Episode 52 - Call Of The Mild

Weird way media. Ni. Mister you see that guy with it now, he's an actor. I'm a camp driver. I'm the only camp driver in this place.

Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters a taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone, Father Blone, how are you this evening? Dead? Bye? Don, bad bye Don.

I did not expect that, but that will make sense to all of our listeners as we delve into this episode. It's Taxi season three, episode seven, Call of the Mild Boy. That's a sitcomy title if I've ever heard one. This is written by Catherine Greene and directed by James Burrows. Of course, reminder we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming.

So for this one, Fatherbone, we start in the garage as the cabbys have all gathered around. This is another one of these things where they put a TV in that middle part of the set. You know Bobby's got a job if there's a TV in the garage and everyone's gathered around. This is twice. These are the two episodes in a row that deal with Bobby's acting in a way.

Right. Maybe maybe it's like they know he's on the way out. Perhaps, so there are all the cabbies are gathered around this TV and Bobby excitedly yelled, oh here it comes. I'm on, I'm on. As a commercial starts to roll on the TV.

We cut to the TV screen. It's a it's a commercial for something called Brickhauser beer. Bobby is playing some kind of lumberjack man's band in this commercial and it's you know, shots of this wintry mounted like Bush beer. Basically that's the commercial vibe I'm getting. Oh yeah, it's a mixer obviously of Budweiser and Bush and you know what, it's a good ad.

You don't see too many of these kind of beer commercials anymore. But they were no, no, no, yeah, you're the manly man who drinks manly things. After the commercials over, everyone reacts with excitement at the commercial, and Bobby wistfully recounts to himself that the best part of the commercial was when they was where they got to shoot it three days in the mountains. To me, this makes no sense because, apart from some exterior mountain shots with no actors whatsoever, every time you see Bobby and the other mountain men, as it were in this commercial, they're inside of a bar set. You can't tell me they paid for these actors to go to some remote mountain location so they could pretend to be lumberjacks in a bar.

That didn't make any sense to me. What did you think? I think the exterior shots that we found were all they could recover from the missing magazines on that particular commercial shoot. I think they did go up into the mountains. I think they filmed inside the interior bar stuff that all was good footage, and then somehow they fucked up the exterior footage, which included them like chopping wood and like walking with snow shoes and like clapping each other on the back.

Do you think there was more to this commercial than we see, like we only ever see a little tiny bit of it. Yeah, I think we're getting the mid day version of this ad. I think if we saw this commercial at like eleven thirty five PM, it would be maybe two minutes and we would get a lot more of those original bits. I didn't really think about that. You're because even now you can, like the Super Bowl version of a commercial is usually like it could be two minutes.

But then if you see it during you know, an average TV show, it's like a thirty second distillation of that commercial. So you might be onto something there. Fatherm alone. Bobby is thinking fondly of this place that he got to go to, and he says that ever since he's been wanting to go back to the mountains and spend some time. He asks Tony if he would like to go and and and Tony agrees to go for a whole week.

Guys against the Elements. This is his machio thing. Tony and Iron John remember Iron John movement, We're gonna go to where men, We're gonna go out in the forest and yell at each other and scream that we don't need womenfolk. I think this was this predates Iron John. I think that was like a nineties thing.

I remember that so. Late eighties, late eighties thing. I remember that book being everywhere just being I think, so, God, is this where we've come, This is what we're this is what we this is what the sensitivity has led us. Now we have to go be feral. Well.

I think at this time maybe the closest thing that they got to that was Leo Buscaglia. Do you remember Leo Buskaglia. Yea. He was like you you must love like he was, you know, everything was like you have to get up to someone and to give him a hug and say you love them with all of your heart. This guy was very demonstrative and aggressive.

You must love. That's I mean, it's not iron John, but it's kind of close because it's an aggressive form of love. I guess like st or scream therapy. You know, when I think of st I Away, my mind always goes to a John Candy in stripes where he says, doesn't he say he went to st he went? He He swallowed a lot of aggression along with a lot of pizza.

Before we continue at the scene because we had a large group shot here where everyone in the garage just gathered around that television, including Leggy blonde pants. Leggy blonde and pants suit. She's back. She was in a burgundy blazer with these super tight blue jeans and these brown riding boots. I like everything they put her in.

Man, wait, they put her in that. They put her in that space outfit, that one. She looked great there. Also in the crowd. If you watch the episode, Bobby is like thanking everybody and turning and stuff.

If you look just to the left of Bobby and at the center of the screen, I'm pretty sure you're seeing Bruce Campbell Senior. So hearing all of this macho rhetoric, Elaine is skeptical. She says, what would you do in the mountains for a whole week? And there replies very typical mountain stuff. They don't know what they're gonna do up there, you know.

The side note, fatherm alone, Elaine looks like Rosy the Riveter. She has kind of this like updu thing with a flannel shirt and jeans. Did you well, first of all, yeah, she's got a pony. Her hair's up in a pony, which we never see her hair done up like this, and she looks fucking awesome because usually they overdo her hair. She's in lavender.

Okay, that's a purple tank underneath a purple plaid and purple jeans. Oh my god, she's perfection here. The good things she's not going to be in the episode a whole lot. The nice thing about how they've styled her, As you mentioned, she has kind of this very loose ponytail is it seems like in this particular episode, they they've decided to scale back, like they're actually looking at this and saying, what would she actually look like if she had to drive a cab for six or seven hours in a day. She's not gonna be all, you know, nicely permed and all this kind of stuff.

She's gonna have put her hair up into a quick ponytail where whatever she's got. You know, I think that's great, and she looks great. Yeah, she's gonna be dressed down but stylish as fuck. Yeah, that's exactly it. And I agree with her because when she hears this whole scenario but going off for a fucking whole week in the in the wilderness with no phone and no communication at all, she says, well, that sounds stupid.

I'm like, yeah, I'm with you, Elaine. So then Elaine goes over to ask Alex to essentially talk some sense into them talking about it going it's winter, she's reasoning, and they have no idea what they're doing. But instead of trying to talk them out of it, Alex is excited about the prospect, so he wants to be included now too, and they start to talk about Where are they going to go? What kind of place? And Tony says, well, we should really get one with a heated pool since it's winter time, and Bobby and says, no, it's going to be basic, primitive, no electricity or conveniences whatsoever.

Bobby also asks Jim. This is kind of odd because Jim is always on the periphery, but somehow Bobby thinks to include Jim. She asks. He asks Jim, do you want to go? And Jim says yeah.

He reckons that his experience on a commune will be an asset to their roughing it. Elaine still thinks it'll be rough, but Bobby is eager to test their metal against nature fatherm alone. So we cut a to b roll of an isolated cabin somewhere in the mountains, somewhere. You can Campbell. Yes, this is a dead ringer for the Evil Dead cabin, basically hence your callback at the beginning of the Dead Heights Dead by Dawn.

Yeah, but I didn't place Bruce Campbell's dad in this episode. They did that all on their own. So we cut inside as the Cabby's are bringing in all these bags of groceries to the cabin. The cabin is as Bobby was hoping for. It's completely bare bones.

There's a wood burning stove on the right, there's only one bed. Everything is old wood. It looks I mean, you can almost smell how musty and gross it must smell like, because it's just a cabin in the middle of nowhere, the literal middle of nowhere. Because they get inside and there's a guide who's taken them up there. We'll talk about him in a minute, but the guide.

Basically, the guide tells them that they've driven one hundred and six miles from his house to the cabin. But this whole scene, the guide is kind of ominously giving them all these opportunities to turn back. It's not too late to turn back. He seems very gravely serious. Oddly so to the degree where if it were me and I had rented this cabin and a guy that I rented it from was dropping all these hints that something bad might happen, I would start to wonder if maybe he's got designs on the group, like killing us all so, I don't know.

It would creep me out to the degree I think I would turn around fathom alone. How would you feel about that. Well, I wouldn't be there first of all. But if I was there and he started saying that, I wouldn't take it as anything else. I wouldn't take it as ominous from him, like he means us harm.

But I would say, you know, he's making a lot of sense. You saw how far we came out here, right fellas well? You figure one hundred and six miles. It it takes you like two weeks to walk back. That it just to drive up there must have taken them at least probably three hours.

I would say, up up a mountain with God knows what kind of roads they have going up to this. That's the thing. He says, one hundred and six miles, and rigos like, oh really, it only felt like we've been on off road for a hundred of those. It's it's so remote. Yeah, I would think twice about it when this guy's dropping all of these ominous warnings to me.

But by the way, the guide, I call him a guide. I don't know if that's the proper term here. But the guy who's showing them around the cabin is an actor named Harvey Vernon. Did you recognize him, father Malone? He's very, very familiar I know he's a character actor.

I know I've seen it in a million things, But who is he? My mind, He's been in a lot, He's done a lot, a lot of TV and movie he was in, like these are all bit parts. He was in teen Wolf, he was in Webster, he was in Bring Him Back Alive. Remember Bring Him Back Alive? I sure do, he was in that.

But I was most intrigued when looking at his IMDb Father Malone, I was. I was very intrigued by a TV movie he did in nineteen eighty one, which had the amazing title Please Don't Hit Me Mom, starring Patti du Gaston and Nancy mckeem. This is like an after school special. It sounds like to me, please don't hit me Mom. That's the title.

Oh, it's probably about the dangers of drug addiction or peer pressure. You just don't see programs with those kind of titles. Mother, May I sleep with danger? Yes, you do. Just go to the Hallmark channel.

You'll find plenty of these, like My Daughter Slept with a Hobo. These shows in the eighties. I agree, very earnest, that's exactly it. Like, I think these lifetime shows are in service of those earlier shows to a degree, they're giving people what they want and expect anyway. In one of my favorite exchanges, at this point in the episode, Alex steps back and admires the quiet.

He says, listen, it's so quiet you can actually hear yourself. Think to which, do you remember what? Jim replied with No, he says, I can't hear anything. There's a lot of space cadet Jim in this one. And could I point out that Jim's idea of outdoor apparel is a paneled page boy hat a scarf.

He's in the gym action figure outfit. He's in the Canadian tuxedo, but he's added a scarf and a page boy hat. And it gets cold up there too. Meanwhile, Alex smartly purple and black plaid with a red turtleneck, white pants and boots. He's looking good.

And Tony is wearing the outfit he murdered the Viet Cong in. Meaning he's in his fatigues. He's wearing his green army jacket. Basically, yeah, he served in Vietnam where he killed many women and children. I will say this, fatherm alone.

When I was in college, I got a military jacket from an army navy store. It was the warmest jacket I think I've ever worn in my life. I don't know what they what kind of material was made of, but it was so fucking warm. So yeah, I absolutely Tony is probably the warmest one out of all of them. Canvas, that's what it's made.

I've had them too, and you're right. It's like when you put on a pea coat, with like an actual naval pea coat, you're like Jesus Christ is a furnace. Those jackets the material doesn't breathe at all, so it's completely impervious to any wind that might be hitting you. It just bounces off this thing. The guide comes back again and says or he's about to leave.

He says he asks if they have a gun for hunting or protection, and they don't have one. Of course they don't, so he leaves them his rifle. This will come back. This is Chekhov's rifle. Basically.

He also offers to check on them in a day or so, but Bobby again, he's like, macho guy, Yeah, you know that won't be necessary. We're gonna be good again. With one last time. The guide gives them one more chance for any questions, concerns anything. Al asks if he has a phone.

He says, yeah, I have a phone, but you don't. And then he asks, well, where's the nearest phone. He says, oh, it's about one hundred and six miles the one in my house, so the guy. The guy finally leaves with the final words, you're a long way from the city. Boys, I hope you know what you're doing.

This is supposed to be a fucking vacation. They're supposed to be enjoying themselves, and all they're hearing from everybody is I hope you guys know what the fuck you're doing, because you're. Missing, don't They don't know what they're doing, and everyone can recognize it. Like if this were a slasher movie. That guy's the harbinger, right, you're doomed fella, But he's not.

He's saying, I don't think you guys can handle this. Why don't you just stay for two days, stay for the weekend, and I'll come check he In fact, he should have insisted. He should have said, listen, I don't care what you're saying. I will be back in two days. You're probably right, because it seems like everybody recognizes that they're way over their heads except for them.

So anyway, after he lays that final bit of wisdom on them, he leaves, and that there's this awkward silence among the cabins because now they it's probably there the first time they've they're reckoning with the idea that maybe we should have taken them at their word and maybe not rushed into this. But then they realize that their groceries need to be refrigerated. Then they realize there is no refrigerator, there's no electricity, there's no way to keep these groceries cold. Without that, they're probably not going to last very long. So but then Tony the Simpleton reasons he Tony is big on this thing, like we're just not thinking like mountain men.

Let's think like mountain men. And in doing so, he's he says, he reasons that they can put the groceries outside since it's colder outside than it is in the cabin. Tony served in a tropical climate, so we can he doesn't really know what he's doing. He can kind of be forgiven. But at the same time, did Alex Reager never read Jack London as a child?

There were plenty of literally, there's plenty of literature out there describing how you survive in a wilderness situation. And they're just in a cabin with food. And second of all, okay, yes the food is going to spoil. Yes it is going to be cold or outside. Now the first thing should be, the first out you should have is there's going to be an animal.

He's gonna eat it. Okay, But let's say that you don't think that right all of that food is perishable. There's no dry goods in any of those bags. Wouldn't you separate the dry goods out and keep them in whatever cabinetry the guy has left for you. You would figure that, you know, they would they would maybe pack some cereal or oatmeal or something that they can make, you know, just inside, like something non perishable, maybe some canned goods, chili or something they can make.

To be cans in there. There have to be. You would figure. They do make the point that, oh, everything is melting, so there's there's clearly a lot of frozen food that they have to make sure it doesn't spoil. But they probably should have said, all right, of these eight bags of food, maybe two bags can stay inside but maybe they just, you know, if they're not thinking of animals, then that none of that would make a difference.

And I agree with that, and so they they But I would say, well, can we keep the cereal in here, because I'll eat cereal, you know, by the handful while we you know whatever. And the other thing is I would have also said, well, can we at least put some of it into the fucking cooler that's sitting at the foot of the bed, you know, the cooler that keeps things cool, that can maybe preserve our food for fumer days. There's a little lock on it, just in case there's an animal out there. Well, I'm questioning why this place doesn't have like a bear locker outside any campsite that I'd ever been to. If it's to that degree they have a locker that's specially designed to repair el bears and other animals that could come and come and get it, you would figure.

Or maybe maybe the guy just assumed you put your food. I guess you put it in the trees. They could have put it on the roof of the cabin. That would have been okay. None of this ender is their mind.

They decide they're going to take it outside so it's cold outside and it'll preserve the food whatever. There's a fun little piece of physical comedy where the three of them are bringing out the groceries. Like basically, Alex, Bobby, and Tony are taking the bags outside, but somehow they've gotten into this rhythm where Jim is off beat with them and he's bringing the bags inside while they're bringing them outside, and they're never inside the cabin at the same moment to know that they're doing the same thing in reverse. So like they'll bring them outside, Jim will come in, they won't see him. He'll bring one inside.

So they're doing this for maybe two minutes, and it's at a certain point I think like Tony, Bobby and Alex are like, did we really have this many groceries? I thought it was a fun little. It is this is a big it's a big physical comedy episode. Ultimately, this is them against the elements and them against themselves. It's true, and that might be one of the reasons why I really kind of like this episode.

I have a soft spot for this just because it is so physical and it feels it is very sitcomy, but it's a fun premise to see these these individuals in this situation and how they kind of bounce off the walls at each other and come at each other. I like that part of it. We fade out, we fade in on b roll dawn in the woods. We cut inside the cabin. Most of them are waking up on the floor.

I think Bobby has kind of suckered them into letting him have the one bed in the room. My favorite bit in the episode. They are, what real man is going to take the bet? I ain't gonna take it. I ain't gonna take Okay, I'll take it.

He appeals to their their macho the macho thing and all of them. And then when they all say, now we're not gonna you know, yeah. Good, I'm a real man. Give me the floor. Okay, you guys, I'll take the floor.

I will be taking the bed. That's all I wanted to know. Yeah. He literally goes good and he like flops on the bed. So they're all waking up, pulling themselves up off the floor, and they start they start their day.

Alex, They're all excitedly planning their first day at the cabin. Alex is gonna be the cook. He says, what do you guys want for breakfast? He's rubbing his hands with glee. He goes outside and almost immediately he rushes back in in a panic.

He's holding ripped up paper bag from the groceries and he says something ate all their food in the night, and we cut the commercial. Immediately we fade back in. All the cabbys are in mid panic about this situation. They're gonna die. What's gonna happen again?

Tony tries to think like a mountain man. He says, well, what do we do? Alex will fish, Tony is going to use the rifle to hunt, and Jim will forage for berries. I don't know what Bobby's gonna be doing while they're all out trying to survive. I guess Bobby gets to stay in the cabin and you know, do a monologue.

Yeah, I guess, like free acting. I don't know. Before we got there. Uh. When Jim gets up off the floor, he's like rubbing his ass and he says, like, you know, my brains are hurting, right, Yeah, well they're they're waking up.

Yeah, my brain's a waking up, right. And then there's the whole conversation with Tony, and Tony says, we got to use our heads, and then they cut back in the same shot of Jim rubbing his ass, and they loop in a line of him saying yeah, like trying to squeeze one more ass in brain rain joke out of this episode, it was really weird. It's weird. We've talked about this in other episodes where they're they're using a d R more often in these episodes, and it always calls attention to itself because it never sounds like it was hoarded of the day. It always has a very sterile feel.

There's another moment similar to that, not not a weird juxtaposition of him rubbing his ass, but they're they're waking up and they're they're all talking, Hey, did you guys sleep well? And I think Bobby says, I kept hearing the loud growl of a wild animal at night, and they cut over that. They pan over to where Jim is and he's snoring at his little vantage point, and they they've eighty yard in Bobby saying, there it is again. But it didn't need that reinforcement. I don't know why they they don't trust the audience to understand the joke the first time.

This whole this whole scene is a mess with all of these technical snaffoos, because at the end of it, like they as they're going out to hunt or whatever, like somebody says, Tony, you gotta do this, and it's eighty yard in like oh yeah, like something like that. It's it's it's so out of the blue, like layered on top of anything. But they do want to say. And Reverend Jim wakes up. He has his head inside a cabinet, and so when he wakes up, he sits up and then slams his head into the shelf above it.

And I always love a standing up into a shelf joke. I just wanted to point that out. It happens way too often to me, but for some reason, it's always hilarious when I see it portrayed. There's some good physical comedy here, particularly with Jim. They kind of lean on him a little bit more.

We're going to see that and the scene coming up here we fade back to later in the day, Tony returns from hunting. He couldn't find anything, but he comes in and they're conveying this idea that now it's getting very windy outside. It's almost like there's a storm brewing. Oh yeah, this is my favorite. But I love exterior interior shit here when they're like they're they're doing weather like wind.

It's clear that they do have some kind of fan blowing in through the door from the outside with some assorted like snowflakes flying, but it's really on the actors themselves to convey that, like, oh, I'm having trouble closing this door, like it's it's really a form of mime almost what they're doing, and they're doing it actually pretty well. Particularly Jim is the last one in, and we'll see he's he does the most pantomiming of how windy it is. And has the best line he does. So Tony comes back. He says, it's getting really cold and windy outside, but he's found nothing, not anything.

It's like there's nothing out there. It's like they knew he was coming. I think, he says. Alex comes back. He's he's been fishing.

I don't know where Alex found this, but he's decked out like a fisherman from the fifties. He has like the bucket hat with all the lures stuck on it. I think he has hip waiters brought all that. He brought that from New York, I. Guess, but he just looks like a stereotypical fisherman from the fifties.

He all he's found. He goes into his little tackle box and he's got a string of minnow. I mean, they're tiny, but he's proud of them. But that's all he's able to catch, just little tiny Maneah. They say they're tiny, as if they're like sardines, but they're not.

They're pretty good looking fish. In fact, when he got back and pulled those out, and after Tony had come in with nothing and they haven't eaten already for twenty four hours, I'm like, well, good, that'll Sustinia fish for everybody. Yeah, they're not anchovies. They're not that small. The impression is that they are.

But so yeah, they're probably three or four inches, which maybe to some fishermen is small. But like you said, if I'm fucking starving, anything is a. Relief to me. Look that and eat the whole fucking thing. Bones and off fucking a Bobby is spiraling about how they're gonna die, But Tony is actually the one who is trying to you know.

He's like, well, no, we'll go back to it tomorrow. I'll hunt some more and Alex will fish some more and blah blah blah. Oh, and then he says this is great. He says it's even gonna be easier to track animals in this snow. And now it turns out there's like a a you can't call it a nor'easter.

I don't know where they are if it's technically the northeast, but basically, this monster snowstorm is rolling in and to compound all of their their woes, now they have to deal with a with a blizzard basically. And at this point Jimber turns and this is where the physical comedy, because now it's the wind is howling, there's snow coming in, and he's falling all over himself trying to close this door. But I mean the door itself is just the door, but he's selling the idea that it's windy and he can't can't. It's like Marcel Marceau. It's fantastic, this physical comedy.

He finally gets the door closed and he reports that he found some blueberries. Well before that, he says something wrong with that door. Which is great, because we've already seen two other guys come in and like fumble with the door, fall and try to get the thing closed. It is a nice win at the audience, like this door is they're going on with his door. He says he's found blueberries, but then Alex says they may be blueberries, but they also could be poisonous.

Let's not dive into it. But then what ensues. I really like this. It's an Abbot and Costello routine involving blueberries literally blue berries that may not be blueberries, and there's some confusion around that, which is kind of funny. We fade out from there, we fade back in to now a snow swept mountain scene.

If he cut inside the cabin, Bobby is expositioning that it's it's now they've gotten past the Sunday that the guide was going to originally return, and he never showed. So now they're working on like a full seven or eight days with little or no food. Basically they could have made it by now, they could have gotten there. What do you mean the guide if no? If if on that day when all the food gone instead of let's all start hunting and fishing, or maybe after one day of not hunting and fishing, they all just sort of started walking.

None of them were injured. They should have pointed in the direction of that guy's house and just started going. Bring the rifle, bring the fishing gear. Well, how many how many miles you figure you'd cover in a day walking? You could do at least twenty five miles, thirty miles a day.

I think if you do twenty miles a day and maybe just follow the river or something, you could probably eat fish and stuff. But then see, then they'd have to rely on themselves to make a fire, do all that stuff. Yeah, you're right, they would definitely die. They would die. I mean, I assume that there's like matches and they can find they can forage for woods, so it's not that difficult to make a fire.

That's that's the key. That's the difference between living and dying is making a fire, because without that, they're definitely dead. My guess is they probably reasoned that out and said, there's no way we could walk, but how are we going to make a fire. It's impossible. Do you think the writers at one point considered one of the characters getting eaten.

Let's talk about this for just for a minute. If they were I think we agree that Jim would probably volunteer himself to be eaten if they had to make such a choice. Right, But nobody would want a trip for ten years, so nobody would want to eat his flesh. What I didn't like about this. One of the things I didn't like about this is that as they're having this scene of them a week later or what have you, all the cabvies now have beard stubble to indicate the passage of time and the fact that they're kind of grubby now.

But in my opinion, Father Malone, it's too little growth for not having shaved in a week. Bobby basically looks like George Michael. That's the kind of beard stubble that he has very neatly trimmed and groomed along his face. Maybe it's just me, but if I go a week without shaving or trimming my beard, I'm all kinds of scraggly and BedHead and all this kind of stuff. I would not look as well put together as data after a week.

Oh yeah, I would be a mess too. And well, you know what they should have done when they finished the previous episodes filming. They should have just told these four do not shave for one week and then just film it in reverse. It would have worked so much better. But but I do I appreciate the attempt at showing how they're kind of grubby.

I just didn't think I thought it was a swing and a miss. Ultimately, Bobby continues to spiral. Now he's worrying that maybe the guide died and where they are. Oh my god, you know what, It's time to eat Bobby. Tony is is furious.

He he kind of breaks a little bit, and he tells Bobby that this is all his fault. And there's something about Bobby's response, like after he says it's his fault, Bobby kind of like he kind of wins this it. He goes my fault, like he's playing it as if he has like he's really not eaten in a week, and he's weak, and he's trying to respond to these accusations, but he's he's barely able to croak out any kind of defensive him just something about that. I might be reading into it, but I thought his response just always makes me laugh a little bit because it's so melodramatic. I don't know my fault?

Is that what you said at melee and in Vietnam? Tell us about your time in the jungles, Tony, while we're all out here alone, do you still hear their screams? When Bobby tries to defend themselves as my fault? What are you talking about? Tony says, Well, if you've done a pineapple commercial, we'd be in Hawaii right now.

And you know, I guess Tony's letting us know he's part of the swinging lifestyle there right, He's got pineapples on the brain. Is it? But isn't it like it has to be like an upside down pine upside down? Yeah? But you know, basically yes, it's supposed to be.

But I think at this point that that group has just taken that symbol, the pineapple, like it's no longer hello and goodbye. No, it's the universal sign of like, let's let's hit this, let's swing. But then Alex reprimands Tony for mentioning eating. Apparently they have a deal amongst all of them that they can't mention food because they're so hungry that it's just gonna make them crazy. They've been subsisting on minnows and blueberries for a whole week.

So thank god that Alex is catching these little fish because I think without it they probably wouldn't have survived this long. And the blueberries, well, they only caught the one, right, I mean, they're not eating fish every day because he should be out there fishing every day. Well, I see, I assume that they have been fishing every day because. Because he says, is it is it four o'clock yet? Because I get to suck the bones of the of the fish.

So in my mind, they only caught those four fish, and that's all they've had. That's grim. I didn't think of that at all. I figure he just kept going out and finding more of these because each because one of those is not going to any person. Up.

They're small, there's not a lot of meat on them. Yeah, I know, that's kind of the dire situation there. This is when Alex reveals that he knows what baby tastes like. Snow piercer. Yeah, Jim gets up and he's gonna leave to get to forage and get some firewood.

He leaves the door open, and the other cavies are still so deep in there arguing talking about hunting and so forth. Tony mentions that he hasn't seen the trace of any animals, and just at that moment, the actor they have. Here, HP, the actor that they've chosen here is as good as Clam, the dog and the thing. Can I just say that he's this Turkey's awesome? Well, okay, so a turkey comes in, kind of pecks around a little bit, they don't notice it, and then it walks out.

I will say this in the Love's book, the Official Taxi Fan Guide. Evidently that turkey was not a very good actor, and there is a a fishing line that they tied to its neck to lead it around. No, because you don't see it. It does look very well trained. Might I see it?

It looks like they trained this turkey for months to walk in the door kind of walk around in a circle. So none of them see it, but the audience is cackling about it, and then immediately go as they're about to turn, and it gets out right before Christopher Lloyd returns. The timing is very good for that that bit. I mean, it's a textbook comedy bit where the audience sees what the characters don't see, and there's a there's a there's an amusing quality to it. So so the turkey comes in as we're talking about hunting and it leaves.

Jim comes in and he looks out the door and he starts making noises at the turkey, and the other caves are like, what are you doing. He's like, well, my friend out there, that turkey, Ernie said, Ernie, what are you talking about. He says, well, he looks like an Ernie. And they all get up and all at once they're like, holy crap, it's it's a turkey. Like they haven't seen a sign of wildlife for a whole week, and there's the turkey.

They rush to get the gun, and then there's some pilavering over who's going to use the gun. Actually, this, this runs counter to your theory about me Lai and Tony, because first they give the rifle to Tony and he says, oh, I haven't killed anyone. So apparently he hasn't killed people in Vietnam, as you described. Meant back in the States as a civilian for the past, you know, eight or so years, he hasn't murdered anybody, and he wants to remember himself that way. A maybe, maybe that Vietnam.

It's like it happened to somebody else. He doesn't even Yeah, I could see that. Bobby's not going to do it because he says, I can't. I can't kill anything. So some of the pussy don't you see my hair?

So by by default, Alex is the one who is elected the killer of the turkey. So he takes the rifle and he kind of starts going outside, and there's a line that he gives that that it always It kind of gets to me a little bit just because of how good jud hersh's. But just before he advances, he looks at the turkey you can't see because it's off screen, and he says, oh, damn, he does look like an ernie. And then, to nobody's amusement, there's no laughter, there's nothing. That's a grim thing that he's saying because he's about to blow this turkey's brains out.

And he advances on the turkey, and you don't. We cut to the next scene, which is Tony taking an extremely fake looking turkey out of this oven, this wood burning oven. It looks like a turkey you would have like for Thanksgiving. It's all it's it's been like the skin is all crispy baste. It wonderful.

Yeah, it looks it's you know that the head's been cut off and everything. Right, Whereas really it should have like lots of burned up feathers still sticking out of it. That's what I'm That's what I'm getting at, Like it should have had like the feathers, and maybe like the feet weren't quite cut off all the way, you know, it just would have looked tacked to pieces. Then this beautiful turkey, this Norman Rockwell asked turkey coming out of the oven, and I think there's even like I don't know if it was adr, but you hear even like Tony says, oh, you never cook the turkey before. I'm like, fucking hey, that turkey looks awesome.

I'd love to have that turkey. And then Elaine is sitting there somehow when a Pilgrim outfit. So the turkey comes out. They put it on the table. They're all ready to pounce on it like cartoon savages.

Alex is still shaken about having to kill the turkey, but they coax him over to the table. He's about ready to dive in, but then Jim insists that they say grace, and they're all like, what the hell, man, we haven't eaten for a week. But Alex is like, you know what, we haven't eaten for a week. We can wait another few minutes. Jim say your piece.

True to form. Jim delivers one of his patented sermons, Like you know, we see him occasionally officiating at weddings and doing stuff like that funerals. It's beautiful. He talks about what a miracle the Turkey he was in life and how his the Turkey's death diminishes them. It's beautiful.

I'm not over selling it. It really is perfect for that moment. Finally he finishes, and they literally all dive into the turkey like a bunch of cartoon savages, and we cut away back to the garage, which is kind of an unusual cut because we spent the whole episode in this cabin. This you know, it's like it's like going from standing in front of the newly relited arc of the Covenant and suddenly we're on the steps of some fucking building in Washington, DC, Like, wait, what how did they. Have that island?

I've been in this claustrophobic setting. Now I'm back in the garage what just happened? So we cut there and Elaine is uh a worried. Tolaane asks Louis to let let her know if they hear anything, if he hears anything from the guys, because now there they must be beside themselves with worry because it's been over a week they haven't heard anything from Not that he would have heard anything anyway, because there's no phone there, so it's not as if they could have called him to say, Hey, we're having fun, wish you were here. It's been one week since we heard from them.

Do you want me to say I'm sorry. At that exact moment, Louie gets a call and hey, it's Reager. Elaine runs into the cage excitedly and she starts to have a conversation with Alex. She's relieved. She she plays the call really well.

It's not easy to, you know, experience a call from one side only, and she does a great job with it. But then, particularly with the troubling business going on around. Ye as she's catching up with Alex and having this conversation, Louis is furtively like he's he's he's pulling all the shades down in the whole cage, which is which is rather troubling in retrospect because the. First thing he does is very visibly locks the cage Flourish. Which doesn't end up amounting to anything because she ends up just going.

It's like she's she's inside, it's not like she's locking. He's locking it from the outside. She can get out anytime she wants. The joke is that she beats the shit out of him and hangs him up. But you know what, it's real fucked up that he's doing what he's doing.

Oh without it, without a doubt, because he's using this at a minimum, he's going to make an unwonted pass at her, which is not cool at all. So all the shades are down, she's still talking. Then all of a sudden you hear her like kind of shriek and a scuffle, and she opens the door and slams it. And it's really wonderful how they've done this because when she slams the door, all of the shades, there's four shades, they all go up at the same moment in the cage, revealing that Louis has been hung up by his pants on the wall. The show loves to humiliate people like that.

Remember Bobby was hoisted up with his trench coat harness thing and we've seen that a few times, that that idea. So anyway, she's made sport of Louis. He tried to make a try to be naughty and he paid the price. Go fuck with Nardo. Louis continues his call from there from his high vantage point as we fade to credits.

That is the end of this episode. Now we're going to talk yellow lights, Father them alone? What does a yellow light mean? Reminder, we scale we grade taxi episodes on a scale from one to five yellow lights. One is the worst, five is the best, and as is our custom.

Father Alone, I'm gonna throw it to you first. What do you give Call of the Mild? Unlike you, I don't have some nostalgic attachment to this. I'm going to give it three stars. It's not a terrible grade.

Three stars is still better than average. Oh yeah, no, it's it's worth the watch. Absolutely. The physical comedy here is great. The Revin Jim stuff alone plus Revene Jim sits up into that fucking shelf.

I told you. I think that's just hilarious. Plus I like the idea of these guys slowly plotting to murder one another. Then you don't really get that in most taxi episodes. I gave this four yellow lights, following yes one.

Is based on childhood nostalgia. Well no, so yes. It's a slight episode with a very thin sitcomy premise. We've seen this many many times. These you know, characters who are in a predicament that tests them in some way.

But it's such a delight to see these four guys deal with this predicament and the physical comedy is on point. It's almost like a little one act play set in one location, because that's really what we get for the majority of this episode. They're in this cabin, they're dealing with the elements. I'm tickled by it. This is one the reason I give it for ultimately is because do I This is one that I revisit off because it's funny.

There's no steaks. It's just funny to see these guys up and have fun. It's not as if they were gonna. Die starvation and rape go ahead. Excluding the Nardo bit at the end that I don't I don't agree with, but it's not as if these guys were ever in any real danger.

You know, as a viewer, I know that they're they're going to be back next week, you know, unless, like I mean, if they had taken a left turn and all of a sudden, like they come back, but one of them didn't make it, and none of them will talk about what happened to like Reverend Gym or whatever, and now it becomes a docu drama about like what happened in the cabin. Oh man, that's it. Should I begun that way and it should have been the reverse. There's only one left. What's that show that you like with Sophie.

Tucker, Sophie Tucker, Sophie Thatcher. Sophie Thatcher. Sorry, what's that show you like with Sophie Thatcher? Yellow Jackets? Yellow Jackets?

I was thinking about Yellow Jackets the entire time I was wat saying this episode of those girls all tend to cannibalism and then become these like ritualistic totems out in the forests. Oh oh yeah, I was thinking about that in this. Episode I revisited. I would like you know what, HP. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I would like to see a version of Yello Attackets with Sophie Tucker in the lead.

Who is she playing the younger version of in that show? Well, Sophie Thatcher, not Sophie Tucker. I'm saying, so, if Sophie Tucker should be in this show playing young Juliette Lewis, I think that would be a whot. Who is Sophie Tucker? Where did I get that name from?

She's a stand up comedian. Okay, oh like a burlesque Yeah. Anyway, that's three three yellow lights from you, Father Malone, four yellow lights for me. That's going to do it for this episode of night, Mister Walters, Father Malone, Where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? I do a show called Midnight Viewing.

It's a horror podcast, but we also cover other things like well, once a week, guy do a show called Father Malone's Weekly round Up under the midnine Viewing Banner, where we look at all the new streaming things and all the new things in theaters. And Friday, we alternate between Temis from the Dark Side, reviews of that show and Fuseco Fest. We're looking at the works of John Fusco. He's a screenwriter and HB is with me for the entire run, so check him out on my show. Fusco Fest has been a delight, really enjoyed.

We started with Crossroads and we're all the way up to the Bay. We covered Thunderheart. We're gonna do Locknests. By the time, but I think by the time this is probably we have already done Locknest. We'll be moving on to Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron or something.

Maybe it's Cimarron, Spirit of the Stallion or something like that. I think it's Spirit. No. I almost said to myself, Stallion of the Cimarillion, but that doesn't work. That's the Cimarillion is the hobbit right?

Oh yeah, it's the uncollected works of JR. I can encourage you guys enough to seek out not only with the weekly roundup, which I love, but fusco Fest has been fun and interesting. I'm catching a lot of movies I'd never seen before. Some I have and revisit, so please check it out for myself. I am also on the weirding Way Network with Father Malone.

I host the Noise Junkies music podcast. I'm an occasional guest on the Culture cast with Christashu and I also have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. So that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, write a review or rate us.

We'd love to hear from you. In fact, my email is HP music Place at gmail dot com. Please drop a line if you liked the episode, hey to the episode, felt indifferent? Want to just tell me what the weather is wherever you live. I don't care, Please get a hold of me.

I'd love to hear from you so for myself and father Malone, thanks again and we'll see you all next time. Thank mister Walders.