half of Deadpool when he gets
earned or whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah, I agree with you, guys. I did easily prefer
the second one.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
It's just better, I think. And you know what would
be better as if we had more reviews on Apple podcasts.
So go leave us one and we'll get a tattoo of.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
What nun's watching them uppet.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Oh pert, Wow, that's an amazing tattoo. It's really a
vant guarde.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
It's like the mst thor k. You've got the seats
and then the nun silhouettes. Yeah, and then they're watching
the screen not unlike our logo, and then like exactly,
but but then you look up there and that that
like lobster Muppet is doing something, and then Kermit's there
and maybe Fozzy telling it like a hobo joke, because
I think that's what all his jokes are, because yeah

(54:03):
he has a bendal, he does have a bendle.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Yeah, he's all learn waldor for in the balcony, mocking
the whole thing. It sounds pretty good. Actually. You can
also check us out on YouTube. We're getting the back
catalog up there, thank you Van for bet. You can
go to patreon dot com so it's Booto Inc. We
have bonus episodes. They're free, but you can pay us
if you want. So those are some other ways to
interact with us. There's other ones too. Just look for

(54:27):
us if you think we might be there or we
might not be. But you know what, I don't want
to talk about that anymore. I'd rather talk about what
we'll be talking about next. And Spencer knows that I
don't know that, Van, do you know.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
I have no clue. Actually I can guess what is it.
It's the Waltons again.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Oh, I thought it was after Mash or Caroline in
the City.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
I do, in fact know what I will be covering next,
and in fact I attempted to hint at it in
the last episode. When you go back and you and
you edit this later, Van like you do, and Brian,
when you're listening to this another time, you'll be.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Like it was there.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
He knew what he was doing, and Cage's character from
National Treasure already figured it out.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
So King of the Hills a Mike Judge show. We're
gonna do Mike Judge, so partly it's not all Mike Judge.
You guys have any guests?

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Is this because of what we were talking about during
our last recording? Because is it Beavis and but I
was hoping it is not.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
It's more contemporary, and it's only he's only part of it.
He's not the entire It's probably Silicon Valley. Then, yes,
it is, which I have seen all of I didn't
know you had. I thought maybe it was going to
be something new for both of us.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
I have seen the final season. Is this a TJ.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Miller show?

Speaker 1 (55:33):
He's in it, but it's all the umil nan Gianni. Yeah, okay, I.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
I think I tried to watch an episode and it
didn't quite get there for me, so I gave up.
It's and this is now going on about ten years ago. Weirdly,
we haven't done that many that were kind of new
but not that new like this one. So I thought
we'd try this out.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
It's fun of tech bros. That's fun.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
It's another it's another comedy. So we'll do a little
more sitcom comedy, but something relatively contemporary. It started twenty fourteen,
I think, and went to twenty nineteen, so six seasons.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Little newer than Taxi, little newer.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
So this is partially inspired by co creator Mike Judges'
experience as a Silicon Valley engineer in the nineteen eighties.
This comedy series follows the misadventures of introverted computer programmer Richard,
whose last name is Hendrix. By the way, Dick Hendricks
sold the same way, not with an X but with
the CCS. Oh okay, and his brainy friends, so this
could be us, Like, I'm not an introverted programmer, but

(56:30):
me and my last name being Hendrix, and my brainy
friends could be us as they attempt to strike it rich,
and a high tech gold rush couldn't be us anymore?

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Can I be that like dry guy with the glasses?

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, the Martin Star You kind of look like him
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
I could go for that.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
I just went ahead and did the first two top
right episodes that I saw on IMDb. Turns out this
is the season finales of one and two, So that
way I don't have to we don't have to do
too many recaps of this happened beforehand. We're just going
to be end of season one, end of season two.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Also, I might be able to be useful in knowing
what happened throughout the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Are you suggesting normally are not useful?

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Yes, yes I am. You can be the cool mail
Nanjianni guy, because yeah, it's obvious. Well why oh yeah,
I was also in Star Wars Beta male you were, well, yeah,
and your your version of sure O podcast about it?

Speaker 3 (57:21):
All right, so it's season No, No, he was Luke
Skywalker Spencer. Did you not know this?

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Him and Mark Hamill did it together? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Now I believe everyone knows. I played Chancellor.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Valorum season one episode eight optimal tip to tip efficiency.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Is this a Penis thing?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Yes, I was gonna say, I'm sure there's a joke
in the meme. Then Pied Piper, which is the company
that Richard.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
No, that's Martin male R I p R I P Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, and to to a real one. So Richard's company
is a pipe piper. They're competing against Gavin Belson. I
guess at tech Crunch disrupt all of this is correct, Okay,
I mean it doesn't mean anything to me just yet.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Gavin's a pretty good tech pro name.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
And then the other one, season two, episode ten, two
Days of the Condor, which I love because, of course, have.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
You guys seen that movie, the original one? Yeah, three
and three days.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
My dad loves that movie.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
I watched Pike a year ago and it's really good,
really good.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Robert Redford works for the CIA, and some shit's going on.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
They spoof it in Seinfeld with a Newman thing where
he's like, listen to me a mailman. You know, maybe
even trust will come up to you. That's that movie. Yeah,
So the guys wait for a verdict on Pied Piper's
fate and unexpected drama draws a spike in traffic to
the live stream Erlick considers his future. Richard struggles to

(58:41):
save the future Pied Piper. All very dramatic, lots of steaks.
I don't know anything about the show at all, so
I will be having to research the whole thing, and
we'll be talking about the highly rated conclusions of season
one and two.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
So we're gonna be taking a trip west to Silicon
Valley in the coming week.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Things will fit in just fine. Uh.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
You know what we should take there?

Speaker 3 (59:00):
A taxi subway?

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Ye'd be pretty expensive.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Though, be a long drive.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yeah, I don't know, and imagine what Louie would try
and fucking charge us for that.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
Ship.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Okay, so if you guys we have to go on
a cross country cab drive capped with one of those
two who you taking it with? I'm going with Louie.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
He's so entertaining and mean, yeah, But Alex would be quiet.
It's sweet, yeah, and so I could listen to music
and not be poked.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Get to the word though. You'd want to banter at
some point, and Louis would be your guy for that.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
I'm going to answer correctly. I'm going to the gym,
and I'm getting some of those drugs