Episode 18 - Mama Gravas

Weird being way media Nike. Mister Walters can see that guy with it now he's an actor at the phone driver and the only camp driver in his place. Hello and welcome tonight, mister Walters a taxi podcast. I am HP and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone, fatherm Alone. How are you this evening?

I'm Cookie Puts for Nick Nick. This week we are diving into Taxi episode eighteen, Mama Gravis. This was written by the Charles Brothers, Glenn and Less, and of course it was directed by James Burrows. Quick reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. With this episode, we open with another glorious We've made no bones about the fact that we're in love with the b roll on this show, Father Alone, and this one is another wonderful slice of New York circa nineteen seventy nine, but this time it's outside the garage and wonder of wonders, it's a beautiful sunshiny day.

I mean some of the windows in the garage are even opened. And just last episode there was like snow everywhere. Remember dribble driple drap. It was what the hell's going on with New York. It's crazy.

Well, I'll tell you. In some of those Deep in the Heart of Winter episodes, the b roll was very sunny days. So let's just say that they're inconsistent and just admire what they've captured. I just think it's always feast or famine with the weather on this show. It's either a blizzard and there's snow drifts that look like they're seven feet high, or it's just gorgeous, blue, crisp, clear weather.

I don't understand, but we're going. You know, that's New York. They say, you know you don't like the weather. You just wait at We're in the garage now and Loaca comes strolling by. He has a sweet brownish suit with twelve inch lapels.

They must at least be twelve inches wide. Tope, it was toe Tope. Okay, maybe peach. I don't know what you're describing, sir. And the stitching, oh my god, what's such beautiful stitching.

The stitching was on point. Maybe I need my eyes checked, but it looks brownish to me. But it's Loaca is in his formal wear. What passed for formal wear in nineteen seventy nine. It's the height of fashion.

So Resident Simpleton Tony asks Loco why he's so dressed up? That was for your benefit bottom alone. Laca replies that his mother is visiting from quote the old country. Again, we never learned the name of the country. We never learn what to call their language.

It's just the old country. Loca's mother is coming right to the garage. She's coming directly from the airport, so Loaca can take her out for lunch. And Laca ads that Louis gave him the rest of the day off so that he could show his mother around the city, which is very nice. And of course, just then Louis stomps over to inform Loca that three cabs came in just now that need repairs.

Now, this is my first side note of the episode, Father Malona, Is Laca really the only mechanic and the entire garage is the safety and health of the entire Sunshine Cab Company fleet in Laca's soul hands. I don't understand. Do they not have any other mechanics. They do have other mechanics, because we see them from time to time in the background aiding Loka. There's the one in particular that rather rotund gentleman who is constantly polishing and screwing things back there on the tool chest.

No, there are other helpers. It's just that nobody can work the magic of Loca on these cans. It just seems like they need more mechanics to work. Oh yeah, I guess, clearly. But then again, I think it seems like Sunshine Cab is always riding the razor's edge of financial ruin, so maybe that's appropriate that they can only afford one mechanic.

Louis admits to Laka that he broke his promise to let Laca have the day off, and Loka calls him a nasty man, which I think is a great insult back to Louis, and Louis replies that he's not nasty. Some guys wouldn't have given him the day off in the first place. Alex being Alex, asks we vest what's going on here? It's got the sort of for the back to the future sort of look. It's not a red vest, but it's got the puffy vest.

It's sporty, Alex. That's the look here, Alex. Okay, sure, so sporty Alex comes over and asks Laka to help. It's good. I like Gartec's Alex better, So gore TECs Alex askta what you can do with Alex.

Laca asks Alex to take his mother to Marios to have breakfast. Here's another side note, What the fuck is Marios seriously the only restaurant in all of New York City? Why the hell do they insist on going there for breakfast? Hey, man, if you had entree to a magical restaurant that appeared and reappeared in various locations around Manhattan, I think you'd go there exclusively. They never ever talk about any other restaurants or go anywhere else.

You got to figure Marios is like literally around the corner. It's just the easiest place to go. So if you're going to send your friend with your newly arrived mother to go eat, you want the chance to pomp in and say hi. So go to Marios. Don't take her to fucking Coney Island.

No, I'm not asking them to drive halfway around across the city to take her out for breakfast, but surely, and we've heard them complain about the Mario's food in the past. I just well, anyway, I found it interesting. Those Nathan's dogs are good though. No. Look, who wouldn't love a trip to Cony right?

Oh my god, man, Nathan's Jesus, it'd be great. Never had one of those grays Papaya, No, but I'm familiar. I hear they're fantastic. Good God, they're delicious. Anyway, after Laka asks Alex to take his mother out, he protests, Alex says he's coming off of a fourteen hour shift, and Alex starts to ask Tony if he could be the one to help, but then just then Laka's mother comes in.

Okay, I have to stop here. Yeah, okay, because before we get to the haha joke of Alex Rieger, he says, listen, I'm on a fourteen hour shift. I'm exhausted. There's no way I can do this. Hey, it's Tony's day off.

What the fuck is Tony doing at the garage? Man? Like he's giving Laca ship at the beginning, and he's just hanging about. What's Tony Banta doing? Doesn't he have gold fist?

Oh no, he doesn't. No, but you would figure that maybe he could go to the gym and work out or train. Far as I know, he's still boxing. It is a little odd, and it makes me feel bad for Banta in a funny way, like I'm having fun with him and calling him a simpleton because he is. But at the same time, it is a little sad that on his day off he has nothing better to do than hang about the garage and watch people come and go.

When Laca's mother comes in Alex's spell, you know he's dumb struck. He's all of a sudden captivated by her beauty. She's tall, she's not at all what you would expect Loka's mother to look like. She's pretty, she's tall, she's she's buxom. She's appealing to Alex, she's appealing to everybody.

Everybody's hungs are a wagon Overan's mom. Alex is so struck by her beauty that he forgets what he was going to ask Tony in the first place, because all of a sudden, all eyes are on Locha's mother. Mamma, Pope, what was I saying? Nothing? Get out of here, kid, I got to go talk to this pretty lady.

Susan Kellerman is who we're talking about. By the way, this is the name of the actress playing Greta Gravis, who I guarantee everyone within the sound of my voice knows her without knowing her because she's in Beetlejuice during the big Banana Boat song, Hey Banana boat song. Yeah, she's the one with the gold lamet butt that gets that she shakes in the camera. That's Susan Kellerman. Some eight eight years later, she also had a bit of a reunion with Judd Hirsh.

She evidently appeared on an episode of Hersh's nineteen eighty nine sitcom Dear John. So, I'll maybe you have to check that out. God, we got to check that one out. Another side note, you were talking about Tony. I should have brought that up then.

So Alex is starting to ask Tony if he can take out Mamma Gravis before Alex has seen her. When Tony is waiting for Alex's reply, because Alex is suddenly dumbstruck with her beauty, did you notice Tony's odd behavior when he's waiting for Alex to reply. He's rocking from side to side. He looks sort of fidgety. It's very distracting.

It's it almost the effect is almost either he is a child who has to go to the bathroom very badly, or probably more likely, he's probably still speeding from all the infetiites that he's been got. Maybe that's, you know, that's why he's around the garage. You're really going after Bantam Now, I love it, seriously, h had I think there's possibly a third option. Maybe he wanted to fight Alex. He's spoiling for a fight, so he's like right, and maybe he's had some situa.

Oh wait, there there's a fourth Okay. But the third option is that Tony is used to being sucker punched, where somebody comes up to him and says something and then turns away like nevermind, and then they punch him. So he's wary that Alex, even if it's subconsciously, he's ready for the fisticuffs. The fourth and most likely of scenarios non flashback. Well, all of those are very likely.

And we've already talked about how animalistic Tony is. I mean, you made this point that he's so you know, he'll kill you with one punch. He could probably, Yeah, he could, I mean definitely. I don't think there's any question about that. You know, So the ever present threat of physical violence and explosion of physical violence.

Maybe that's why he's spoiling for I like that option. I like the fact that he's spoiling for a fight. I'm going to go with that. Okay, So we cut away from the garage. We cut to another b roll of the mysterious Marios.

It's green awning Marios. We've seen this a few times now, so this is one of three of the secret locations. Still a nice day. And there's that green awning that you spoke of, and all I could read on it the awning said it's funny because it's colored green, but it actually had the word green printed on it. So tavern on the green.

I don't know what green room, the green room, green Street, something famous New York location that we're not privy to. People are like going screaming at us right now. It could it probably is. And then if you happen to know what this place actually is, feel free to send us an email. We'd love to hear about it.

We fade in to the inside of Marios, the familiar inside of Marios, and as Tommy comes over to Alex and Mamma Gravis's table to take their order. I'm sure you noticed this father belone, we see another delightful breakfast buffet, the buffet man. It has rolls, slice bread, some danish, three kinds of plates, three kinds of mugs. Did you notice the napkin dispenser? Did you notice all of the napkin dispensers yellow napkins.

I didn't notice the napkins so much, but I did notice, like you said, there's a wonderful spread there of danish and donuts. There's something that appears to be a big Boston cream pie for some strange reason, there's a rag waiting for someone to dig into it, and there's a big, friendly looking pot of coffee just waiting. It looks so I guess my previous criticism of Marios and the idea of going there for breakfast, maybe I'm just full of it. It looks actually delightful to me. It looks like a big table of death to me.

But that's true. That's true. Not for someone who has a gluten sensitivity. It's no bueno. I'll take that coffee.

It looked fantastic, So I take back what I said about Marios. As a dive, Alex and Mamma grab Us start making small talk. Maybe flirting a little bit. Perhaps. She says she wants to see the city, and Alex asks her, what do you want to see?

And she says cheerfully, and this is such a sign of the times. Remember what she said, father Malone. There's three things she wants to see, blackout, garbage strike, and urban blight. Which if those three things don't describe New York in nineteen seventy nine, I don't know what will. Alex compliments Mamma Gravis on her English, which also begs the question why is her English so much better than Lakas when Laka has been in the country for a while and she just came in.

She's smarter than Loaka, literally, I think she is. She has a lot more going on. So Alex gets real for a minute and says, and again there's this flirtation going on, which I'm sure you're not. We're not going to discuss the most disgusting looking hamburgers in the world that arrived as their fucking meals. Whimpy from Popeye would not eat that burger.

My problem with it, and I agree disgusting there they look plain, there's no condiments on them. The bread is all floppy and gross looking for bread. It's like a biscuit sized thing that looks like as dry as the go be be desert. It looks awful. Well, would they get hamburgers for breakfast in the first place when they have all of that great breakfast finery just waiting to be tucked into.

You know, it doesn't one of those stale danish I bet that's delicious. Burgers do look pretty sad bad. It seems insulting. Actually, Alex says to her, he wasn't expecting someone so young, and she tells Alex that she married Locka's father at fifteen and he died in the struggle for liberty and freedom two years later. Alex, knowing what he knows about Lacha's country, assumes that he was a freedom fighter that was shot by police, to which Mamma Gravis corrects him.

It says, no, he was a policeman shot by freedom fighters. Right, it's a vaudeville right there. Yeah, who's on first? I don't know. The Charles brothers do have a nasty tendency to go jokey, to go one linery, you know, set up punchline, set up punchline.

But the thing is like ninety five percent of the time the jokes are so fucking good that you go with it. But on occasion, I'm like, come on, guys. At this point, what they're doing is so ingrained in the fabric of sitcom writing that I don't even get phased by it anymore. I agree, it is a little bit sort of nudge nudge, wink wink silly, but it didn't take me out of the episode. But you're right, it is a little bit old fashioned and hacky.

I guess if you want to go a little hackey, that's what I'm getting. When she bites into the hamburger, she like crosses her eyes like doing like sexy eyes and stuff like talk about vaudeville, like it's not just the writing here, Like everyone committed to this over arch performance at this point, and it's a little disconcerting from my part. Alex is really starting to flirt with her. He expresses this his disbelief that she never remarried because she is quote and this isn't the last time we're going to hear this. She's described as quote a very attractive woman.

I think about eight million people say that about Mamma Gravis in this episode. It's an attractive lady. What are you gonna do? She's flirting right back, and things are getting downright creepy in my opinion. She tells Alex her name, as you said, is Greta.

She says, I'm Greta. He said I'm Alex, and she says, like Alexander, and he says yeah, and she this sends her into a laughing fit, and she tells Alex that in her country, do you remember what she says, Alex? She says, Alexander means something, means one who makes nick nick during harvest. And let me say, let's let's now officially add nick nick to Vodeo dough and off, putting the syllabric replacements for sex, just say sex, stop it, nick nick. They start lustily attacking their burgers face to face, you know, letting out all their sexual aggression on the sad looking hamburgers, the little dry condimentalists burgers that like sub high school cafeteria level burger.

They did actually look like they came right out of a high school cafeteria. You are one right on that. Laca comes in. He gives Alex tickets to the Roquettes to take his mother because he can't. Now he's gonna he's gonna work and he can't take his mother out.

And so forth, Laka and his mother are He's getting caught up on all the family events from home, and they're talking only in Laca's language, and as they're like, he'll bring up a person, and Mama Gravis will pantomime something gruesome, like at one point she puts her head hand to her head like she's getting she's shooting herself in the head. And each story seems more grim and awful. I do like her performance of somebody who had a bunch of operations where they were removing things from the body. She really sells each of the things. You know, what's happening to all of Laka's acquaintances.

It's actually really funny because she's not only is she keeping up with Andy Kaufman's foreign man speak, but she's, like you said, she's really funny pantomiming all of these awful things happening to all of these imaginary characters. And at the end of it all, Laka turns and says to Alex, it's always nice to get the news from home. We cut back to the garage there's this interminable sort of who's on first act between Burns and Tony because Tony goes to get an apple out of the vending machine. Now, this is a time where you could get fruit out of vending machines, I guess, And he gets an apple out of the vending machine and it's machine. Me know, really no, I've gotten apples out of vending machines before, but bananas, What are you going to the automat in the New York City.

I did go to the automat in New York City, but that's not where I got it. I got an in vending machine at like places in Boston. Tony gets into this conversation with Burns about woy the apples always rotten, and Burns tries to explain, well, the guy brings the new apples, but the new apples become the old apples, and it's it goes on far too long. This was the probably the one thing that took me out of the episode, but fortunately we get passed it relatively quickly. I liked it, actually, you like the apple the whole I like the whole apple scene, the vending machine apple bit.

I definitely enjoyed the pairing of Banta and Burns. They should have put those two together because they're both dummy. Yes, it was like proto Bill and Ted that's why we like them. They're just morons, you know, they're lovable morons. I think that's a fair point.

How are we going to get the new apples? John, We can't. It's good the way you tell it. It's funny. But for me, they had nothing to do with anything.

It wasn't a b plot, it was nothing. It was just you have to put aside your deep hatred of Tony Banto just for a second. Give him some props. He's funny in that scene. Maybe it was Burns that turned me against the scene.

I don't know, but I do like your reasoning that it's proto Bill and Ted Lee these two idiots trying to solve a problem. There's no problem there, guys. The fucking the apples are going to be rotten until they're not rotten. Banta has a good idea, even which is by all the old apples that burn through it to get to the good apples, and then you've got a chance of getting good apples. I want to know more.

They should revisit this in future episodes. Well only got three more episodes. Oh jeez, I'm really pulling for an apple subplot. So that's this happens. And then Alex walks in Bobby, who we've heard nothing about in the whole episode pretty much.

He pipes in and asks how his date with Mamma Gravis went went. And Alex he seems very evasive and almost defensive about it. And obviously we viewers are privy to what the cabbys were not, which is that there was all this sexual tension between Mamma Gravis and Alex and Mario's Alex resists the characterization of it as a date. Burns just out of nowhere, pipes in, she sure is attractive. Maybe he's trying to stir something up.

Of course he is, we know Burns, Yeah, he can smell the evasiveness and the discomfort in Alex's reply. And again, like I said, everybody describes her as attractive. It's like using nick, nick or some other word for you know, sex. It's like you can't just say she's beautiful, she's hot, she's smoking. No, you gotta say she's attractive, she's a handsome woman.

I mean, it's it's very old fashioned for a dummy, a supposed dummy. I think Burns caught onto Alex's before anyone else did, just because you can tell. Here's the thing, like for the show proper, Burns is a dummy, and that's what's funny about him. But what we know is he's like a Jim Thompson character. He's been pretending to be a dummy this whole time, and he's fully aware of everything going on, and here's his opportunity to stir the pop with rigor and in Locka, My god, he knows Rieger had sex with Lacha's mom.

We all do. Oh, he's preparing to feed off of all of the hatred and the any ganger and the ill will that's bound to happen once Locka finds out about this. But at this point, then the rest of the cabb's all start chiming in about how attractive Mamma Gravis is. Elaine makes finally her first and only appearance in this whole episode, but she is. I think you've made the point that Ralph what's his name the costumes, Yeah, he put her in yellow this time, and I think you've made that very point previously.

Yeah, no, if you have a between yellow and orange's yellow and it works, right. Yeah, she look gorgeous. There's a term used to describe black This's mom. At one point, somebody says she's shockingly friendly visually. Elaine Nardo is shockingly friendly visually during this scene.

And that's all I'll say. I've been a pig before, but it was it could in the studio there and now you know what I'm talking about. I think Morelane would have actually livened up the plot a little bit. But I always want to see more of Elaine. That is like a child's brothers joke right there.

You want to see more. I'd love to see more of a Lain anyway. I think she brings her booking envelope bin and Alex asks if she can talk to him for a moment after dancing around a sort of hypothetical situation that Alex puts forth like we'll say, this guy does this, which never works in real life, but so she figures it out. She knows what he's driving at. Alex admits that Julaine that he got into meate with Locke his mother, which she finds by the way she yells it to Alex's horror.

Like, you know, keep it shock, but it's very amused. She's smiling. She really finds it humorous. It's clear. But the thing that I find interesting is Alex protests that neither one of them really knew what was going to happen.

But I'll call him bullshit on that, because we've already seen the scene in Marios. We've talked about this at nauseum, that they were going back and forth, like getting very heated sexually, you know, eating those awful hamburgers. I think that's Alex trying to let himself and Mamma grabs off the hook a little bit. They were hot to trot, they were ready to go. Yeah, clearly, like what is he even talking about.

As soon as she grossly bit into that hamburger and crossed her eyes, we knew there was fucking on the horizon. So he's protesting a bit too much. He needs to tell somebody only in that he needs advice on the situation, and the only human being in this garage that he can do that with is Elaine Nardo. But at the same time, he respects Elaine's opinion and knows that she's going to frown upon the entire scenario, So he has to do this stupid dance of hypothesis and then, you know, then it comes out. But what is the endgame for him?

Talking this through with Elane that she will have some advice on how to handle the situation from here on, and she does, and she's right. Alex is he's not an idiot. Surely he knows that the best solution, which is coincidentally the one that Elaine proposes, is don't say anything. Just shut up about it and pretend it didn't happen. Basically, sometimes you know the right thing to do, You just need to hear somebody else tell you.

I suppose that's true, and I guess that makes it even more realistic. You need somebody to confirm your suspicions and maybe make you feel like you didn't make this huge mistake, that there's still hope to get out of this. Maybe that's what he was after. Also, this scene has the best line in the show, which is she flew in yesterday from the old country. Just for that.

Now, that's a vaudeville line that fucking works, it is, And for that brief period where Alex and Elaine are conversing and going back and forth about this dilemma that Alex is faced with. It is really crackle it. They have so much chemistry Mary Luhnter and jud hirsh and it's a great scene, and there's to your point, there's some great lines, and she really brightens up the whole proceedings. Like I said, it's a shame that she very soon will just go away and not be heard from for the rest of the episode. But Alex, through talking with Elaine, he admits that the problem isn't that he feels guilty about what he's done.

It's just that he doesn't want Locka to find out, which I guess is refreshing because how many sitcoms have we seen where somebody is racked with guilt over having sex with someone they weren't supposed through or whatever. But this is a Locka's mother and I were both consenting adults. It wasn't anything that we both didn't really want to do, and we're not ashamed that it happened, but we just don't want Lota to be hurt by the resulting fallout from this thing. And I thought that was actually pretty evolved for a sitcom. Yeah like that, I agree.

Thank god they shifted the onus of the situation from their friendship rather than act itself like oh no, how could you have sex with her? For a TV show that was written in the seventies of late seventies, I thought it was actually a fairly progressive take on the subject. So now all the Vonville makes sense. It's there to balance out the more progressive nature of the show. It's to lull the idiots in the audience into like, no, this is just just good old fashioned comedy.

It's almost like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Laka enters at this point and loudly asks for Alex, and it sounds he sounds pretty mad. This doesn't look good for Alex, and Alex goes over to when all likelihood take his lumps from Loca or figure out what's going to happen here. Laka tells Alex that his mother admitted to him what happened with Alex, and Alex is convinced that Laca is mad, and he you can He's almost wincing at what's going to happen. But to Alex's surprise, Lache starts referring to Alex as Daddy and gives him a big hug as we fade out to commercial.

Oh man, it's a switcheroo. It's a it's a Shamalan moment here on taxi where Loka was going to be mad, but no, he's embracing it, embracing it too much. We come back from commercial or what have you, and now the rest of the cabbes know all about Alex and Mamma Gravis's little tryst. We got double tough guys here with Bobby and Banta on on the cap with the Burns lean in and Bobby and Vans are up there giggling, gigging it like a couple of broads school yard. It kind of reminded me a little bit like the staging for this scene, like Grease the song Summer Nights, where the birds are all like tell me more, tell me more, and they're all around the picnic benches of what have you?

You know? And then it ends musically too, because I don't know if you notice when they fucking go up those stairs at the scene. The scene for those characters ends with Bobby and Banta going up to the second floor, but they just squat up there. They think they've left the shot, I think, and now they're just gonna like sit. But I see them.

I didn't notice this. So you're saying when they're part of the scene is over, they just they go upstairs as if they're going to go upstairs to wherever that office is. Maybe there's a whole other room that we don't know about up there, but they're supposed to go up and disappear, But they just go up to the top of the stairs and then they squat down. Before that happens, the cabbys are all giving Alex a little bit of business for what he's done with Locke's mother, and Alex protests they're giving him the business for giving her the business. You know what I'm talking about.

See it It's great, isn't it. The happiness a little bit of odio jo, if I do say so myself. So Alex is protesting to them. You know, it's not serious like they It's just a one time thing. And then Mama Gravis comes in and essentially gropes Alex and calls him Alexander, which cracks up the caves.

They're having a lot of fun with this, which I guess you would expect because Alex is normally the voice of reason, He's the straight arrow in the garage, so this is probably hilarious to them that he got mixed up in this awkward situation. Oh my god, I'd never stopped laughing. It's hilarious. It's great because he's so uncomfortable through every facet of what happens to him. So Laca starts laying out this fantasy to his mother and to Alex that they're going to be this big, happy family.

They both explain to Loca that neither one of them wants to get married because he thinks Laca thinks that Alex is going to become his new father. Neither of them want to actually get married, and this upsets Laca. He says that marriage is the only way to save the family honor. Mamma Gravis doesn't care about that. She doesn't care about the family honor.

She basically laughs at Laca says that doesn't that's stupid, that doesn't matter. It's goat droppings, is what she said. Because this is my favorite line reading. It's not the best line in the show, it's the line ring Laka no goat droppings just incredulous into the point like it's delivered so seriously and they're just talking about goat shit, it's very very funny. Laca says that if she won't marry Alex, then she is nothing but a cockboard, which it must be an awful insult because Mamma Gravis just up and slaps Laca right across the face without even missing a beat.

She then tenderly takes Lacas and tries to explain what happened in their native language to try and get locked out to understand like this is not a big deal, to which he then apologizes to his mother. Do you think Andy Kaufman was a masochist from what I know about him, probably? I mean, he takes that slap, it's totally really and you know he said go for it, right. Oh yeah, No, Well I don't know so much if he is a masochist, as he just wants the reality of that moment to really hit hard, you know, so to speak, hit hard right. Do you think on some level he enjoys the fact that he just got hit.

You could point to the fact that he loved to be the villain and he loved like, I mean, look at him with the Jerry Lawler when they were on Letterman when he let Lawler smack him across the face like it was a hard hit. I don't think he's any stranger to physical comedy in that sense. I think in the case of Lawler, because I watched that footage again just literally two days ago, and he said, else, the hit really hard. He flies out of that chair and Lawler does hit him, but no, no harder I think than Susan Kellerman is hitting him. Here.

We've talked a lot about Andy Kaufman and what he brought to the table and what he does as LAKA and how he approached it and all this stuff. But I think this is we haven't really talked about him too much in the past few episodes, so it's worthwhile. I mean, who doesn't like a good Andy Kaufman story. It was also into wrestling. It was mainly women, and that was like the big joke of it and everything.

But we saw him wrestling people like men like wrestlers, and people can say that wrestling is fake, but obviously it's not like people are being hit, right, So I don't know. Yeah, maybe Andy Kaufin just like to like a little bit of a punch up every once in a while. Well he did. There's a I don't know if you've ever heard. They put out an album.

It was called Andy and his Grandmother. Have you ever heard it father him alone? Oh? I have not. It is fantastic.

It mainly consists of comedy and bits and conversation that he recorded on this tape recorder that he apparently never went anywhere without. And there's one track on it. I think it's actually called Andy Goes to the Movies where he's having a conversation with I think he might actually be his grandmother or someone in his family, and he's talking about how he was at the movies and he wanted to sit and watch the credits, but someone came in, like the security came in and gave him a hassle and told me I had to leave because the movie was over. But he didn't want to leave because he paid his money and he was going to watch. And you were listening to this and you're going, oh, this just sounds like just some bullshit that Andy is feeding to his family who don't know any better.

But just at that moment, there's an edit in the track and you hear him in the movie theater sitting there going. I paid my ticket, baby, I'm not going. And he's basically playing the heel and you can hear the guy coming over and getting physical with him and trying to take him out of the theater. I think he just loved that moment of confrontation with things get physical, the threat of physical violence is in the air. He d I've done that.

He loved that. Circling back to him getting slapped by his mother. I think he probably did just tell it, look, just haul off. Let's make this believable because this insult. Like I said, probably it must be pretty bad for her to react that way.

He was willing to do whatever it took to get a reaction. Laca says finally that he forgives his mother, but he will never forgive Alex and they are no longer friends. Alex is distraught by this. He sits sullenly at the poker table, looking off into the middle distance about what just happened. We then fade into this strange room.

At first, I thought, well, the thing is At first I thought, because you see Laca, I thought maybe this was a fade into Loaka's apartment. It's not. It's like the mechanics anti chamber. It's a machine shop, is what it's supposed to be, like where they would because there's like a tire balancer back there and a couple of other like but it's tiny though. Like I've been in machine shops in garages.

This is a Sunshine Cab Company's version of a machine shop like we've you know, look that they're relying on Laka for everything. They're not going to give him a giant room. They give him what they give him, and he's happy to have it. Everyone needs a place to hide your homemade booze, which makes its reappearance there. Jesus Christ turning my stomach just thinking about it.

It's a very heavy start to the scene because we fade in and Locka is forlornly working at some piece of machinery and he goes as you said, he goes to a locker and grabs a label list bottle of liquor and he takes a swig and he brings it over to the table. At this point, Alex walks in and starts trying to talk to Loaca and you Paul clogizes once again and he actually takes a swig of the bottle and that elicits the usual like, oh you know, it's like much stronger than he apparently expected, and he asks what it is, and Loca says that it's breathnish, which is I think, another word we haven't heard, and that he made it himself, so it is that gross. I mean, you can only imagine what this stuff must have smelled like, a little untasted like.

But as much as Alex is trying, Locha just cannot forgive him nothing. Alex says, can convince Loacha to move past this. The more he tries, the more lot Good gets upset, and he ends up crying. Finally, Alex says, well, I guess that's it, and he sadly, he says goodbye, and he starts to walk sullenly out the door. And as he walks out, Loacha says, well, there may be one way.

If they globnick, we're getting all kinds of interesting foreign words here. He says. It's a custom where if two friends can't agree, they glob nick, and Alex looks it up in Laca's sort of dictionary, and it apparently involves simply pretending something never took place. The two of them agree that nothing took place, and they're happily going to move on. Scene over for all intensive purposes, the episode is over.

We have a bumper where the cabbys are playing poker with Laka. They're basically using Laca's foreign man language as terminology for the talk about interminable. Sir, you thought the apple scene was interminable. This is a bit much. Yeah, this just seemed like they had no good button for the show, so they just figured they would just throw in this poker joke and let that play out or whatever.

Anyway, that's the episode. Well, well, hold on. I did want to point out that at one point they're talking about who has the different terminology for the different cards or the suits, the hands that they had been dubbed somebody's as they had a Krypke. They kept saying that a Krypke. Apparently Crypke is a really good hand.

And all I can think Eric Kripke created the TV series Supernatural and now he's a show run around the Boys, So Crypke was valuable even back then. So let's let's dig into yellow lights. What do you say? What does a light? Just a reminder we're scoring on one to five yellow lights one is the worst episode of Taxi you could possibly imagine.

Five yellow lights is this is the platonic ideal of what a perfect taxi episode would be, and as is our custom, Father Malone, I'm gonna throw it to you first, what do you how many yellow lights do you give Mama Gravis her or the episode? The episode? The name of the episode is Mama Gravis And in that case, I'll give it three yellow lights? Really yeah, I'm actually surprised based on how negative this sort of conversation was around the episode. Why would you give it a better than average score.

I think the jokes that do work work really well. I think all the performances are solid, all the characterizations are really good. Even though I always want more Nardo, they use Nardo at the most effectively for her character, and it's good to see Lock not out of his element but interacting with another person who sort of is from his land. I enjoy those episodes. I'm really going to have fun when Simca finally arrives, and that's the gold standard for where they take Lacta's character and his character arc.

Here's the thing, HP, here's my reasoning. When we say between one and five yellow lights and one is just fucking deplorable, like I would never recommend it. Ever, this one was pretty good. This episode I wasn't I didn't feel insulted it at all, so it can't be adjacent to the worst thing ever, that, of course, is Angela. I think you mean blind date.

Epis is called blind Date, I mean Angela. All right, I gave this episode two yellow lights, and I'll tell you why. Yes, it does have its its funny moments, but it's pretty much solely centered on Alex, Mama Gravis, and Laca, and even Laka is rather incidental for the most part, so it's what you're really getting is mostly just Alex and Mamma Gravis. And Mamma Gravis is a fantastic character. She's great.

She kind of lightens up the proceedings quite a bit. The episodes that I take to heart as being exceptional all involve the rest of the Cabby's, and the very best involved the Cabby's operating as an ensemble, and we get none of that here. The rest of the Caves have really Louis has very little to do. Also, and again we've talked about how shameful it is that Elaine is. She just comes in, does her thing with Alex, which is good, and then she's gone and you never see her again.

It's a shame. But the reason why I knocked it down a full yellow light is because of the ending, because of the resolution of the Alex Laca dilemma, to which there really is no resolution. This gave me uncomfortable flashbacks to the episode A Lane and the Lame Duck if you in fact, it kind of mirrors the end of that. Now, if you remember the end of A Lane and Lame Duck, that's Jeffrey Tambore plays the sad sack idiot who I remember it very well. Yes, I'm trying to forget it because it's not a good episode.

But at the end, they he's going too fast, and the Lane basically says we have to calm down, and he basically says, well, I guess it's goodbye then, and he walks out and only to walk right back in like nothing happened. So there's really no resolution. The resolution is we're just going to forget that the preceding twenty minutes even happened. Well, the same thing happens here that also happened with remember Bobby's acting career, the episode Bobby's Acting Career where I'm going to quit the business. Then at the end he's like, I guess I won't quit the business.

I had not thought about that until now, but you're absolutely right. I might have to revisit how many lights we gave that episode. But nevertheless, the resolution of Laka in Alex's situation is no resolution. It's almost worse than Elaine and the Lame Duck because they just tacitly admit to themselves our resolution is to pretend it didn't happen, pretend what happened and scene. I was so turned off by that and how lazy it seemed to me that they just were kind of maybe they couldn't figure out a funny way or a more clever way to resolve it.

So they just basically said, well, let's make it a custom from Locha's country that they can just say a funny word and then they'll never have to talk about it again. Well, that's that didn't cut it with me. That's look that be a listen to you, Charles Brothers. I'm onto you. Let me ask you a question in HB.

Yeah, what was the satisfying resolution to this. What would have been the satisfying resolution? Yes, I don't have that answer, but I'm not I'm not a TV writer. I'm not paid to come up with good solutions. Excellent answer, sir, I have one ready.

Yeah. Loca murders Rigor and puts him in the trunk of eight oh four and then spends the rest of the day driving around giving free rides, sweat pouring down his face, with dark, big smile just locked. Is just all happy and waving to people, and would you like a ride? It's free today. Yes, I could not in good conscience give this any more than two.

Young I'm not going to give it one because it's reserved for the worst of the worst, and I don't think this is it's reserved for burns episodes. Honestly true. If this pops on TV, I'm not going to turn the channel immediately. I'll probably watch it. Your tank is This is as bad as a taxi episode can be without centering on burns.

Not necessarily, because there can be a one star without burns. We'll see that there will be one star episodes without burns. I can almost assure you of that. It's not the worst it can ever be, because that would be a one yellow light. It's as bad as it can be and still be somewhat rewatchable, if that makes any sense.

Two yellow lights for me, three yellow lights from Father Alone. So that will do it for this particular episode of Night Mister Walters, Father Alone. When you're not checked into the cab? Where can folks find you? On the Internet?

And you can find me over at midnight viewing the Horror Anthology Podcasts podcast I do with the Culture Casts Chris Stasu and the Projection Boots Mike White, where we review horror anthology television series. We are wrapping up Night Gallery and soon all around March. Actually it'll be uh be taking overtales from the Dark Side. That's a TJ castor Nova connection. You can hear me there or hear me on Noise Junkies.

It's a music podcast I do with HP and Mondo Heather's Heather to Drain or hear me on Dark Destinations. It's a half hour radio draw I write and produce fantastic And as for me, you can find me in a lot of the same places you can find Father Malone. I'm also on the Proudly part of the weirding Way Network of Stars. If you will, you can hear me, as Father Milan said on Noise Junkies, I guessed occasionally on the Culture Cast, and you can hear me a little bit here and there on Dark Destinations, and I've been proud to do some of the music for that as well. So I feel like good audio drama.

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