Episode 53 - Latka's Cookies

Weird media. Hi, mister Walters. You see that guy with it. Now, he's an actor. I'm a cat driver.

I'm the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters the Taxi Podcast. I'm HP your co host and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? I'm well, thank you for having me, you foreign dog.

We're talking Taxi Season three, episode eight, Latka's Cookies, written by Glenn Charles and Les Charles, The Charles Boys, that's right, and directed by the man James Burrows. Reminder New York's Zone. Is he from New York, New York originally? Okay, his father was a stage director. Oh you've you've you've made reference to that in the past.

You're right. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. So we can tell by the title that this is going to be another LACA centric episode. Father alone happy Days. Well, you can tell by the you can tell by the way I used my walk.

I'm a woman's man, No time of talk. Yes, obviously a lock episode. But then like we're kind of old one considering his distinct lack of participation this season. Indeed, and I'm just I'm thrilled. This is a this is a good one.

So we open. We opened in the garage. Is Loaca? Why do I say, Laca? We open in the garage?

Is Loaca? Loca? We open in the garage Father malone is Laca furtively tiptoes in while Elaine, Alex and Bobby play cards at their customary spot at the poker table. Louis tiptoes behind Loca shouts his name, having caught Loka arriving eight minutes late. But ultimately, in a rare show of compassion, Louis lets him off the hook because he's not usually late, which I thought was odd.

Louis never usually misses an opportunity to be cruel. Can I just say that, Once confronted, Lata does something very smart where he says, oh, what time is it? And then he taps his watch like his watch is slow, as if he's not late, or he assumes he is on time. This was again a throwback to the days before we were all connected by cell phones and smart watches, so you could make the argument, oh my watch is slow or it stopped because nobody whinds their watches anymore. When he's got Apple watches or some sort of smart watch.

They're all connected by a nuclear time, right, so you couldn't get away with that nowadays. It's what got Bill and Ted in troubles. That's right, forget to wind your watch exactly good call. Elaine is concerned and she asks Slaka if everything is okay. Loca says he was late because he was dancing around his apartment with joy father Malone when I wrote this down, When an unusually tanned Alex asks why I put it to you, Father Malone?

What do you think was going on? Maybe he just looked very tanned to me? Did he not to you? What year is this? Nice?

Eighty one? Yeah, eighty one? So is this around the time of King of the Gypsies. It could very well be, because it was afterwards, Yes, it could have been. It was after ordinary people we talked about that are already so maybe that was it.

Although he it's not as if Alex has not been around for these episodes. Maybe he just maybe they were heavy on the makeup this time. I don't know, but he looked maybe maybe he spent the week at the beach that could be California. He could know he could. I'm talking about talk.

About the actual actor that could be, That could be anyway. Alex asks Lock of why he was so thrilled to be dancing around his apartment. Loca says, his beloved grandmother has died and he's happy because she left him something very valuable in her will. And what did she leave him in his will? Father Malone, cocaine for everybody.

Well, no, dude, we're not going. Never mind, never mind, hold on, we're going to bury the lead here. So left them a recipe. She left them cookies and a recipe. Loca claims that people used to come from all around to eat his grandmother's famous cookies.

He received a package in the mail with the recipe and the ingredients, and he has baked some for the cabbies to try. However, in an extended bit of physical comedy, none of them can choke down the chewy, dense cookies. It's really kind of stomach churning, Father Malone. When you see them, they look I don't know what they actually are made of, but they looked kind of like some sort of molasses doey, sticky, chewy cookies. You what are you making?

Okay, Look, they claim they are claiming that these are oatmeal raisin cookies, but they look like moon pies. They look like pressed formed cookies, like the kind you would get in a gas station, in a cellophane wrapper, maybe with a cream in between these two halves of the cookie. Right. But when they bite into them, it's like they're biting into a piece of chaw, you know, It's like it's like they're all round the campfire all of a sudden, because the chewing begins and it never stops. It never ever stops.

And I'm not sure how much of it, how much of it is the actors selling the chewiness, and how much is actually they're chewy, because there's a few moments where it looks really convincing. By any chance, do they happen to give the recipe in the making of book what they're actually chewing on here? Because I would love to know. No, Unfortunately, the Loveiest Book there's no mention, but but i'd love to know, because it's it just looks so disgusting the way they're chewing and chewing and chewing. None of them are having any fun or enjoyment out of this, they're just chewing in an effort to appease Laka.

Basically, it's not getting any smaller. Mine seems to be getting larger. Elane says, they're all sort of like they get this look on their face, like, I mean, I think we've all been at a dinner or maybe even out on a date at dinner and like you have a piece of shrimp or something that's overcooked and it's chewy, and you just don't know. You just keep chewing and chewing, hoping it's going to go down, and it never goes down. This is what they're living in this moment.

Is this something you would hear at legal seafood? Quite often? This is like, Rabbi, are there legal seafoods out there in Las Vegas? Fatherm alone? You know, I have no idea, not that I would go to one.

If there were that chain, Come on, go to A and pop stuff a place if you're going into somewhere in Massachusetts. Well, but here's the thing, isn't doesn't legal seafood have a very good gluten free menu. I would support them if that were the case. I would if I hadn't found a dozen or so mom and pop places that were also gluten free. Who my god, I had I had onion rings along with my meal, along with my fried up fish.

Fantastic. Oh yeah, nice, Well near newbury Port. I found a really great place. I love newberry Port. So Loca is initially hurt by all the caves reaction to this dense, chewy, disgusting cookie, but he's nevertheless determined to make them a success in America.

That is Loca's goal throughout this whole episode. He wants to be a famous cookie magnate, and we'll get into that shortly. Louis at this point, runs in. He's furious that Loca hasn't gotten back to work, even though he's given him a break. Initially, Laca actually gets a little bit of backbone for once.

He turns and tells Louis that he doesn't need this job. He's going to become a famous cookie tycoon, like Famous Amos. You remember Famous Amos cookie? They're still around father below, But do you remember the heyday of famous Amos? I do.

And I was thinking about this because it seems kind of silly, given the wide variety of choices of snacks you can get at your local grocery store, any grocery store, like the cookie aisle is a wash in a variety to choose from. But there was a time where it was basically just stale, crumbly dry cookies. Like the idea of getting a chewy, moist cookie was only available to you if you were going to a bakery. So suddenly, when these boutique cookie places started showing up and started selling in grocery store where it was like this dedicated You're getting like maybe ten cookies per package. But they were all so delicious and soft and fantastic.

But I do remember like a weird like sort of societal pushback at the time and an embracing at the time. It's kind of genius that they have an actual, like a real world cookie tycoon on this show, because it would have been very easy for them to invent a fake cookie like Dandy Andy's famous ooatmeal raisin cookies. But this is I Although I didn't eat them at the time, I don't remember seeing them in the stores when I was a kid. I do remember Famous Amos being this big success story, like a guy who was a self made guy, kind of like a proto Ben and Jerry's. Before there was a Ben and Jerry right.

He was the face of the company. So I thought it was kind of cool in this case that they actually have some real world for similitude to make the episode a little more rich, I thought. For the fictional version and Famous Amos. Check out the movie The Stuff Larry Cohen's filmed The Stuff where Garrett Garrett Morris shows up as a Famous Amos clone in that like fighting against the Stuff at the end one snack corporation versus another. Does he resemble Famous Amos with a hat and everything.

Yes, nice, he's wearing the Hawaiian shirt. He's wearing the Panama hat. I've never seen that, but that makes me want to check it out just to see Garrett Morris. I think he's awesome. Louie and Loka get into this argument and it reaches a fever pitch to the point where they're shouting over each other whether there's this argument about whether Loaka has quit or he's been fired by Louie, and it's very much an over the top kind of comedic argument they're having, and it even Loaka even does the Looney Tunes thing where he kind of sidles over to Louis after Louie thinks the argument's over and he does the reverse psychology thing where he says I'm fired and Loui he says, no, you quit.

So I mean there's a it's very over the top. I think it's kind of silly for this episode, but. I thought that was subtle and funny actually at the very end there. I just I love that Loaka has some like I said, has some backbone, and he's actually talking back to Louis because you never ever see that he's always taking a beating from Louis at every turn. So I like that Laca finally storms out of the garage as we fade into a b roll shot.

It's a shot. It's a still shot of a cab parked on the street while bike riders ride by. Another reason I mentioned it, it's a very unremarkable shot except for one thing fall the blon I wanted to mention to you. The road appears to be half cobblestone with asphalt kind of like swirly. It almost looks like when you see like the water on the beach roll up and kind of like wash over the sand in this irregular pattern.

That's what it looks like. A wave of asphalt has kind of half covered this cobblestone. Was there a time when only part of the streets were cobblestone like in this manner? I don't ever remember seeing this. Well, I think in this case we're talking about New York City here.

I assumed there were portions of cobblestone streets that were just simply paved over, and over time that paving eroded in places. So you're getting these little beautiful patches, as if this civilization is peeking out from underneath the sands of a newer one. I thought it was the reverse was happening, because in Salem, at least, there's still many streets that are still actual cobblestone streets when you get downtown, and it's actually quite pretty. But this was weird. I thought this was a little odd, this shot.

As a bicycle rider. This horrified me, while I could also appreciate its dramatic beauty. Actually, it's rather dangerous just to walk on cobblestone, to tell you the truth, people our age father Malone, twist an ankle. You're out of commission. You know all about that these days.

But you're on the men. You're on the men. So we cut inside the garage where Louis is checking on Jeff. Hey, we got another Jeff sighting. Jeff actually has more of a presence this season, and I'm really here for it, Jeff.

They've put Jeff in Laca's mechanic coveralls and he's kind of gamely trying to finish fixing a cab, and there's a classic bit where Jeff actually has a bunch of parts left over when he's finished with the cab, like we always like comedically, that's something you always see where you know, I'm all done and there's like a piece of the engine still remaining, and you wonder. Does it does seem that every time somebody has to assemble something in a sitcom there will be a bunch of nuts and bolts at the end, like ha ha ha, this is true. Only one time that that was that not the case, and you know what that was father below It comes to mind. Do you recall the episode of Happy Days when the Fawn's got hysterical blindness?

Oh? Yes, and again to put he put his bike back together, Richie disassembled his motorcycle like as a as a you can you can do this, Fawns. It was such a horrifying episode as a child to watch this because because Henry Henry Winkler really sells it. He's blonde. God.

Yeah. And but the Fonzie was was everyone's hero and to see the Fawns struck down. No, the Superman was actually nothing more than a man at that point. This is a guy who went to to toe with with Mork and One. So that was that was a shattering episode for Tom.

Hanks karate Man. He defeated him as well. There were a few episodes of Happy Days where they would they would they would inflict some kind of humiliation on the Fawns just so that he could play possum until he could really give it to the the the bad guys of the day. But anyway, uh, that was a trope you're right though, where some had to be disassembled and they reassemble it. And oh what is this?

I don't understand. He's unsure what to do with this cap. Things are going haywire because Lacke is not there. Side note, we have another Richard Sakai sighting. Did you see Richard Sakai in the background.

He's always eluding me. He's still dressed in his chip's leather cop jacket with the fur collar. He was sort of lurking in the background. Now it doesn't call attention to himself. He's very subtle, but he's there and I noticed him every time.

Jeff admits to Louie at this point that he has no idea what he's doing, but Louie assures him this is only temporary until he finds someone as cheap as the one he fired, which every time. This is like something, you know, like another comedy thing where every time he says fired, everybody in the garage has to yell as one he quit, and that carries through this whole episode. It's weird that the audience like applauds every time. It's not it's not a laugh thing, but they're applauding. Yeah, I didn't notice them applouding, but they're they're definitely having fun with the episode, for sure.

They're new. The first the first time it happens, there's a gale of laughter, and then every subsequent time it's it's polite applause. As Louie walks back to his cage, Tony asks him if he wants one of Laka's cookies. Tony and Alex and Elane are all at the poker table, and now it's festooned with bags of cookies that they're eating Louis angrily. I'm surprised that Louis let them in there, right, because he's so mad about Locha quitting that he fired him and everything and all that.

Nevertheless, there's tons and tons of Lacas cookies. Now are they bringing them with them? Are they going to Locka's house and picking them up, or is he dropping them off? Well, it sounds like they're in the stores now because well, first of all, we'll we'll see later in the episode, Laca is actually feverishly baking because he says he has all these order that he has to fill. I think these things are like it's like you describe, like sometimes you go to the gas station or a convenience store and in addition to the usual Nibisco products, let's say they might have somebody who's a local baker have a little basket of whoopee pies or something like that.

I get the sense that Loca is maybe selling these things on a consignment type basis. Then at the bodega, yeah. Exactly, that makes perfect sense. Bobby comes in and he joins the cabbes and starts eating a cookie out of his bag. He says he's starting to like Loaca's cookies.

Well maybe not like them, he says, but they're fun to chew, and the rest of the bunch of cabbies agree that the cookies are really weird, but they might just catch on. Actually, here's where this confirms what I just said. Alex even says four stores are going to try them out, so they're semi available. I would presume that's where they're buying these cookies, because they bring it a ton of them. Well, he's the thing is though, he does say they're going to so I think they're poised to start being sold.

I think they're just getting them from Laca right now. I think Loaka is selling, not selling them. I think he's giving samples to store, saying, hey, do you want to buy these cookies. Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to get at. And just at that point, Jim comes walking into the garage with the suitcase.

He announces to everybody he's back, which is odd because it implies that he's actually been away from the garage, but we've seen him in just about every episode for the past three or four weeks. I would have expected that if he was off making a movie or something, but he wasn't. I don't know. I guess it's just another chapter in the life of Reverend Jim. But I thought that was a little what interesting.

Well, it's funnier than just hey, guys, what's going on here? I know the fact that he was on vacation for a week in Omaha, Nebraska. True, and he was trying to go to Washington, d C. I think he says, right, yeah, yeah, thumbs, must use the wrong thumb, so he comes in. It's worth noting Father Malone that when Reverend Jim walks in, he gets an enormous round of applause.

He hasn't even done anything. He just says, I'm back. Everybody, Chris Lloyd is the best. Everybody recognizes this. I thought I was so delighted with his the feedback of him just walking in.

He's like the Reverend Jim character of Taxi. Jim comes in, commiserates with the other caves, and then Louis starts giving out the cab assignments. All the cabbys leave. They've all taken their cookie bags, except for Tony, who has left his on the table when he went to start start his shift. Jim sits at the table and starts kind of poking at the bag while he's waiting for his cab assignment.

Jim asks Louis about the cookies, and Louis replies that they were baked by a guy he fired, which prompts another chorus of he quit. Jim opens the bag, takes a big smell, and this might be my favorite part of the whole episode right here. This moment is my most memorable moment of seeing taxi when I was a child. This moment of revenge, of breaking the cookery open and then analyzing it by its parts is what I think of when you when someone says taxi to me, it's it's up there. I'm not going to say it supplants what does a yellow light mean?

But if you're going to compile a list of Jim's best moments, this is for sure top three, this right here. So he he takes a smell and he says that with surprise. He says that these pack a nice little surprise inside. Louis gets curious and he asks what Jim's talking about. Jim says he's detecting an ingredient here that's more powerful than oatmeal.

Louis gets even more intrigued and he asks what's in them? And Jim proceeds to do what you just said. It's a it's a it's a complete forensic comedy bit. He takes a little bit of cookie in his fingers, he crumples it up next to his ear. He's performing all these little diagnostic tests and analysis on these cookies.

He's sniffing it, and he finally he declares that there's coca leaves in the cookies, and Louis is shocked. He says, that's the stuff to make cocaine out of. Jim goes on to elaborate, and this is like it gets really good here, because he goes he starts to describe he's a South America and he takes another big whiff and he says, peru, I believe. And then he keeps going and he's pinpointing exactly when and where the cocaine, the coca leaves that went into this cookie came from. Uh, it is exactly.

I think. He even kind of says, like, you know, it's an impudent little thing and. Yeah, on the western slope, it's had rain, you know, like, yeah. I'm not doing it justice as usual, but it's trust me on this. It's it's a wonderful little bit of comedy from from Christopher.

Lloyd believes like Coca Cola. Everybody remember Coca Cola used to have cocaine in it. Its original slogan was the pepper Upper. Louis clarifies with Jim there's actual drugs in these cookies, and Jim nods, and Louis announces that he's going to do his civic duty. He basically orders Jeff to dial up the cops on the phone.

While he's doing that, Louis asks Jim, what what are the coca leaves do to you? And Jim replies that you chew on him for a while. They give you a feeling of euphoria, increased energy, stamina, strength, and it's also rumored to heighten sexual desires. It also causes you to see beauty in the most repulsive things. Just at that moment, Elaine comes out, she's chewing, she's chewing one of these cookies herself, and she stops when she sees Louie and she starts fondling his ear and touching his ear, and she asks.

She says to Louie, has anyone ever told you that you have the most adorable ear? And Louie gets a creepy smile on his face and then he basically just tells Jeff to tell the cops to scram as we fade the commercial. So now Louie is up to no good come on, as you'd expect, but it's well within character. I mean, what are you gonna do? I know, I know, it's not like we can sort of retroactively say that this is not cool, but it really isn't cool.

The sheer amount of times he tries to trick or bully or threaten her into bed is insane. So we fade back in as Alex entered and seemingly np garage. He's chewing on his own cookie. He looks like that. There's some wonderful little physical comedy from from Judd Harsh also, which I don't think he gets a lot of credit for, but in this case he is.

It's as if he physically can't prevent himself from smiling and giggling, which just describing it makes it sound like every bad impression of of of intoxication that you could imagine. But yeah, he tells it so well, Yeah, if it were inelegantly done, yes, which is most times people on cocaine are portrayed. It's it's too clumsy, it's too much of one thing or another. Clearly Jedhurst has done some cocaine. But there's there's an element also that he brings to this where not only is he feeling these feelings of euphoria and happiness and and mania, but there's there's a there's a an element where you can see that he doesn't know what's happening to him.

He can't figure out why he feels this way, and he's kind of fighting it, kind of losing the battle, but he's kind of wrestling with this thing, and he's not what we're really seeing here. Father Malone is. A few episodes ago, we went through an episode called shut It Down, which involved again Elaine getting blackmailed essentially into going out on a date with Louis. But for most of the episode this happens without Alex's knowledge, so we dubbed him Inspector Rieger because there's all these things happening that he's trying to put two and two together. He's not sure.

He doesn't understand why Elaine is outsick from work and why all this is happening. So here we're seeing the return of Inspector Rieger, and I love Inspector Rieger. I love Alex Rieger when he knows that something is wrong and he can't quite put his finger on it, but he's going to do his damn dist to try and figure it out, you know what I mean. Yeah, but this sends up being like a scanner darkly, that Philip k. Nick novel where Rigor is narking on himself, like it turns out who's who's the kingpin?

Oh it's me shit. Louis walks in, he has champagne in hand, he's looking for a lane. He's just so psychotic. I gotta say, ITHB Like, I know, I know this was a time and a place thing, but like it's so elaborate and so creepy. I don't know.

Maybe I'm just very creep too. In love with Mary lou Henner maybe and protective of her. I don't know. I don't disagree with you here, But but the thing is with that episode also we are and other ones where Louie is involved doing something reprehensible. We've talked about this and we struggled with this, but in the end we agreed that we can't let our modern interpretation of the episode get in the way of how we're gonna grade it or how we're going to appreciate it.

Now, yes, this is all kinds of creepy, the way that Louis is yet again trying to coax or coerce Elaine into something romantic. And I'm putting it very gently there, but at the same time, I mean, this is the character of Louis. This was nineteen eighty one. There's no getting around that, I know. But ordinarily, ordinarily it's just like, hey, do this thing.

No, I'm not doing this thing. You're a creep ah right ahe hey here, it's like she's already drugged and he's like, have some champagne, which, by the way, which by the way, wouldn't do anything that would only even her out. So he's actually doing the wrong thing while trying to do the more wrong thing. Alex asks Louis what he's got there, and Louis gets very furtive and he says nothing, and he rushes into his cage again. Alex is fighting this battle within himself to stop smiling, but he can't help it.

And oh, you're right, you know what? This is great watching Detective Rigger hair like you know, like looking around, like putting it together piece by me. He's like, wait a minute, he mentioned this and this, and it could be this and that. This is really the fullest version of Inspector Rieger that we've ever seen, because through this whole scene, it's about him trying to figure out why is everyone acting so weird? Why am I acting so weird?

What's going on here? And Louis is really the only lifeline that he has to understand what's happening. And Louie's not divulging anything because he's using it for his own crass, disgusting purposes because he knows that these cookies have cocaine in them. How long before Alex Rieger breaks his coffee cup in slow motion three times in a row. When he realizes that there's cocaine.

Alex asks Louis, like I said, if he notices anything strange about him lately? Louis innocently replies nothing. Alex is describing what happened to him last night. He says he's been happy lately and he has all this energy. He said he couldn't fall asleep last night, so he wrote an opera just for fun.

Alex says he's gonna write another one tonight. It was fun. Louis just says, well, to me, it looks like you're in a good mood, and Alex wonders out loud if the others are feeling this way, And at that exact moment, you see Bobby run past the garage doors in the background doing a ballet jump. I'm not sure how else to describe it. There's probably a word for like a it's not a pirouette, but he kind of gracefully does this jump in the background, and to the delight of the audience there, they're eating this up.

It's great. I remember laughing like a fucking lunatic when I was a little kid at the All of the behavior, all of the coke behavior to child like me, was hilarious. Bobby then runs the opposite way with another leap. Alex confused as hey, don't guys, like it's normal, just hey, how're they going? Alex asks what Bobby's doing, and Bobby replied Afternoon of the Fawn, which I guess is part of Swan Lake.

I'm not a very cultured person, but I assume that's what it is. And he does this spinning pure wet off the stage, and again Alex is putting this together in his head, and he stops and he says, there's something really weird going on here. I can't put my finger on it. Elaine walks in, by the way. I don't know if you notice she's wearing like this red satin jacket.

Did I notice she looks like an off brand version of the Pink Ladies from Greece. Oh? No. She reminded me of the many youth gangs across the United States in the early nineteen eighties. By that, I mean groups of teenage girls who would just hang out together and call themselves like the Zephyrs and like you know, put a rainbow on their sleeve.

She's very robotic in her readings we're supposed to I guess this is her in the throes of the euphoria of the cocaine cookies. Louis now sees and he offers her a cookie, and she eagerly accepts because she says she's run out as Inspector Alex looks on. You can really tell which actors have done cocaine by now and which have not. Because clearly Elaine has not, or Mary leu Henter is not. I don't believe marily Lehnter has done it any here at this point, whereas it is clear to me that Judhirsh and Jeff Conaway have.

Elaine declares to Louis that she's had all these incredible perceptions today about the universe. Louis coaxes her into the cage with bags and bags of these cookies and the champagne. I just didn't find Elaine all that funny in this scene, she declares that she has verifiable existence of God as Bobby runs by doing another ballet pose. Yeah. See, that's where it kind of broke down for me, because that's more psychedelic shit what she's talking about.

It's less focused. If she had said, you know what I did last night, I rearranged everything in the art gallery by color, then I would say, oh, yeah, that was that was some cocaine behavior. Yeah. What she's displaying is that she's attracted to gross things, and she's sexually adventurous right now that's what she's supposed to be displaying. I guess some of the euphoria's supposed to be that because she's talking, but she's not.

She's talking really philosophically. She's not euphoric at all. She seems stoned as a pund right, which is not a cocaine thing. Therefore, Mary Lehannah, what are you doing? That makes sense?

But now Inspector Alex is starting to snap out of his reverie. He he says, damn it, there's something wrong here. He says, uh, Bobby Wheeler, No, no, you want to do do you know the line? You want to deliver the line? I just like the line, like what am I doing here on my day off?

Like that? That's the actual realization. He says. Bobby Wheeler is a gazelle. Elaine is in the chamber of horror and weird.

Weirdest of all, he says, I'm standing in the garage on my day off and he only came in, he says, because he wanted more cookies. And that's how he says that. He kind of finally like Dawn's on Marblehead and he goes the cookies. This is Alex's aha, moment, he tells Louie, by the way, I didn't mention this yet. Through this whole episode, Alex has taken to calling Louie lou Did you notice that I did?

Actually, yeah, that's weird, but I guess when he's a bit stone, he goes for the nickname. But I using the more familiar lou. I don't know, it just seemed more realistic to me. Somehow, I just liked it, he says. He's talking to lou He says, lou there's something wrong with these cookies, but Louie creepily asserts that he's being a drip, but Alex knows that they're doing something to these cabbes.

Tony casually walks in. He's chewing on a cookie. Louie says, look at Banta. He's eating a billion of them and he's fine. Tony tells Alex, yeah, I'm fine.

He seems outwardly to be acting completely normal, and Alex starts to shrug it off. Maybe he's, you know, seeing things in aren't there. Tony offers to get Alex some coffee, and then he proceeds to pick up the entire coffee vending machine, which frankly we all know that it's not a real machine. The kind of like wow factor of him picking up this heavy machine was tempered by the fact that I know it's just a piece of prop. You know, it's not real.

If he had shaken it and some coffee came out of there, then I would be somewhat impressed. But he doesn't do that. He just picks it up and moves it a little. Or if he had done something like he that would have been fine. But I think what would have been more impactful is if let's say the phone, like the payphone, starts ringing and off the wall.

Yeah, he picks it up and he's like, oh, you want to talk to Alex, Okay, hold on, and then he rips the thing off of the cement post and brings it over. That to me, because you could have had like pieces of like concrete coming off of it and stuff, it would have looked more prodigious, I think. But regardless, the point is Tony is feeling the the the coca effects of strength, so now Alex really knows there's something going on. We cut to one of those great nighttime b rolls where they actually have Judd Hirsch driving in the cab to sell this idea. Wildly inappropriate because it's first of all, as he's pulling away in the first couple of shots of him, it's he looks so casual, like almost somn ambulance.

Meanwhile, they're doing everything to push the cocaine narrative here bye by the what's it called? The what's that Guy's name? The Joe Jackson theme that we always love James Oh yeah, okay, the Bob yeah, but the Joe Jackson version that that liket Ben that out that version is playing. And then when they got to the cab itself, like driving, it's it's almost step printed, it's almost like sped up a little. So you think it's irresponsible because he's effectively driving under the influence of cocaine.

That's why you think it's a inappropriate. The inappropriate part is showing us a sleepy looking Alex Rieger and expecting us to believe that that's a guy on cocaine. It didn't make sense from a realism point of view. Okay, I could see that too. He's driving at his cab, he's obviously gonna start looking for for the Laca.

We fade into Laca's apartment where this is awesome. It's a wild eyed Laca is muttering to himself in his language as he's he's preparing these cookies. He's taking cookies out of the oven, he's dumping them into this whole row of bags, and he's he's cooking. He's basically it's like an assembly line that he's created for himself. All the while he's just muttering and muttering and he I think we can probably agree, Father Malone.

Not having any direct knowledge, I would assume by your reasoning that Andy Kaufman has done cocaine before, because he is selling it to me front and center as he's doing this. See, if I had the gas, I would say Andy Kaufman had probably done cocaine prior to this performance. Not taxy. He is so good. He's just muttering and cooking and baking and taking things out.

And he then goes to this giant bowl. This bowl is mess if it's like three feet across, and he's mixing up the batter, and we know how chewy it is the batter. I don't know what it's like. This slime, this chocolate colored slime that he's mixing with these two spoons. And you can see the batter kind of like it's like venom from Spider Man.

It's like kind of creeping up these spoons as he's mixing. It is awesome. There's a knock at the door and Alex rushes in and he kind of surveys this whole wild scene that's going on. He tries to talk to Loca, but there's there's absolutely no gap in Loca's mutterings this whole time, so he can't even get a word in edgewise. Loaca's talking about how successful the cookies are, how successful he's going to be, and how he would trade it all back if he could stop talking for one minute.

So clearly Loka is lost control of his himself. Can I just say, I need to double back for one second to the moment where Reverend Jim figures out there's coca leaves, yep, because there's a moment where he effectively mimes snorting cocaine where he got where he sniffs it and then kind of like rushes at his nose a little bit like that, And and you can see Danny DeVito giving him his eye, giving him an eye like, are you you think you're getting away with this kind like it almost seems like he's just pushing because ordinarily I don't think you could have gotten that on the air. Like I think maybe the fact that they're just talking about it in cookie form allowed it as a joke to get through. But you know, there were certain behaviors that television wasn't allowing you to do.

So it's funny you say that, Fathermolane, because in the Lovies book ed Weinberger that we've obviously talked about in relation to the show, he was apparently very adamant about going as far as he could with the cocaine cookie routine as he could. This is something that is Christopher Lloyds quoted specifically in this book saying that he told the censors that this was vital to the joke, the fact that you could push it to your point, making Reverend Jim effectively snorting a cookie as if it was a line of cocaine. The Lovey's book concludes, and I also concur that that's a great mark of a comedy producer that they're willing to take things as far as they could and really push the bounds of the comedy because it wouldn't have been it still would have been a funny episode.

But I love that extra bit of almost like outlaw cachet that they can add to it. So I'm glad you brought that up because I totally agree. Like if if SNL is having trouble with the sensors, I can only imagine what's going on here for primetime. It's that's the thing, this is primetime, and that this whole show is literally predicated on drug humor, which is kind of unprecedented when you think about it. And correct drug humor by the way, because I hate when when a show portrays a drug situation and the effects are completely fucking made up, you know, like you're smoking a joint and then suddenly the room is spinning, and you know they do that on like that seventy show, like where the background would be floating around and stuff.

I'm like, what you have that authenticity kind of underpinning all of this comedy, and it feels true even though it's heightened for comedic purposes, it still feels authentic to what was happening in drug culture at that point. Alex finally breaks in and he tells Loka there's a drug in the cookies. People who have seen Man on the Moon that Jim Carrey Andy Kaufman biopic. There's a whole montage of recreations of Taxi and they recreated this very moment where he tells them there's drug and the cookies and Loka goes no, no, and he licks the battery, goes no. And it's this funny moment because it's almost like Loaka is mocking Alex because like, like, no, shit, there's drugs in this cookie, Like what do you think?

We know from his reaction that that's not the case. But there's still a little bit of an element of that Father Malone and I like that. Yeah, there's always a danger to Loca these days, right, there's always an underpinning of darkness, and I don't know when it crept in, but I'm glad it's there now. It is and it almost feels like I have nothing to base this on, but it almost feels like they're letting a little bit of Andy Kaufman into the character. So he's not like there are moments where Laka will literally talk about like how he's this cute, adorable character, like he's commenting on himself from outside of the character.

But I kind of feel like that's Andy Kaufman in a way trying to push what that character can do. And the darkness is wonderful when it when it happens, and we see that a lot more. Now, can I just say that since now I haven't rewatched Taxi since you know, it's been thirty years effectively, right, So my recollection of this episode is just from what I remember as a kid and this moment, but only because I've seen Man on the Moon half a dozen times. So my thoughts when it comes to this scene. Know Jim Carey performing this moment, so to see Andy Kaufman do it again reminded me how much fucking funnier Andy Kaufman is.

Yeah, unquestionably, I mean that montage and Men on the Moon is good on a purely mechanical level, the fact that they were able to marshal all of those actors back to do these recreations, But it doesn't add anything specifically to the movie, and it only serves to remind you, like you said, how much better the original scenes were and how much better Andy Kaufman was at this. That movie is unfortunate in that it only ever just keeps reminding me that I want to go watch the original material. Which is a pitfall for a lot of biopics of this nature. Right, it's unless it's really good or really creative. It's only the biggest danger is it's just going to make it just going to remind you that the perfect example Saturday Night the movie from last year?

Was it last year or this year? I think it was last year. It was last year. There's all these recreations of little snippets of snl skits here and there. But all it ever makes you want to do, or made me want to do watching it is go seek out those original shows.

You're not seeing somebody's regurgitation of what it was like back then. That to me is it holds true for Man on the Moon, although I will say I think I enjoyed Man on the Moon a little more than you. But I'm willing to admit that you don't learn anything new about any Kaufman. It's just kind of an interesting little museum piece, that's all it really is. Yeah, it's just like a Greatest Hits montage of a movie.

Yeah, alex is Adam and he tells Laca that Jim confirmed that there's coca leaves in the batter. Laca says that must have been the secret ingredient. Now he won't be able to sell his cookies anymore and he'll be ruined. So now he starts pacing maniacally around his apartment, muttering even more crazily. We see on his back wall.

I like this. Actually it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I thought it was funny. Anyway. There's two posters on his back wall of his apartment. There's one actual poster of famous Aim and right to the to the left of that poster is a poster for Grandma Gravis's old fashioned oatmeal cookies.

But it's clearly laka and like an old woman outfit, you know, like oh see on the box. It's a standard joke whenever they would have a female relative and a sifthcom just take whoever the relative is, the guy put him in address. There they are. They're now aunt whoever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Loaca has this great joke about now he knows why his grandmother's cookies were so popular with musicians in my country.

Again, that's at that's a little yeah. I mean again, they're they're kind of pushing that drug humor, and I think it's just it's really really funny. Loaca is continuing to pace. Alex wonders if Laka's grandmother knew that there was a drug in the cookies, and Laca initially he laughs off the accusation, saying that she was a good woman, but then he as Aslaka continues to talk about his grandmother, it thinks, get. All, she just kept making doyleis merry Christmas.

Hair, have another doily. I'll give you doilies, you old bag, and he starts he like. He turns and starts to advance with his fists at this poster of his supposedly of his grandmother. Uh, it's really really it's great. Loca stops the outburst, and Loca wonders what's happened to him.

He he's coming to his senses a little bit, but he's a little bit frightened of what how he's acting. He says, I this is what I was talking about. He says, I used to be such a sweet man. I used to be so cute. You could eat me up.

Alex, who is apparently for all of his foibles about you know, being on cocaine, he's apparently immune to withdrawal himself He tells Loaca that he has to kick it now. He's adamant, we gotta you gotta kick it now. He says, we need to get rid of all these cookies. We gotta shut everything down. Alex warns Loka, this is gonna be a rough night.

Okay, I'll start with this one, and then he starts eating their cookie. That's right, he starts to eat the cookies. Ah. But Alex, it goes on to say, you know, you're going to feel sick. You're going to have delirium hallucinations.

This might be the worst night of your life. But I'll be there with you. But that, to me, this is doesn't make sense because Alex has been eating just as many cookies. Are we to believe that Alex's like rational mind is a barrier protectant against this drug? I think I think Laka has been eating a heroic amount of cookies, and I think the rest of them have casually been eating them, and that it's been getting building up over time the effect of it.

So there's that, But the conceit that he's going to go through the DTS after like a week of being on cocaine, it's kind of crazy. What's going to happen here is he's going to stop doing cocaine and he's going to crash, and then he'll wake up and he'll be fine. Alex goes to find a blanket, and Loaca is lamenting his business failure. He tells Alex, I didn't want to be rich for the same reasons that other men want to be rich, and Alex replies, you mean he didn't want to get rich for the cars, the houses, or the women, And then Loaca says, oh, maybe it was the same reasons. They weirdly snuggle.

The two of them snuggle on the couch under this blanket that Alex has rustled up. Uh, they're gonna go through it together. What do you mean weirdly? No, no, no, it's not weird that they're going through it together. It's weird that they're they're snuggling under this one blanket on the couch like literally shouldered shoulder.

They're touching on the couch. In other words, they're snuggling on this couch under the blanket, and Alex is vowed to keep watch over Loca all night. Laka meanwhile, has the craziest wide eyed glare. He looks so wired and just so crazed. It's it's a great tableau that we're seeing.

We fade out and we're fading back in later in the evening, Alex is now asleep and the wide eyed Latka is still awake. He's twiddling his thumbs at this point. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the real Famous Amos floats from the ceiling down into the apartment. He's in the same pose as his poster. His poster, he's holding a cookie on a finger, like like it's a basketball that he's spinning on his finger, but in this case he's just holding up a finger like I'm number one, and he flows he should.

He should have a cookie on there. Probably he should have like. Like a giant cookie and then and then make a joke of it, like when he gets down there, like oh. Yeah, like I said, I have to impress upon you that this is the real Famous Amos, which makes a lot of sense, because why else would they have so much product placement if they weren't going to have the real guy on there, Like it's Famous Amos. It's pretty you know.

The writer's room was delicious for this week. Cookies for everybody. Loaca reacts with wonder that Famous Amos is. And it's kind of funny that he whenever he responds, whenever he refers to him, it's always as Famous Amos, It's never just Amos. So wouldn't you call weird Al weird Al?

But that? Yeah? I guess so, I guess, I guess we I mean, you know what. It reminds me of B Paul Rudd and the Avengers movie, like here, here's your shield, Captain America. Wouldn't you call him Captain America every time?

Yeah? But I think you'd also agree there's a big difference between Famous Amos and Captain fucking America. Yes there is. But nevertheless, they both have fun names to say. I guess, so, I guess so.

So Amos very loosely says what's happened in Loaca? Amos sets Loaca straight immediately, he says, I'm just a hallucination. I'm all in your mind, Loca. And I have to say, for a non actor, Famous Amos does a pretty good job father Malone. Don't you agree?

I do? Actually, I wonder if maybe they made a mistake in casting Garrett Morris as him in the stuff, and maybe they should have just let Mamos, Amos play that role. He's really good. Amos offers some sympathy for Lord happened with Loca's cookies, and he goes on to say he Amos wants to say. He says this to Locke, says, I want to say, Laka, that fame, fortune, success, all that stuff is overrated.

That the important things in life are the simple things, like the smell of a flower or a sunset. And this is the moment, Father Malone, where you kind of figure there's a crossroads to this episode, like they could go the Sakkarin route, and they could have done that and said like, look, man, it's cool, like you still have your friends, you still have your health, you still have all these things whatever. But they didn't go that route. And this is one of the reasons this is worth a yellow light for me, by the ways, as a little clue as to what's happening later. Oh you too, Okay, continue, Yes.

So he says, I'd love to tell you that the best things in life are these simple things. But then famous Amos says, but I can't. I can't tell you any of that stuff because it's a croc. He says, success is wonderful. I think he even reaches in and gets some cash.

He says, cash is out of sight, Laka, do whatever you can to be successful. In fact, overnight success is even better, Laka. This is the advice that he's giving Loka. I love this. He further encourages Laka try something else, try cupcakes, try illuminum siding, anything to be successful.

And at that point he slaps lacka five and he disappears back the way he came. He vanishes out of site. If Famous Amos. Is gone, Famous Amos Gordon Gecko to the eight long before Wall Street. He did.

This is this is his greed ist good speech. That's exactly what it is, and that's why I love it so much. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about the ramifications in a minute. So Loca says goodbye to Famous Amos, and excitedly he wakes Alex up. He tells Alex he just learned something important about himself that he wants to be richer than anything.

This is Laka telling Alex that this is the revelation that he's had going through the supposed DTS. He wants to make as much money as he can In short, Locha says, I just became an American as he solemnly puts his hand over his heart like he's saluting the flag. That's the end of the episode. Fatherm Alone, Holy shit, what a fucking ending. It is a tragedy of outsized proportions.

Oh my god. They they went for it in this episode and I love it. That's the end of the episode. We're going to talk about yellow lights now. What doesn't yellow light?

Me? Reminder, we score on a range of one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode and five is the best taxi episode. Father Malone, is our custom. We throw it to you first.

What do you give Latkaz cookies? This episode can't be perfect. It almost is four yellow lights. Why is it not perfect? Let me ask, because some of the behaviors prior to this are not as funny or as well observed as things we get later in the episode.

There are some stumbly this is supposed to be funny. We've inserted a joke here, but it doesn't fire. And I know that there are episodes that will begin, middle, and end with everything working, and I'm reserving five yellow lights for those situations. This is as close if we had a half system to be four and a half, if we had a three quarter system four and three quarters. This is not perfect, but it's as close as you can get.

And I hear you, and I while I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, I gave this five yellow lights. Not only is this a Laca centered episode, which to me is is cause for excitement, but it's one of his very best. All of the Cabby's in addition get a little feature, including Louis. Although Louise is a little bit on the creepo side. We agree it's a little problematic, it's a lot problematic, But Inspector Alex is the best that's worth a yellow light alone.

The scene where he's kind of, you know, working through the fog in his mind, it's like it's like Memento. He's trying to figure out who the killer is, right, He's trying to figure out what's going on with everybody. I love. I love the mystery of that. I love the fact that instead of going for the sacarin ending, they end up making Laca a die hard capitalist at the end of this.

Five yellow lights for me. Yeah, you know that cynical ending makes me want to give it a yellow light another one, but I'm giving it. You know what, No, it's four. I'm sticking with four. Sticking with four' that's totally fine.

Four is great. Four yellow lights from Father Malone, five yellow lights from myself. That's going to do it for this episode of night, Mister Walters, Father Malone, Where can the folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? Well, check out my show Midnight Viewing. It is a horror show, I guess.

Every Monday there's a weekly roundup that's me reviewing whatever the late is streaming and horror movies in theaters. And every Friday that's a rotating show where we're either looking at Tales from the Dark Side or some anthology movie or pretty consistently now HP here and myself are looking at John Fusco's where John Fuscuo is a screenwriter, and we were engaged in Fusco Fest where we're looking at his entire are film agraphy. So far we've got Young Guns, Young Guns Too, and Crossroads and Lochness and the Babe and on we go we can see Vigo Mortensen on the horizon. Very exciting it is. Fusco Fest has been wonderful.

I would encourage everybody to check that out. It's a wonderful series within the series if you will, and it's a delight for me. I'm having so much fun with it for myself. You can also find me in other pockets of the weirding Way media galaxy. I host the Noise Junkies music podcast.

I'm also an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Christashute, and I also have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. So that's gonna do it. Thank you so much for listening. Everybody. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, write a review, rate us.

We'd love to hear from you. And speaking of which, you can email me if you want to reach out to HP music Place at gmail dot com. If you loved the episode, if you hated the episode, if you felt indifferent, if you want to tell me what the weather is in your side of the world, please drop me a line. So again, for myself and for Father Malone, thanks again and we'll see you all next time. Think miss