Episode 73 - Of Mice And Tony

Weird media. Nike. Mister Walters can see that guy with it now, he's an actor that I'm a cant driver and 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 as my co host, father Malone, Father Malone, how are you this evening?

I just won twenty three hunds, so I'm doing great. Doing great. Can't get the smile off my. Face, genuine smile. We're talking Taxi Season four, episode nine of Mice and Tony, written by Glenn Charles and Les Charles, The Charles Boys, the Pride of Henderson, Nevada.

Yes, the Chazz Bros. The Jazz Bros. Uh and this is directed by James Burrows. Of course, Hey HP, Yeah. I don't know what your feelings are on miss Lisa Kudreaux.

I think she's brilliant. I think she's a fantastic comic actress. Are you watching the comeback? I am not. My wife did watch were the first couple seasons and she loved it.

Okay, you should probably watch it as a fan of Taxi. In that Jimmy Burrows is a character on the series as Jimmy Burrows. Oh really, because it's all insider entertainment stuff, right. James Burrow's, of course the director of the entirety of Friends. So she plays a character named Valerie Cherish who, in a previous career, not career, but you know, previous incarnation, had starred in a sitcom directed by James Burrow.

So she's constantly pulling pulling him back into her life to direct whatever she's involved with. That. So, James Burrows is guaranteed two or three episodes per season of The Comeback. He's already been on like three episodes this season. Oh but he was on previous episodes as well.

Oh yeah. Every season he shows up for a couple of episodes and says like, Valerie, this is crap. What do we want from me? Here? I will check it out.

Good call. Reminder. We're doing these shows, of course, in broadcast order, not in order of filming. We start unfortunately follow mam alone. We start this episode in the garage.

I know we talked in the last episode about the fact that it's refreshing when they don't start in the garage. But here we are. We're back in the garage, Tony walks in and makes a b line for Alex. Tony announces to Alex that he's got a problem, but kind of interrupts himself in mid chat to ask Alex why when Tony's at the crossroads of his life, why Alex is grinning. He does have a particularly rictuslike grand slap on his face.

It does not feel natural. It reminded me of the the Laca episode where Laka's Cookies, where the cookies had cocaine in them, and at one point Alex comes in and he can't He literally cannot wipe the smile off of his face from eating these cookies. Maybe one wonders maybe that he did he have a few of these cookies left over that he never told anyone about. Maybe he's under the influence of Laka's cookies once again. Did jud Hurst do a lot of blow right before they say that?

Perhaps Tony asks Alex if he's had a good data something, but Alex confesses that he won thirteen hundred dollars. It's a lot of money back. It's a lot of money now, but. It's a lot of it is Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's a lot he won thirteen bills on the football game last night.

But it gets better, gets better. The mere mention of gambling causes Elane to cluck her tongue and. Approach Okay, that's the level of weirdness I want from a Lane, not her being a fucking psychopath forcing people to jump out of airplanes because they're afraid of flying. But then when Alex tells her that he won all of his money from Louis, Elaine immediately changes her tune and she actually blows a kiss to Alex. She's so happy.

It's a good bit. It is. Apparently Louis lost every single game that he bet on, which Tony then declares is a garage record. Elaine asks why Alex made such a big bet, and Alex says was all Louie's idea. Loui's been losing a lot to Alex lately, and I guess he wanted to catch up.

Here's the thing, Father Malone, let me break in for a minute here, Like, there's a lot of gambling that goes on in the garage various configurations, But have you ever in a workplace environment ever. I'm not talking about squares or something for the Super Bowl, like have you ever like bet on, you know, like this kind of thing at a workplace. I've never done that. You know. My mom was a nurse and she used to she used to work at Suffolk Downs his horse racing, okay, and so as a very young child I was I spent a lot of time there at the infirmary with her, and I got to see what a bunch of degenerate, fucking losers there were, you know, throwing all their money away on the ponies, thinking they had some fucking system when they did not.

So No, I've never been I've never been much of a gambler at all. And proof of that is that I've been living in Las Vegas for more than twenty five years now, so and I'm still here and I'm not completely destitute. Wow, twenty five years, it's been that long. Huh, that's crazy. I will second your your your assertion about all the the degenerates to hang around.

I used to before we I drove, I would go in, actually you probably we probably went in a few times, just ourselves, fallom alone. We would get dropped off at Wonderland, the Blue Line, the T station which was part it was it was named for the dog track that was right there, Wonderland. Don't you bad mouths Wonderland. Wonderland, And I was probably like twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old getting dropped off for the day effectively, which it's hard to imagine a parent just doing that to their kids nowadays because parents all are more helicopter parenting types, but myself included, by the way, but I used to see all sorts of odd down on their luck characters coming on and off the train at Wonderland.

So yeah, it was. It was an internice home town. And that's my stop, baby. I had to walk to wonder Land to get there to see all those fucking you know, whinos. There were whinos, that's what it was, you know they It seemed like a big joke on TV, but they were seriously, just fucking straight up alkis staggering around.

Seriously. I remember coming back on the tee inbound to Wonderland and at one point these two guys got on and they looked like if Lenny and Squiggy were all of a sudden twenty years older and about ten more pounds overweight. Yeah, yeah, and that's everybody at fucking Wonderland dog Track. Seriously, like it had like the greaser's haircut. And this was probably like nineteen eighty eight, actually was earlier than that because it was probably pre high school.

Yeah, so you're looking at actual greasers who in the fucking high school went this is the look, baby, and yeah to it for thirty fucking years, good times. Do you know how many times I got mugged on the Blue Line? By the way, Jesus As scares the hell out of me? I was. I was a child.

I can't you know. We probably came close, so was I. Man, I was like sixteen. I was working at Swenson's. And what people like, pull a knife on you or something.

Yeah, No, once it was a knife, and then once there were so many of them that I was just like, here you go. When I handed my wallet over. I don't remember if it was the Blue Line, but I saw a guy get attacked by a group of kids. It was super scary because he this It was just this like Bernie gets looking guy and these kids were all essentially kids, were all on this this this train, and one of them had started to smoke a cigarette. And I don't know why this guy felt emboldened, but he said to the guy Hey, you gotta like, you know, you can't smoke on the car, and they mouthed off to him and he got up to I guess to take it out of his mouth or something, and about four guys just knocked the guy down and they didn't beat him up or anything, but the threat of the violence was heavy in the air.

And the guy got off rightfully so at the next stop and that was it, like it was deffused. But man, that could have been scary. Seven fucking kids will roll up on me. I was just like, whoa, this is just gonna end terribly for me. Here you go, guys, it's a nightmare.

So we talked about Louis. He had been losing a lot of money and he needed to try and catch up. So we then zoom in on the garage entrance. Father alone. Louis Is is hidden.

All you see is his hand kind of snake out from behind the giant door, and I kind of like this bit. He starts throwing pebbles at the cage. Jeff. Jeff is back, he's he's in the cage. He gets his attention with these pebbles, and Jeff goes to see what's going on.

And he goes because Jeff got a line. Yeah, well, he's he's such a wonderfully reliable presence in these shows because he always it's always something funny, and he's so underrated. So he gets yanked behind the door by Louis and then he gets shoved out. Jeff makes an announcement to all the caves if anyone laughs or ridicules Louis, they'll be fired. You agree, and all the cabby's kind of yeah, they agree, and then there's one more announcement.

He gets shoved out one more time, saying you better make sure you agree. Do you agree? Yeah? So then Louie comes out, and of course everybody to a person starts to laugh at him and jeer at him for all these losses and everything. So then Louie runs over to an innocent Jim who's reading the paper by the payphone at the pillar, with a pair of pliers, and he grabs.

I don't know what was happening here, like why why is he hurting poor Jim? It's so sudden and savage. He takes Jim's ear in these pliers, and essentially he says to the cab, He's like, you stop laughing at me or or I'm gonna hurt Jim. I'm going I'm gonna make him a cocker spaniel, he says, or something, and they're like, all right, geez, that's crazy. So then he releases him from the Plyers.

Jim does nothing, by the way, he doesn't even react. Alex asks Louis for the money for the thirteen hundred dollars, but Louis asks if he can go double enoughing on tonight's game. Alex scoffs at Louis, but Louis tries to make a case for this being it's, you know, it's a guy's code. You know, it's that's what guys do. I like this a lot.

Actually his delivery guys code. Come on, guys, there's some good. Louis Lane butts in and he's like, she's not guys. So finally Alex agrees to go double or nothing, so twenty six hundred dollars if if he wins, and he even gives. Alex even gives Louis the option to pick the winner, either Houston or Oakland.

Louis starts off by picking Oakland hands down, and Alex agrees to take Houston. But then it becomes the classic Oh this is does is like reverse psychology. You knew I'd pick Oakland, so you you know, I know I'm going for Houston, riga And then Alex is like, fine, you can take Houston. And then this goes back and forth a few times, and finally Alex just shooes him into his cage. He's done with them or what happened HP.

In any scenario Houston versus anything, you should always pick Houston. You know why is that? I don't know why Number. Eight Jonathan plays for Houston and they can't be beaten. Is this rollerball you're talking about?

Damn right, It's the only sport worth talking about. Once the Louis kerfuffle is over and annoyed, Tony goes back over to Alex to ask if he can talk about his problem now, and Alex apologizes and ask what's up Tony. Tony tells Alex he's finally figured out a replacement for boxing. That's right, everybody, this is If it wasn't obvious from the title of this episode, this is a Tony centric episode, which we don't get a lot of. So anyway, I.

Forgot Yeah, you know, I want to say one thing or another. But you can go either way here. It could be good, it could be bad. This is true. This is true.

So Tony has figured out a replacement for boxing member. He had to. He gave up his license because he's too much of a. Pullukup, took too many hits to the dome. He's gonna try to be a manager, which I think is actually a great idea because he gets him close to the sport without getting injured.

Tony is he and found a great heavyweight prospect at the gym. It's a fighter that even won a bronze medal at the Olympics. Tony thinks that if he can pitch the fighter, well, convince him to go pro, we could go all the way. The problem is Tony's meeting him for lunch and Marios. Of course, classy move Tony, Yeah, don't take out alone and get like an expense account and actually, you know, convince this guy that he should be with you.

No, no, do what you I guess he's being honest, which is I'm just a loser who wants to meet you at Marios in my my off the rack suit. Yeah, but he's only being half honest because he's still trying to he will still try to project power and authority even though we know that he's just excited to manage this guy. Well, he's his only concession at power is putting on that suit, because everything else is Tommy like just jump in and making him look big. That's true. This is this is a very TJ Castronova heavy episode, as we're going to find out.

So anyway, Tony's nervous because he's afraid he won't be taken seriously by by this box er and his pitch. Alex starts by saying, that's silly, Tony, and then Tony takes that as the entirety of his advice because he basically says, you're right, that is silly. Hey, thanks for the advice. Riga, Riga. This is no heavy lifting for Riga in the least.

He just kind of walks away. We fade into a strangely empty Marios. This is even the b roll leading into this Father Malone is weird because we don't see anyone coming in or going out of Marios. Did you notice that about this b roll? Yeah?

I think they that's their attempt at showing new b roll of that Mario. So it's because it's clearly just the fucking footage of the two guys about to run in the door. But they've cut it before any of anything happens. So what we as a transition that last about zero point two five seconds. It's like a subliminal It's like the credits of fucking fight Club.

You just get the impression of Marios as a name, and then suddenly we're into the scene. We cut inside and Tony is as you said, he's in this author act three piece suit. It is a three piece suit. It's a nice brown three piece suit, and he's nervously talking with Tommy. Of course we just talked about TJ Castronova, the Great TJ Castronova.

Tony wants Tommy to treat him like a big shot for the fighter coming into interview with him. So then in walks the fighter prospect named Terry. He's played by classic character actor Ernie Hudson Fuddle the once in future Winston Zetamoor from Ghostbusters. What a welcome site. Who doesn't love Ernie Hudson.

Right particularly young and he's shaved headed here. He looks virile and just like right out of acting school or something. I don't know. He looks great man. He looks amazing, He looks big, he looks tough, he looks but he still has that charm and that warmth's he.

I guess he's I didn't really think about this, but he's been acting since the mid seventies and he's still going strong. He's eighty one years old. Now. Did see the movie Congo? I did not, with Tim Curry.

Yeah, it is really terrible, right, yeah. Ernie Hudson is basically like a like an Alan quatermain type character, and it's just like a soldier of fortune and he's I avoided that movie for twenty some odd years and finally watched it on a lark. And now when I think of Ernie Hudson, I think of that movie because he's so fucking charming and larger than life. And it could have had a career as a matinee idol had they allowed that at this early in his career. He's great.

Every time I happened to randomly catch the crow, be like maybe I have a yen to watch it, or maybe it's on TV. I always forget that he played the police chief and he's really good in it. He's he's very warm, he's very melancholy. He's an advocate for the crow. He's he's a good guy, and I just I he improves.

He's one of those guys that improves anything that he's in. I think graffiti, that's my crow reference. I suppose you would call it graffiti. That's good. Tony brings Terry over to the table and he starts in with his big shot routine.

Tommy is making with the right away, mister Banta, all this stuff to create. Delivers the phone and shit, It's like, yeah, man, that's you would do that. This is like, yeah, some kind of wonderful when when Mary Stuart Masterson Max is the chauffeur, remember that, and she's like, oh, he looks like he's a big shot. Yeah, so so he, like you said, Tommy brings over. He delivers the phone that he says is always at his table when he comes to dine.

There. Tony he took the liberty of ordering both Terry and himself meatball sandwiches, which is. The classiest of meals. You could possibly it's kind of a misstep for a big shot, but you know whatever. Of course, because he's brought the phone over, the phone rings Tony is frozen.

He doesn't know what to do because the call is not going to be for him. We know this, but he fakes his way through the call and then now this is interesting father alone he he then gets off the call and he calls over to Tommy and just to cover for the fact that this is just a pizza delivery order, he says, Tony says, Hey, send a mushroom pizza over to my friend Pantuso on me. This has yet another reference to Pantuso, who we know is going to be a prominent character in of Course Cheers in another couple of years. What's weird is okay? Obviously, the last time we heard pantus it was also a Charles Brothers script.

It was also in relation to Tony because it was his then manager. Oh yeah, so are we to believe that that was Tony's manager happened to call while he was pretending to be a manager himself, and then just to get him off the phone sent over at Piezz'. It's very weird. This is like Sam Ham, the guy who wrote the nineteen eighty nine Batman movie. If you read any of his scripts, he's gonna mention Johnny Gobbs.

He does it in Batman. At the very beginning, the two thieves are talking like, do you hear about Johnny Gobbs? Johnny Gobbs took a walk. Every fucking screenplay, Sam Ham has some character. We'll mention this mythical character of Johnny Gobbs, and that's what's going on here with Ernie Pantuso.

Meanwhile, Johnny Gobbs is probably like some kid that he played baseball with Little League or something. Right, probably somebody hated because he keeps killing him, and each. Of them keeps killing him. In every movie, Tony continues to schmooze with Terry, but eventually, because they're taking these huge bites of this meatball sub, it devolve into the two of them trying to talk with their mouthful. I turned away during this into I just listened, and even listening was grossing me out.

It's a little it's kind of the dark side of ASMR, where it's just two guys just trying to make themselves clear with their mouths full. It's not good. So eventually Terry's got to split and they conclude their meeting, but they still have mouthfuls of sub. But that's it. We fade into Now we fade in Father Alonto.

It a nighttime scene of Times Square, and I'm not sure we've seen this one before. You'll tell me you did it. It leans in. What's featured, I believe is a boss which sort of zooms in and we we've definitely seen that sometime around season one. All right, I mean, I'll go with that.

But but regardless, I did notice in this there's a prominent sign advertising something called Beyond, and it's this giant yellow sign, and I said, what's that? So I looked it up and apparently Father Malone. I don't know if you were aware of this movie, but Wikipedia lists Beyond and Back as a nineteen seventy eight documentary slash deathsploitation flick on the subject of near death experiences. Which means that Bureaule has been sitting around for four or for years exactly. These kinds of documentaries, I think were like Mondo Caine, like you know, these sort of outrageous documentaries were kind of all the rage at that point.

My favorite one is one no one has ever heard of. It's called The Amazing World of Ghosts. No heard of it. It is two hours of stock footage of just groovy visuals and this narrator coming on and making the most outrageous claims about what you know, ancient civilizations were doing with aliens and how aliens have been visiting us the whole time. The amazing world of ghosts.

If you can find it, definitely do yourself a favor and watch that one. Yeah, like a Chariot of the Gods. That was another, Remember that one that was like hugely controversial and I think it was debunked pretty pretty tidally. But anyway, this this movie in particular, was critically panned. Eric that's him.

He wrote books and movies on this subject. Ancient Astronauts, That's what it's all about. Beyond and Back was critically panned, including I look this up. Roger Ebert's review gave it one star and said gives turkeys a bad name. It exists on about the same cinematic level as an army training film or one of those junior high chemistry movies in which the experiments never quite worked.

I don't know about you that it kind of actually makes me want to see the movie now. I think it might be kind of Yeah, man, it's so bad, it's good. Definitely I love all those crazy document Mondo Khane and you know, even of Death, which just got her remake. Everybody yeah, or I mean the Man who Saw Tomorrow kind of fits into that category. I watch that.

It's horrifying, That is scary. That scared the shit out of me as a kid. I think probably you too, Father Malone. Oh my god, I was horrified for years decades. Let's dig up some quad trains.

We'll do him right. Now, quad trains. I'm gonna drink from his skull right now, HP ready, let's see what happens. I might gain his bed. Oh I've been killed.

There was a time, father Blone, when I was a kid that Orson Wells to me was nothing more than a wine pitch man and a guy who was in bad documentaries. I had no idea of the genius of Citizen Kane or the magnificent Anderson's, none of that War. Of the Worlds well. I definitely knew him as the pal Masan, but I think even early on, I kept seeing him as a young man. And you know, my mom is a centophile, so she would always point out, like, you know, if somebody was embarrassing themselves in middle to late age when I was a kid, she would say they were really good at one point and like sort of point me in their direction of their actual good work.

So I had at least a healthy appreciation of Orson Wells, the lazy, old old pitch man and the young sort of wondercund. You know. Yeah, I will say later in life, much later in life, after I'd already seen like Citizen Kane and so forth. The movie of his that knocked me out was F for fake. Fantastic film boy, F for.

Fake Packs a punch. What a great movie. Yeah, his best movie is Touch of Evil, by the way. Yes, that's the one I left off. I would agree with you there, but I F for fake.

To me, you just came out of nowhere, and it's one of those movies that's best left not knowing what it's about going into it, because it really, like I said, really packs a punch. Yeah, there's a game at play, and to ruin that would be a punishable offense. This, this is absolutely true. Nevertheless, we're back in the world of taxi here. So we cut inside of Marios from Times Square, where Louis is yelling at the bar TV about Houston just scoring a touchdown, and Louis goes over to a table.

Can't stop, Jonathan, I'm telling you about. Louis goes over. There's a table where Alex, Elaine, and Jim are all drinking, and Louis is crowing to Alex that Houston only needs three more points. A side note here, Father Blo and I talk. I mentioned we're going to get to this at some point, Elaine.

This is a terrible fashion faux pas on Elaine's part. She appears to be made up as a librarian. She's in this school marmie type of dress. Oh yeah, this holly hobby boat. Yeah, looks terrible.

Remember that arts and crafts movement that sort of happened in the early eighties there for a little while where all these women wearing denim and all these unflattering patterns. But I do remember that now that you mentioned it. It just there is an aesthetic that was not appealing then and it's not appealing now. What was wrong with those women for so long years? But that's that's the that's the aesthetic we're dealing with with with Elane here.

It was occurring at the same time, like that Miami Vice was on television and like they were like this European aesthetic and Neon. Everything was happening, and then there's a whole bunch of people going like Nope, I love Raggedy Ann and Andy. Yeah, shield Shields and Yarnell remember them? Do I remember them? Scary Louis announces that Houston has recovered non sidekick and it is in Oakland Territory.

This seems like a sure thing. There's no way Louie can lose. Elaine scolds Alex for not getting his money when he could have. But Alex is a cool customer. He's not even worried in the least.

It's like he's gonna Garrett Garrett Graham, run around Marios and do every unlucky thing we used cars. I'm gonna sub reference all day long, Age speed. I love it. Here's here's the look we we talk all the time about we did in the last episode, about scenes in taxi that that that don't add anything meaningful to the a plot, but they're there and we really dig them. Now this is this might be the weirdest of the weird I was not prepared for.

Inexplicably, at this point, Loaca walks in, Only it's not lot gay. He's wearing a three piece gray suit with a little watch chain kind of across. He looks like he's the head of the Ministry of silly Walks. He's got a bowler hat on, he's got a cane, and he's got this look. I'll say this, as much as we love Andy Kaufman, we love Latka.

This his English accent here can best be described as shaky. So he has this pseudo English accent. He comes in, he asks Tommy what's on the TV, to which Tommy replies, oh, h lotca, I mean, Sir Jeffrey. So this is it's an accent. It's London via the Catskills basically.

So Sir Jeffrey sits down, he asks for a pint and then asks to change the telly. He says, the Masterpiece theater is doing an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence and that's what he wants to watch. So Tommy tells Sir Jeffrey that Louie's watching the game, but Sir Jeffries says, nonsense. Why would they leave the remote control out on the counter where he drunk and stagger up and go let's watch this instead? He says, nonsense.

Louis will soon fall under the spell of mister Malm. The remote control is on the bar. And now, folks of a certain age will remember that that used to be called the clicker. No no, no, no, no, sir. In Massachusetts we called it the clicker.

I think everywhere else in the United States they just very sanely referred to it as a remote control. I've got no data to support that argument, but I just know that we called it the clicker. What are you doing with that? Kids? Put the clicker down.

I'm watching candlepin bowling. If you put that click, put that clicker down, I swear to God. I understand. The reason it was called the clicker was because it had these buttons that were like very very stiff, kind of like if you have a keyboard that has the click atty clackety keys. It was kind of like that, but very stiff keys.

Here's the thing. We called it a clicker, but an actual clicker you could probably hear all the time they do it in church. Sometimes an actual clicker goes like this, click, click, like that. Oh yes, these remote controls. It was giant plastic buttons that you would have to force down and not not a spring, but like this sort of metal bar inside the thing had to had to make contact and it wasn't a click, It was a chunk like that.

It was like chunk ko chunk, chunk, change in the channels, kut chunk one more chunk. So clicker is kind of a misnomer. Yeah, but that that's the kind of remote control that was on the bar. You can see it very clearly. It's got these giant white buttons like you describe, and if anyone has ever used one of these things, you can already hear the noise and the feeling that you would have when you click this thing.

Sir Jeffrey changes the station, which prompts Louis to do this is like right out of Benny Hilly. He takes the bowler hat off of Sir Jeffrey, he fills it with a full glass of beer. Then he puts the bowler right back on his head. And bomb mom cheerio. I suppose the thing that drives me easy is that anyone in their right mind, like if you if you try to put a hat filled with beer on someone's head, they're gonna go get out of here.

What are you doing? They're gonna gonna back them away with their hand. But because this is a sitcom, Sir Jeffrey just kind of stands there and takes it and kind of blinks and you know, maybe wipes his brow from all the beer streaming down, but he just he just allows it to happen. And I think that's what a bully like pours liquid into it like a pocket. Like they're just standing there, let it happen so that they can swing afterwards.

And like, why would you stand there at all? Just go get the fuck away from me, lunatic. It's just he just sits there and he takes it. What if he brained him with his umbrella, just whack it. Yeah, he should have.

I learned a thing or two in the bowl. Well, you know, Louis throws nuts at Sir Jeffrey and tells him to get out of here, and Sir Jeffrey also like it's like he doesn't know what his exit should be, so he just he he yells back at Louie to get out of here, and then he leaves it while walking out of Marios. It's such a weird site to have Sir Jeffrey just kind of come in and come out with no context. Then I don't know, it's just it's just it's really really bizarre. But father, blaah, what did you think?

Farewell boys, I've fulfilled my contract for the week. I believe I've made my appearance. Now I'll be on my way off to the loop, perhaps the flat the tube. Don't get me wrong, it was a pleasant surprise, but it was just he just kind of comes, he goes, and that's it. Tony walks into Marios alongside Terry.

He introduces him around all the Cabby's. Tony explains that hey, he's he's now Terry's new manager. So I guess Tony's pitch word. Terry's taken him on as his manager. Terry excuses himself asks to talk to Tony for a minute, so Tony goes over.

Terry confides in Tony that he got a call from the syndicate. Done duh, I love it. See. We talked about this over on my show. We were talking about a Lennon Nimoy boxing movie.

You can't have a boxing movie without the Mob. They're coming. At some point. They're gonna show up and they're gonna want to piecee you. Just the name the syndicate, just it conjures up the sinister vibe, right, like these these shady mobsters that are going to like control the fighter and make them take a dive.

Probably. Well, you know, the Syndicate was the name of the first sort of international organized crime that was Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky really Mayor Lansky who they put together. That they connected Chicago and LA and Kansas City and New York so that everyone had knew their territories so you had to start checking with each other before you sort of stepped in. So is that why, like in boxing terms, that the syndicate, that's why? Is that where it derives from this mob connection to the Syndicate?

Well, I mean that was the well known name of the early mob and they certainly had a lot of dealings in the sports world. So it hasn't, as you said, an ominous connotation when you say the syndicate. I mean it would anyway, but it does have a real world analog. Yeah, the Syndicate wants to talk to Terry, and Tony says he cautions him not to because he says the Syndicate is bad for boxing, But Terry already is committed to talk to the syndicate, and Tony reluctantly agrees there's nothing you can do about it. Then we're back to Louie and the football game.

Louis declares that Houston is preparing for an eighteen yard kick. It's nothing, and it'll seal them the it will seal the victory for Louis and he won't owe Rieger any money. And then the kick goes up. It's no good, and then it sends Louis into a rage. He's just lost twenty six hundred dollars we already talked to about thirteen hundred do is a lot of money.

This is crazy, and he's gonna have to sell his ma. This is actually kind of funny because this is this is a little lot of character but appropriate. Jim, apparently taking pity on Louie, walks over to him at the bar and he says, he asks me. I love you this. I love this.

This actually took me by complete surprise because what he starts to propose here is exactly in keeping that something that Jim Ignatowski would do. He would do it. And we know that Jim comes from money. His father's rich, and he supported him all this time. So so Jim goes over and asks Louis if he'd feel better if he gave Louie the twenty six hundred dollars to settle it dead, and and Louie brightens immediately and says, yeah, I would.

But then Jim just throws it back in Louie's face and says, too bad, I don't have it. Ha ha, and he, like, you know, like kind of bops back to the table, like, look what I just did with Louie. This is all payback father alone for Louis pulling his ear with the pliers earlier. What we thought was just this little throwaway, weird moment actually paid off in this scene. I love that.

I thought that was really really smart. Jim didn't forget. Jim never forgets. He may seem attled, but he knows what's going on ultimately. But your point is a good one that normally that's exactly the kind of thing that Jim would do innocently try to make him feel better.

I actually had the thought, please don't just fucking let him off the hook here, because, as you just said, it could earlier seasons they might have had an awh moment here where Jim saves the day, and then they'll make some crash joke at his expense. Yeah not now. So then we fade back in to b roll of a giant sign that says Circle Arena fights tonight. Try as I might, father alone, I couldn't find any info on a Circle Arena in New York? Do you know anything about this?

By any change? No? But I noticed that that playbill was was printed in Spanish, so it might not have even been in America. Oh you think, so, okay, that's interesting. I did not know.

I was going to look it up too, and then I thought, are you really going to look up I did the fight night the card. I'm curious because we know that Tony has fought at Madison Square Garden. He's got some big fights. This this fighter, Terry is a is a bronze medalist from the Olympics, so we would get a pretty decent venue, I would think, But Circle Arena I've never heard of. I'm just saying, whatever prop they used for that, or whatever bit of b roll they used, it might not have even been New York.

I mean that makes sense. So we cut inside the boxer's dressing room. Tony is getting Terry ready for his fight. Tony is asking Terry about the but I hate the fact that it's Tony and Terry. It's such an annoying bit of alliteration.

It's I'm just now noticing it. Anyway, Tony asks about the syndicate, and it sounds like they took Terry out for a real swanky lunch, much swankier than going to Marios for meatball subs. It sounds like they didn't even have menus. Some guy just came up and told you what they had, low class. Terry reinforces the notion that he's already got a manager and he's uninterested.

But Terry did give the syndicate permission. He gave him tickets to come and see the fight tonight. So at that point Alex enters and tells him they have ten minutes before the fight. Alex is going to help them. He's going to be Terry's second.

I guess he's just helping him, you know, be a corner man for the. Fight, like he did many times for Tony. He did, he actually did that a lot for Tony. Then Louis shows up. He barges his way into the to the locker room, much to Tony and Alex's chagrin.

Louis asks Tony how it's going. Tony admits that he started to think that it wasn't gonna happen for him, maybe he was never gonna amount to anything. But Terry is giving him a new lease on boxing success and he feels like he's really gonna make it. And that's good enough for Louie, who immediately turns to Riga and says, I want to put money on the opponent, and I'm putting money against Terry Double or Nothing again. Now we're up to fifty two hundred smackers that Terry is going to lose the fight.

Alex, without much hesitation, confidently takes the bet and he maintains that now he's gonna make You're gonna pay up, Louie. There's no more double or nothing after this. So then Tony and Alex leave for the ring. Then we cut to the inside of the ring for the Blane Hudson. Ernie Hudson is jacked.

The guy is big and muscular. He looks every bit the heavyweight boxer that he's supposed to be. In this I was really shocked at how good, what good shape he was in for this. It made me wish he fought Tony. Like a Rocky thing where they behind closed doors.

Yeah yeah, yeah, just as a farewell thing. Maybe then we can watch Ernie Hudson punch out Tony Banta. He's well, he would. He would have had Tony on height and reach and probably power. So I don't know that Tony had much of a chance in that fight exactly.

We needed to see that. The fight starts and within the first round, within like a minute and a half, Terry knocks out his opponent. Tony is jubilant, he jumps into the ring, he's he's ecstatic. I mean, this is his dream, this is everything that he has hoped would happen, right, this is his lifeline back to boxing. And you know what, he did talk this guy into going pro.

Like this wasn't just he showed up and said, let me manage you. It was like he there was conjoling. He acted like an actual professional. Look, he may not have been a good boxer, but he knows the business and he knows what it takes to win. So I gotta hand I agree with you.

I got to hand it to Tony that this might be just the niche that is going to work for him. You know, I could see. I actually am enjoying that part of it so much that I didn't even notice that it was an aspirational episode. That's true. This is, in fact another aspirational episode.

The nice thing about this though, and we're getting to the ending, we'll get there, But this is one of those aspirational episodes where it all kind of works out in the end. We've seen so many where the dream is eventually just ripped out of the person's grasp at the last minute, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, But in this case, things kind of work out okay for both of them really when you think about it. So we cut into the locker room. We're in the midst of Alex and TONI celebrating with Terry. There's this ominous knock at the door and the syndicate asks to speak with Terry, and it kind of like chills everybody out immediately, and Alex lets them in.

But instead of seeing a bunch of mob go uns file in Father Blone, it's a bunch of lanky white dudes all in three piece suits. Are these the writers? I was wondering they some of them are. I figured they had to be Whoever that last guy is, the anesthesiologist has to be a writer. I don't know exactly who is what, but I know we've talked about Ian Praser and Howard Gilbertz.

They are two of the men who comprise the syndicate. Become in. Tony as shocked because I think, like us, he was expecting a bunch of mob goons to come in. The representative for the syndicate explains that they're a medical corporation. They're just looking for investments.

They're all doctors. There's one guys and obstetrics one guys and anesthesiologists. They're all they're basically like you know, geeky white guys who want in. Yeah, this is common where these medical professionals would have a lot of extra money and you got to do something with it other than just give it to the government, So you invest it somehow. This is how Sam Raimi has a career.

U Campbell always used to say, I remember back on the circuit in the eighties and nineties, when people would say how do I get into the industry, he would say, get a script, get a short film, and go find yourself some dentists who have some extra money to spend that they they're willing to get rid of. That's how you that. So this makes total sense to me that it's a bunch of guys who are like, well, we've got too much money and we want to feel like we're in the game. That's exactly what's happening here. The syndicate insists they're not trying to take advantage of anybody, and in fact, they offer Terry a ninety ten split in Terry's favor.

All they want is front row seats, They want a tax break, and they want to They say they want a chance to delude themselves that they're part of the sports scene. And not only is he getting a ninety ten split, he's getting a per diem and he's getting a room in. Board, he's getting a place to live, he's getting good training facilities, he's getting everything. Despite all of this, Terry still isn't sure and he defers to to Tony, who, in the face of all of this good fortune it really has no choice but to advise Terry to go for the deal because he knows and he says this to Terry that look, if you stuck with me, it would just be a lot of hard scrabble staying in crappy motels. And you know, these guys are going to get you where you want to go.

They seem to be have your best interests at heart. And he tells Terry, look, you deserve better than me. So he makes the tough decision to go with the syndicate. But then the syndicate rep does offer to make it good by Tony by buying out his contract for five thousand dollars, which Tony agrees to immediately. Of course, he was about to get nothing and they didn't have to give him a dime.

Five grand for his trouble. That's fantastic. Do you remember, do you recall that there was a guy who actually put the Spice Girls together and got them auditions and stuff, and then somebody else just swooped in and went, you don't have a contract, I will take it and just walked away with the band. So to get anything, and this is you know, and certainly for Tony the five grand is a ton of fucking money. For him, it was confirmed that he can do this and he has a future in it, and he was paid handsomely for it.

So this is the best kind of aspirational episode, because everything prior to this aspirational episodes tend to be how can I get out of this garage? This isn't about him getting out of the garage. This is about just him improving his life, which he does. You can win and not leave the fucking occupation. Tony has taken more than his share of lumps from the two of us over the course of four seasons of doing this podcast.

I applaud him in this. I'm rooting for Tony here. I think it's it's sensible. The planning comes up with makes sense, and he's successful, so you know, why not get something for himself for his trouble. Louis comes in to pay his debt to Alex Louis.

I love this because Louis basically like takes every bill and kind of crumples it up and throws it at Alex and says, like, die die every bill die. I want you to die. Die. He's so pissed. I mean I would be too if I lost all this money for all this stupid bet.

Louis leaves as we fade the commercial. But here's the thing. We fade back in for an honest to goodness button on this episode, I feel like it's been forever father alone since we actually got a button to. The episode usually kind of ends in a very somber way or just goes from the last scene to nothing. But anyway, they're still in the locker room.

Tony is reassuring Terry that he made the right decision and going with the syndicate, he says. Tony says, all he needs is ringside seats to all his fights, including the title, and they hug is Terry leaves for greener pastors. And now Alex and Tony are marveling over the ten grand that they have between the two of them, and Alex says, look, we should get the greatest meal of our lives. Where should we go? And where does Tony suggest they go?

Alone? Fucking Marios? He wants to go to Marios, and then Alex kind of. Like done it in any way, I'm sorry, I saw the state of those meatball sandwiches. Yeah, there's there's not a lot of meatball in the meatball sub Let.

Me tell you something, I've got a gluten thing and I didn't for most of my life, so I know the joys of a meatball sandwich and every meatball sandwich I see now I'm envious and makes me want to eat it immediately. And this didn't so double the shame on you, Tony Banta for going back to this place. You're a bad Italian. There must be what fifteen restaurants within I don't know, three blocks of Marios that would put Marios to shame. I don't know.

Anyway, that's that's the the There has. To be at least one Raise Pizza or original Rays or super duper original Rays within spitting distance. But anyway, Alex says, perfect and they leave as we close the episode. That's it for this episode. Now we're going to talk about yellow lights, Father Malone.

What doesn't yellow light mean? It's a remindered everybody. We score on one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode, five is the best taxi episode. As is our custom, We're going to kick it to you, Father Malone, to give us your rating.

What do you give of Mice and Tony? I give this one four yellow lights. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It made me reappreciate things about Tony Banta that I haven't seen in some time. Because there was a time very early on where Tony couldn't really do any wrong.

In my eyes, those were in the Carver days, mainly where Carver was Carver was filling the total idiot slot, and Tony could be like a lunkhead, but he wasn't. He wasn't irredeemable, and he's very redeemable here. So I had a good time with that, had a good time with the plot. I like to watch Louis twisting in the windlaca Is costing it a light, I think with his weirdness, and it's not even that good a performance, but you know, I liked it mainly. I'm with you on that.

I was all prepared to give it three yellow lights, but I did bump it up to four, and for a couple of reasons. Now, Tony centric episodes, as we said, are relatively rare, but this one's actually very decent. It is aspirational, but at least Tony isn't completely screwed by the end, he gets something for his troubles, and that's great. We can leave feeling pretty good about Tony. You know what, even if he got nothing right, even if even if it was just the idea that he could continue to do this.

It's better than every other aspirational episode because by necessity he can't win, he can't become a professional boxer, so we have to watch him get the shit kicked out of him before. So this is the way you do it, Tony, aspirational episod. That's a good point. And I think I liked the Sir Jeffrey bit better than you. In fact, I know I did.

Look, it's not it's no one's idea of Kaufman's best performance, but there's something about how he goes about it that you can tell he's not taking it very seriously as an actor, and that makes me kind of appreciated on a on a very you know, silly level in this case. So I gave it four yellow lights. You gave it for yellow lights. Once again, we we we match where we're we're very consistent here this sort of midpoint of season four. That's going to do it for this episode of night, Mister Walters, Father Blone, where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage?

Oh, I do a show called Midnight Viewing every Friday. It's Father Balloone's weekly round up where I look at things that are new in streaming and at the cinema, and every Monday it's either a horror anthology television series or a fest fests I do with HB. Here we the Predator, We've we've worked for Starfleet and coming up soon will be uh, we'll be battling superheroes on the way to Von Doom and our Von Doomfest Doomsday. I guess is what the what we're what we're on a way to, but it's Von Doomfest, So check that out. Run a Path to Doomsday and it's it's very exciting.

But yeah, anybody who likes Star Trek, likes Predator, likes like sci fi, likes horror. There's something for everybody on Father Malone's midnight viewing channel, so please check that out. As for myself, I host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I also have a bandcampsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Please visit there if you wish to thanks again for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review or rate us.

We'd love to hear from you and and pursue it to that. The email address is Hpmusicplace at gmail dot com for fatherm alone myself. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you all next time. Thank mister Walders