Episode 17 - Bobby's Big Break

Weird Big Way Media Nike. Mister Walters, you see that guy with it now, he's an actor at the phone name. I'm a cant driver and the only camp driver in his place. Hello and welcome tonight, mister Walters a taxi podcast. I am your co host HP and with me as always is my co host.

Follow him alone, follow him alone? How are you this evening? Let's get some meat behind the wheel. We're here to talk about Taxi episode seventeen. This week this is called Bobby's Big Break.

This one was written by Barry Kemp and it's directed, of course by James Burrows. A quick reminder, we are doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order filming. In this episode, we begin in the raj as Louie is giving out his cab assignments. Alex informs Louis that Bobby isn't in yet. He says that he has an important audition and Burns.

We haven't seen much of Burns the last couple episodes. Burns feigns enthusiasm by saying that's great, to which Alex, showing just how little he believes in Bobby, figures that his absence is an indication that he's depressed because he didn't get the part that he went out for. Alex is assuming that Bobby didn't get the part. Well, be fair. What's probably happened is Bobby has said I got a big audition tomorrow, and then he hasn't shown up for work, and then he comes in and he says, I'm sort of prosed I didn't get the job.

This is probably a pattern of behavior that riger has to deal with, like on a yearly basis, and so he's just like, oh, well, he just didn't get the part. He didn't show up again, so probably this isn't the first time that he's done this, so it would make sense. But then Bobby comes in and he's got the weirdest, spaced out, dazed smile on his face. It looks like he was just shocked by cupid. Zaro.

He had that kind of look on his face. That's great, you know he got the part. As soon as he turns the corner, it's that airy kind of like I cannot believe this is happening to me kind of a thing. Yeah, I like it. You're right, it's like he's been struck by cupid Zara.

He says, as you said he got the part. He has two appearances on a soap opera called for Better or for Worse. No, it's called for Better for Worse. I thought it was for Better or for because for Better for Worse was a comic strip. No, for Better or for Worse is a comic strip.

It still is. The soap opera on Taxi is called for Better for Worse. The lettering let me point out, for the font that they've used is basically the mister Rogers font, is it. I thought it was more like the I Love Lucy kind of script. Oh no, no, no, it's very It's not cursive in any way, and it has certain letters spiral out, you know, just like the R is too low.

And you check it out, you'll see what I'm saying. I love that we see the soap opera within the Taxi universe. Eventually we'll get to that. Oh another side note, Tony's at it again. He's opted to sit on the hood of the cab instead of a chair like a normal person.

He just maybe I hate Tony. Maybe I have to admit it to myself. You hate Tony man. I guess I do. Because there was a previous episode of the podcast where I had to protest because you said, well, it's obvious you hate Tony.

Everything he does is like, look at this tough guy bullshit. It's like, okay, clearly you do not like Tony vanta. You would not be hanging with Tony if you worked in that garage. It turns he seems to be a sweet guy whose heart is always in the right place. But I just these little peccadillos of his just drive me crazy, or they have been recently.

I like Tony, I like all of his macha. They're talking a little bit. Bobby is lamenting this isn't you know. He's happy that he has this part on the soap opera, but it's not really where he saw himself embarking on his ECX career. But he's excited.

He says it'll give him a chance to get some exposure and he'll continue to hone his craft. The whole prospect. You can just tell he's on cloud nine. This is the culmination of all of his work up to this point. And we're so happy for Bob, his viewers, because we can see how happy it makes him.

His first appearance on this soap opera is going to be this coming Friday. I think we're maybe this is a Wednesday, let's say. And then his second appearance is slated for the following Tuesday, and if things go well, Bobby reckons that he might get more appearances. Who knows. We know how soap operas work.

If if a character catches on, then they're going to write for that character. Alex suggests he'll be a full time character, which that's what he kind of shrugs, like, well, it could happen. He's pumping him up a little bit too, Alex's credit. He's finally giving him a little bit of credit, Like, hey, he says this weird thing and the line rating always makes me a little bit crazy. When I hear he goes you son of a good year, Yeah I have written.

I was like, what is he doing? Is that? Is he doing an impression that we're unaware of. It's almost like an Old West kind of Southern kind of Hey, you southered the gun. You did it?

I don't know, I have like a Walter Brennan or something, you know, like he's talking to John Wayne, Oh you said them a gun, you did it. They're overjoyed for Bobby. Everyone's overjoyed his character in this in this show for better for worse? His name Skip? Now, first of all, like, when's the last time you knew or met anyone who had the name Skip?

Is this just a name that we don't see? It's not doesn't happen anymore, We don't hear that name anymore. Geez. I'm actually trying to think now if I've ever met a Skip in my life. The only one I've ever heard of, I think is probably Skip Stephenson from Was he on Real People or Kids?

Or People Too? What was the show he was on? She was on one of those? I don't know. I remember Skip Stevenson certainly, why I don't know, because his name was Skipp and is Skip short for something?

Or is that just a nickname? What does Skip skipper? Anyway? I was struck by the fact that his character's name was Skip. You never hear the name Skip, at least anymore.

I've never I can say with all confidence, I've never in my life met a Skip. His character was involved with one of the mains, I think, the leading lady of the show. His character got anesia, but he's recovered Wheeler. This is another weird line reading he does this thing where he says, but he's RECOVID and he's coming back home, and he does this thing where he pumps both arms. Yeah, like he's fucking yeah, it's weird.

It's a weird thing because he's talking about amnesia and all this weird soap opera stuff. I get it, he's excited, but Bobby calm down. The arm pumping motion reminded me of Reese lightning. It's a stylized way to indicate that you're having sex. Right, Yeah, but maybe that's just muscle memory for Conway because it came very naturally to him.

Lock It comes over and congratulates Bobby by wishing him bad luck, and there's this back and forth about what bad luck versus good luck means. I'm not gonna I'm not going to be labor the point we come back from Marshall and we cut to a shot of or for Better for Worse being played on a TV in the garage, and all the cabbys are sitting around watching this episode. I think this is the Friday that he's going to make his first appearance. Bobby hasn't appeared yet, but he's due to make his appearance after the next commercial, and they're talking about it, and the show picks back up and the main leading lady confides her feelings for Skip to her friend. She has a friend in the room with her and they're having this conversation.

The woman who's having this conversation with the main leading lady is Michelle Conaway. She is actually Jeff Conaway's sister. I didn't even know that he had a sibling, so that's interesting. This was written about in the official fan guide. They talk about this.

Did not know that, as told in the fanguide, Michelle Conway had auditioned for the main part for his love interest. But as Conaway recounts, and this is direct quotes here, he said, ed Weinberger came by and he said, hey, Jeff, sister is real good and everything, but we can't have her kissing you on the show. I laughed. He was right. They offered her the other role instead.

This is lunacy, like, why would they ever entertain the notion that his sister would play his love interest in this fake soap opera. It's mystifying to me. I just wanted to get his sister a role in the show. He didn't care what it was actually another interesting tidbit, maybe especially interesting for you, Father Malone. I'm not sure I was interesting.

This is for the rest of the listeners. But the woman who plays the lead, this woman who is involved with the character of Skip is played by Amanda McBroom. Do you know who Amanda McBroom is. No, she was familiar to me. I didn't know what she was in.

She looked familiar and I looked her up. She's had a bunch of credits. I'm not going to go through them all. But what I knew her from and I was reminded of this is she was in an episode of season two of Star Trek the Next Generation. There was an episode you probably remember where there was a hearing to decide whether Data, that the android character was property because they wanted to deactivate him and dissect him and see what made him tick.

Amanda McBroom played the judge advocate general captain that presided over the hearing. So there's this hearing about whether is he sentient? Is he property? What happens, and of course it comes out in Data's favor, But she was like the woman that presided over this whole trial. That was interesting.

I the last person I expected. Do you remember that episode now? Oh, yeah, I remember it thoroughly. Of course, was a sort of villainous in that. Yeah, I had no idea that was her.

Good to see. I love when when actors get to continue to work and show us what they can do. By the way, the thing I was leading up to had nothing to do with Jeff Conaway or his sister. It's the wheelchair business. It's the sort of punching down jokiness where the joke is that it takes her extra time to swivel around in this conversation.

Now, that's how it comes off anyway. But then I was really kind of like watched it a few times, and I think, what the joke that they're going for here is that the ridiculous turns and pauses inherent and soap opera acting become even more so when you're forced to physically do something in order to get there. I think that's the joke, But it just kind of looks like they're making fun of the person in the wheelchair. At the end of the day, I think they're having some fun with the tropes of a soap opera. I didn't think it was punching down to make fun of a disabled person.

I thought it was just how ridiculous is this? And the character, the leading lady, is going on and on about like does she love Skip? Does she not love Skip? Does she da da da? So it goes on for a while, and I think that was the joke at least that's how I get know.

They keep turning away from each other and then turning back and turning away and turning back, and they always do that in soap operas, and what a ridiculous thing that they that they do that at all. The scene plays out on the soap opera and then Bobby, his character Skip, finally makes his appearance. He walks through the door with this sort of smoldering look on his face. He looks like Patrick Bateman's men. He does look kind of creepy as he walks in, because you don't know whether he's going to kiss or kill somebody.

Looks like an kind of a little bit oversized pinstripe suit and he's got the full blowout going with the hair. It just he comes off a bit menacing, honest, but he only has one one word. He just says hello, and then the show is over, and that's the end of the soap opera episode, the Cabby's all ask Bobby what's going on next, and Bobby says he won't know until they get back to it on Tuesday. Alex does his best to pump him up a little bit. He's really hyping the possibility that they might develop the character into a full season.

Like we said, he wants Bobby to have some confidence and hope that this will turn into something. But then Louie comes in to rain on Bobby's parade, and Louie says he doesn't think so, and he goes through all these reasons why the leading lady won't go for Skip, because there's all these other characters and things, and he basically betrays the fact. Louis betrays the fact that he watches this soap opera. That's the joke is that Louis, this sort of tough guy watches the soap opera. That's part of the episode.

Divido plays it as he always plays everything with really really well. My mother watches it, so only tell him I can get it and stop yappingmy He does this thing with his hand and it's really funny. We've all had this happen, right, where we all become a TV show fan by os moses because somebody we love watches a show that you ordinarily would never turn it on, You wouldn't even think to watch it, and then suddenly it's season four and you're conversant in all of the characters and plot lines. Right for me, I have to say, like my wife would watch Gray's Anatomy when it was first on. You can't help it.

You're in the room, your focus shifts, and the next thing you know, you know about all the characters and whatever it's. At least you admit to yourself that it's it's this crap TV. But whatever, you know, I'm watching it. So that's what Louis does here. He's basically protest, like his mother watches the show and he's got to watch it with her.

Just then at that point, just then a messenger comes in and delivers the next script. Now the thing is the delivery. The script is literally like four pages. I guess we're supposed to assume that they're only sending him the pages that he's directly involved in. Father alone.

You think that's what's happening, correct, Those are his sides. I figured that was the case. But it's like literally the four pages, and he furiously scans through the pages and Bobby again, he has this look in his face, he's dumbfounded. And he announces that she loves Skip, which is opening the door to more appearances. And now Bobby is overjoyed.

He says he's finally made it. He can call himself a real actor, and all this comes out. All these years of working and scraping and scratching his way have finally paid off. This is the son of a gun. You did it.

This is where that line comes from. You're right, this is where it happens, and it's just the weirdest line. Reading from Reager. Bobby starts to taunt Louie. Bobby says he tries to give Louie his hack license, says, you know, I don't need this anymore, but Louie says, you better hang on to it.

You're gonna need it for when you come crawling back to the garage. And then Bobby says the damning words, when I walk out those doors, I'm never coming back. Following is one of my favorite bits of taxi dialogue of all time, bar none, and I think we've made reference to this Louis says, they all come back. Only one guy made it out in the whole history of the garage, and who is that father Malone James Cohn, and the tag is and he'll be back. I love the fact, and we talked about this in previous episodes.

I love the fact that they picked James Khn of all people, like they could have at the time. Let's say, like Burt Reynolds was a much bigger star, and they could have used Burt Reynolds, but it would have seen so much more unbelievable than unrealistic. But James Conn. You could imagine James con is from New York, right, So yeah, there's that. But they could have said al Pacino, who was arguably a bigger star than James Conn at that point, but he never would have driven a camp James Kahn would have.

It's entirely believable. It's so well delivered, it's so funny. That has a funny little tag to the end of it, because even with all the success that James Conn has had, he says he'll be back. If this series does not end with James Cohn returning to work, then they'd done fucked up royally. That would be something, and we'll have to just keep everybody in suspense, but that would have been an incredible way to end the series.

Before we got there, yeah, before we got to the Louis and Conaway exchange. When Wheeler is reading the script. My favorite part of the entire episode, when I said this is the best thing, the best bit of business in the episode is Danny DeVito reading over Wheeler's shoulder and he's mouthing the words as Wheeler is saying them. Yeah, yeah, like he's reading the script. And then how excited he is when he runs off with the pages, like, yes, it's just my mo watches it.

Oh no, no, no, he's really a fan of the show. He has to know what's happening. And like you said, he takes the script as Bobby and Alex are talking, and now he's gone over to where the coffee machine is and he's reading through the script, scanning it to number one to confirm what this woman loving skip now, but you can tell that he just wants to know what's coming up in the next episode or two. So yeah, that's I love it. At this point, Louis, after he says this great thing about James Kahn.

Louis then further taunts Bobby by calling him a loser. He basically says, you're a loser. Then you're a loser. Now you're always going to be a loser. In response, Bobby takes his hack license and tears it up into little bitty pieces, and Louis warns Bobby again, you'll be back, and he'll be waiting by Hill.

I mean Louis. Louis is just licking his chops because he knows that he'll be back. And I just say what I my notes here, which is Wheeler, what are you doing? You've got a script confirming one more appearance potentially, do not tear up your license. It's hard to see that and not know exactly where this episode is gonna go.

We know that this isn't gonna turn out well. This taxi, he's not gonna get the brass ring at this point in season one, it's not gonna happen. We cut away to another wonderful snowy b roll again. It's always winter in New York in this universe. Not only is it a b roll of winter, it's a crazy fucking process.

A shot of snow that's just layered on. It's another one of the we saw this with rain in an earlier episode, where where the rain like that, it's a tracking shot, but the rain remains in it stasis, so like here zooming in on Bobby's apartment, but the snow moves all weirdly around anyway, there's a lot of snow problems here. Throughout the ensuing scene, we're inside Bobby's awesome basement apartment and you see out the window. There's a little slender window right near the door, and there's somebody just throwing fake snow across the window. Through the whole scene, it's like he never ever stops.

I don't know if you noticed this, well, no, What I drew from that is that obviously Wheeler's pad is smack dab in the middle of some meteorological oddity. Because you can stand on one of the stairs that lead down to his apartment and it's just a pleasant wintery evening, but one step down blizzard. It's crazy. It's not like some machine just dribbling the snow, because it's not coming down in any consistent fashion. It's like dribble dribble drap, dribble, dribble drap.

It's just somebody absently throwing fake snow kernels past the window. Bobby is soulfully picking on the old acoustic guitar. I think we've seen the guitar on the wall in prior episodes, but now he's actually got the thing down. He's plucking away at this thing. I didn't notice that as much as I could notice.

The TV that he's sitting in front of is the dirtiest, grimiest TV therever was. The always see is the back of the TV, but it looks like it's been severely burned and charred. And just did you notice that as well? It looks like somebody spilled water onto the tube at one point and there was a flash and it charred the back and then they turned the tube off quickly enough that they were able to recover it, and then they left it in the trash. And then one day Bobby Wheelly was walking home and went, hey, TV, it looked like a TV in some prison or something.

It's just so grimy. It's a white TV but streaked with blackness. It's awful. And the rest of the cabbes come in. They haven't seen him in the garage for a couple of weeks and he hasn't returned their phone calls.

So they're all concerned and they're wondering, like, well, you know, what's going on with Bobby, And Alex even throws in this notion that maybe Bobby has moved on from his loser cab friends, like he's now he's a rarefied atmosphere of acting or what have you. Yeah, he says it really aggressively too, because he's like, you know, maybe we'll come back later, maybe we won't come back at all. Very passive aggressive. But then Bobby says he hasn't been returning their calls because he's been depressed, but he won't tell them. He just doesn't come out and say why he's depressed.

Alex pressing him on it, and then Bobby in response, Bobby just turns on the TV and we cut back to For Better for Worse, the soap opera within the show, and there's been an accident with Skip. They show him in the hospital. He's on a gurney, he's got this ridiculous set of bandages and circling his head. It looks just it's silly, very soap opera. Sure, it's very soap opera.

And the leading Lady is there with his last remaining bit of strength. He's expressing to her how much he loves her, and just as he does that, he dies right there on the gurney, which makes the There's been this running joke that the leading lady cries when she's happy. She cries when she's said. She cries when she doesn't know if she's happy or sad, so she starts crying. He turns off the TV, and now we know he's off the show.

They killed them. Hold on, I just want you to know HB and our listeners if they're wondering that a technologist, they maintain and troubleshoot sophisticated laboratory equipment and then they analyze test results and discuss them with the medical staff. I bring that up because, for some reason, framed in the shot during the entire soap oper sequence is a plaque behind them that reads Patricia McCauley technologist one O two. It's that big that you could read it in this little TV. Oh my god, it's the only thing I could focus on the entire scene.

Technologists like, Wow, what's the technologist? What do they do? The cat's out of the bag. We know that he's off the show, and the Cabby's all try to console Bobby, but he doesn't want it for obvious reasons. He doesn't want to go back to the garage.

He just doesn't think he can do it because of Louie. He's made such a show of telling Louie he'll never be back, ripping up his hack license and everything. Alex tries to buck Bobby up a little bit, and Bobby basically says, well, you know what, maybe I'll go in. I'll get it over with and I'll move on a couple of things. I want to mention about this scene.

Notice Elene Nardo in Brown's and Burgundy's here earlier. She's in a bit of yellow top form. Good work. They redeemed themselves from the robe incident from Lame Duck. Yeah.

Now, okay, so that's one thing. Another thing is are there no other cab companies in New York City? Come on, Bobby, I mean if you don't, oh wait, you don't have a hack license, dummy? Good, you're getting what you deserve. Okay, there's that, and then there's this HP.

Yeah, okay, Bobby has been gone for a couple of weeks. Right, they make that clear, we haven't seen you in a few weeks, which means he's been consistently working on the show. That show is either taped a day of or two days prior. Right, I think it's a day up, so he's watching the episode that they taped earlier that day. So he's been working on this show consistently for two weeks.

Maybe not every day, but let's say three times a week past two weeks. Right, how much do you think he earns a week as a cab He was brought into the show on a temporary basis. I'm sure they made it clear room, but you would have to assume he's making a lot more money at this job than he ever did driving a cab. I think that's the point I could not find. I could find this SAG minimum scale for nineteen seventy nine for what you would get, but soap operas have their own contracts, so that I was not able to discern.

But basically, Bobby was getting about two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars per episode over two to three weeks, basically. And now I know it's sad that he's no longer on the show, but he doesn't have to go back to the cab company so quickly. Maybe he can use some of that money to spend time on auditioning everywhere, Maybe fly out to Los Angeles and see if he can't get a gig there. The best point of all is, why did he have to go back to Sunshine Cab when he is so afraid of what Louie is going to do to him when he walks in. It just seems crazy to me.

There must be at least three or four tab companies in the area. I guess he just wants to be there because his friends are there and whatever. There's this weird hold that Sunshine Cab has over their lives, which is a little unsettling. So then we cut to the garage the next day. This is a great back and forth between Alex and Louis.

I think for me, this is my favorite part of the whole episode. What we're we're about to talk about. So Alex takes Louis aside and explains Bobby's situation that he got fired from the show and he's going to be coming in and he feels awful. Can he please just be a human about this, not give him a hard time, and Louie already knows because he's a big fan of the show, and he knows that Skip has been killed, and he's already licking his chops, and Alex tries to explain Bobby's He's trying to reason with Louis. He explains Bobby's side of it, how painful losing your dream would be.

But all of this talk just makes Louie more gleeful about the prospect of Bobby coming in and just tearing into him for how overconfident he was when he left. Alex just keeps asking Louis, just don't make Bobby feel any worse than he already does. This guy's already had a tough time of it. Just leave him be, let him move on, and he just Alex over and over is trying to appeal to Louie's human side to leave Bobby alone, but Louie's having none of it, and he is so over the top happy and gleeful about his cruelty that it sets Rigor off. Finally, something snaps and he says to Louie that look, you've gone too far, and he proceeds to go ape shit on Louie.

He wants to give Louis a lesson in humiliation. So for starters, he cuts Louie's tie in half with a pair of shears or scissors, and then he dumps motor oil down his pants right there in front of everybody, all of a sudden, like Louie is like, you're crazy, and he run. He scurries off to his cage, and now Riger is in full pursuit of Louie. Louie gets into the cage, locks the door, and of course we know the cage is Louie's safe haven. So now he starts to taunt Riager and he's just saying like he's a loser.

He's doing this little dance where he's talking about how much of a loser Bobby is. And then that makes Riger even crazier, and he pulls the grate off of the front of the cage, which Louis was not expecting, and he pulls Louis out bodily from the cage. To me, it felt real right. He's pushed Rigor past the breaking point through his gleeful cruelty of what he wants to do to Bobby. It was so amazing to watch.

We've had hints of this rage in Rieger before. I'm not being funny. We've seen him sort of boiling in certain points, and what this episode taught me is, I would never want to fuck with jud Hurst. Jesus christ Man. He seems the perfect person to who have ripped Andy Kaufman as Tony Clifton off of the set.

I would not want to mess with him. I believed his rage, his sort of red eyed rage at Louie and how Louis just wouldn't stop. He just wouldn't stop. And I know it's just a prop thing when the grating on the cage coming off, but if it were actually bolted on there, I'm positive jud Hurst could have gotten it off. Nothing was going to stop him from getting the Louis.

Now Alex has Louis by the shirt, like by the front of his shirt. It looks like it's really going to become physical. He's going to hit him. Alex warns Louis one more time, leave Bobby alone, and Louie asks him, well, is this a threat? He's like, not that it won't work, but is he threatening me?

And then at that point, Alex comes to his senses, like you see all of a sudden, it's almost like, he shakes his head, like, what am I doing here? How did I get to this point? I have Louis physically, I'm holding him. I'm ready to hit this guy. So he walks himself off the cliff right, he backs off a little bit, and Louis presses.

Alex says, well, why shouldn't I give Wheeler a hard time? Alex says this line, He says, because you shouldn't, And I swear there's almost a cry, like a tear in Hersh's voice when he says it. He's so saddened by what Wheeler has gone through and what he's going to have to go through coming into the garage. It upsets him so much that he just he can't even really bear to talk about it, like you did you find that as well? Did you notice that?

Oh? Absolutely, it's great. It's a fucking phenomenal emotional payoff for the scene. And that's because Herst delivers it that way. The notion of why you shouldn't do something because you shouldn't is a powerful one because jud Hurst makes it powerful.

But then to turn it around, then all of a sudden, Louis is emboldened again somehow, and he starts going around and going, oh, because I shouldn't, I shouldn't, I shouldn't, And he's openly mocking Reager now, and Riager is just I think, because of the implied violence of the moment. Rieger just sits back down at the poker table and he can't even really bear to look at Louis at this point, and Louis is just being so awful, just running around saying I shouldn't. He's laughing like, that's such a to Louis, that's such a ridiculous reason why he should let Wheeler be off the hook on this thing. Right. Then Wheeler finally arrives and you can see it on his face.

He's not looking forward to this. He's ready for what Louie is gonna unleash on him. And Louis still can't contain this. It's almost like a fury. It's taken over his body.

He's ready to unload on Wheeler. But to everyone's shock, including my own, all of a sudden, Louis just goes up and says, nice having you back, Bobby, and then almost like he almost inuardly cringes it himself, like, how could I miss that opportunity to be cruel, what's wrong with me? Almost like he didn't expect to be sort of tender in that moment. It's a phenomenal moment. It's a phenomenal performance from Danny DeVito.

So that moment after Rieger employs him that he shouldn't because he shouldn't, when he's revving himself up, as it turns out, he's talking himself out of it. He's repeating the phrase over and over again, and it's sinking in, whether he likes it or not, to the point where he subconsciously or unconsciously just does the right thing. And that's the moment of shock, The oh my god, I can't believe I just did that, almost like the humanity just can't help but come out, because he's finally, after wrangling with Riager over this whole thing and things almost becoming so heated that he got you know, it explodes into physical violence. Almost you're right, He finally, you know, through this sort of foremance that he puts on of why shouldn't I I shouldn't, I shouldn't I shouldn't he I think you're right.

I think he talks himself out of it and realizes why it's not the right thing to do. Now, we cut to the bumper of the episode, and I already alluded to this, where Wheeler is talking with Louie in the cage and he's thanking Louie that for not laying anyone for being nice to him when he came back, and Bobby says, I thought you'd be mean, and then we get to see Bobby break out his vintage Louie impression from the high school reunion episode a few episodes ago, and he gives Louis his impression of what he thought Louis would say to him, and then Louis says, oh, you know, Bobby, I wouldn't have said any of those things, and then he proceeds to throw all of the insults that you know that he wanted to say, including he breaks out the microphone like he takes his little microphone down and announces it's awesome, and he what he basically does is humiliate Bobby in the way that he originally wanted to, but under the guise of here's hypothetically how I would have insulted you, but I would never do that to you, Bobby, And I think his final line is but I'm just too nice of a guy to do that.

And then that's the end of the episode and we fade the black wheeler coming back to have to work at the cab company has to be terrifically bad, considering that he's already getting all the worst fares and all the worst cabs, the ones where the heaters don't work, the ones where the air conditioning doesn't work, and the windows wanna rolled down. Remember from like three episodes ago, that was Louis sees the light because that Louis vowed because of Bobby's casual cruelty, that he was going to be the second most loathsome cab driver in the garage. But, as we always do, we're going to talk yellow lights. What does a yellow light mean? Just to remind everybody, this is a scale of one to five yellow lights, No half yellow lights allowed.

One yellow light is this is the worst episode of taxi I've ever seen. Five yellow lights is? This is an example of perfection in a taxi episode. And I'm going to start with you follow them alone? What are you going to give Bobby's big break?

How many yellow lights out of five? This is a solid three? Yeah, you think it's three what initially I thought it was two, But during the course of our discussion here, particularly with the third act, I think the first two acts are good, and then it's just what was a Bobby Wheeler episode actually turns out to be a Alex Riager episode, and it's really about him and his dealings with Wheeler, and his protection of him at the at his fallback job and the protection of his dreams. Listen, I knew we were in trouble when Wheeler literally says I'm gonna make it out of the garage halfway through this episod Oh no, what don't don't be the aspirational episode? Those are always and poorly and I don't mean poorly, and that the character goes back to square one.

It's just like they're always kind of rote and boring. But this avoids all that. It's an aspirational episode where the third act is great. So three yellow lights. I'm going to give this episode four yellow lights near perfection.

Is that what you're saying? This is a This is an spitting distance of an unassailable episode of Taxi in your mind, it is. And I'll explain myself here because I know that's what you're going to say next, it's yes. This is another in a series of Bobby's acting Travail's I know on a personal level, followed alone. You hate the aspirational episodes.

I know this, but I don't think it's overdone. In this case. Conaway does a great job as Bobby, both Bobby and the deliberately stiff and overacting Skip. But for me, if that was it, if it was just you know, dealing with Bobby and his disappointment, I probably would have given it two to three yellow lights. But for me, it's there's two things that raise it up a full yellow light.

For me, it's a combination of both Hirsh and DeVito that take the cake in this episode. First of all, DeVito gets to deliver his quintessential James Kahn speech that to me is a classic bit of taxi right there. The second thing, the second reason why I give this four yellow lights is Louis fight with Alex to me, is truly a classic Hirsh. As we've already talked about. He is awesome in this scene.

The way he goes from calm reason to desperate pleading, from rage to empathy, it's a marvel And you not for one minute. Do you not believe hersh as Alex doing what he does, trying to advocate for Bobby and de Vido just matching him beat for beat, and you think it's gonna go one way, and it doesn't, and it goes a slightly different way. I look the episode. I would have loved to have seen more action, because it's not the most dynamic of episodes, right it's it most A lot of what happens takes place off screen. If we're being honest, and if I'm really being honest looking ahead, you cannot have a perfect Taxi episode without one missing ingredient.

I think you and I both know that ingredient is it's Reverend Jim. You cannot have a perfect episode without Reverend Jim. Not to say this would have been perfect with him, but I think this is a better than average episode of Taxi point of order. What if Reverend Jim was in the scene instead of say, Randall Carver's aggressive dopiness was beyond I don't know yet. It wouldn't have just been a matter of him stealing a bit of thunder in a way that Burns wouldn't have.

They would have come up with some funny stuff for Reverend Jim to do some confusion around what a soap opera is. Maybe he's a fan, maybe there's there would it would have lifted the episode up even more right, because, let's face it, Burns doesn't bring things to the table. He actively takes things off of the table of the episode. So there's no way that this could have been a perfect Taxi episode. But on the basis of those two aspects that I just talked about, three is a solid average episode.

But I think this is slightly above average, and that's why I give it four yellow lights. Well, I agree with everything you said, but you are correct. I have a natural distaste for aspirational episode, so it automatically goes to two yellow lights. But everything else is so good in the episode that does bump it up a full yellow light two. Three.

We're not worlds apart. This isn't like Angela, right, This is like blind date, where all of a sudden, it's like we're questioning what's happening here? So but no, But overall, I think we can agree this is a very very solid episode of Taxi, one that I would not hesitate to revisit. I think it's there's some wonderful acting, some great character bits and yeah, so that's so we're talking three and four yellow lights. So that will do it for this episode of Night Mister Walters Father Alone.

When you're not clocked into the garage. Where can folks find you? You can find me at Father Malone dot com or you can find me at Weird and Waymedia dot com. All of my podcast associations occur, including Midnight Viewing, where we are currently reviewing Night Gallery, The Ron Serling Fall Up to the Twilight Zone. You can hear me over on Noise Junkies, a music podcast with HP and Mondo, Heather's Heather Drain.

We all do together those check out our Bowie episode. It's really fucking good. It was great, a lot of fun to record. H Yeah, and I would also advocate for checking out Dark Destinations, Father Malone's audio drama podcast. If you like good storytelling, you can do no better than Oh come on now.

And as for myself, as Father Malone said, you can hear me on Noise Junkies as well. I've done a little bit here and there on the Culture Cast with the Christashube, and I have a band camp site called hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Not much up there yet but hopefully some stuff coming pretty soon, but feel free to check that out and see what you think. So that's going to do it for myself and for fathering alone. Thank you again for listening and we will see you guys next time.

Thank mister Walliers.