Episode 78 - Tony's Lady

Media. You see that guy with it, he's an actor a phone. And they only can't driver. In his place. Good evening and welcome tonight mister Walters a taxi podcast.

I'm HP your co host and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? HP? I'm gonna break your face? That phrase, I don't know why it makes me laugh so much, like it to break someone's face.

It just seems, I don't know, there's something about that turn of a phrase that amuses. Me, and other angry face related phrases. I have a friend who calls everyone fuck face when they're really angry, and it makes me laugh so fucking hard. See but that to me feel I mean, I don't know this person, but on first glance, it kind of makes me feel like that's something that Randal from Clerks might say to everybody that he meets. I could see that.

Well. I think there isn't a bit of profanity that Randall wouldn't say, so kind of catch all by throwing him in the mix. True and Father Malone and I went to high school with someone who was fond of calling people futsfaces. I'm sure he probably remembers that as well. Boy, okay, Commander.

A little inside humor for you. So we're talking Taxi Season four, episode fourteen, Tony's Lady. This was written by ken Eston. Once again, it's not directed by James Burrows. It's directed by Michael Zinberg, which I think will be a problem, is it.

I disagree with you. I think the direction here is above par. In fact, I wrote down while watching it, Wow, James Burrow's really upping his game with this episode. I shouldn't come off so negatively. I'm just used to think your Burrows being like the creme de la creme.

But let's tag into this. Let's see. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. Then let me tell you at the outset, because it's it's right here in the opening scene. This is where I first sort of like sat up the They have the the bay doors open, both bought bay doors open, and there's a cab sitting there where ordinarily there isn't one, right m So we can see out beyond to those white doors behind them, and now there is a scrim showing us a shadow of a skylight on that wall for the first time, So now we know that if you walk start walking into the garage, you walk through a room with a skylight before you enter the garage proper.

It's the first time we've ever seen that on the show. You're absolutely right, that's a good call fa them alone, to leave it to you to notice these details that elude me. I'm glad that you called me on that because it was kind of a life comment. And I'm curious what your thoughts are on the rest of the episode now, so as I always am reminder everybody, we're doing these shows in broadcast order, not in order of filming. Of course, we start in the garage.

Alex walks in and tells Elaine that he just passed Laka on the way in, and guess who he is today. That's right, Father Malone. They're dragging out Vic Ferrari. Oh no, but here's the thing, HP And they said, here's a hint. He's wearing savage leather.

And I said, oh my god, is Vic Ferrari coming? See I I did not. I did not greet that news with any real anticipation because I feel like they just trot him out. He's sort of tired at this point. You're getting the same wrote jokes.

I don't really think Nope, incorrect. I'm tired of it. I think in the last episode we had Vic Ferrari, which was the aerobics episode, and he was he wasn't really vic Ferrari there. He was just all annoying, like I think Vic for there's a balance of annoying and actually very funny about Vic Ferrari's whole persona that was off in that one. It's it's on display here.

I love Vic Ferrari in this episode. I feel like they're just kind of treading water until we get Simca, which is we're on the precipice of having Simca join, and once Simca is there, all of this personality disorder stuff, it's all gone, Like. They all fall in love with her. That's why, Well, they don't have to rely on the stick of Kaufman doing these uh these personalities, these multiple personalities. I like the fact that it just the character gets grounded in a very authentic way once the love of his life joins the show and we don't have to resort to these I think I think of Vic is almost a gimmick at this point.

Maybe funny, but. Vick kind of Vic was always gimmick, and it just depends on the level of whether or not he's really on as a performer here, and I think this performance he's giving is great. Man when he like he gets up in Alex's face just and he like peels those blue eyes back, and oh, I love Vic Ferrari. Like we never seen a like like aggressive Vic Ferrari. He gets real mad here in a moment.

They set up a fun little B plot with Vic and Locas. This is my favorite B plot in Ages. There's no argument there, but but mainly because the B plots for the last run of episodes has been so poor, so maybe a low bar to get over. But there are some genuinely funny moments and it's interesting what they do here. So Vic comes in, he's doing all the Vic stick, he's doing air guitar, he's bopping his way in, he grooven.

He walks up to a cab and he declares that he's bummed out. It's a cab with the hood open, and he Vic tells Alex that he's sick and tired of Laka leaving his work area a mess, and he asks Alex to talk to Laca and get into I. Should I have to do my work and his work. Well, yeah, kind of. So I I like where they're going here, But I again, I think this is as far as you can take the Vic character.

I think I'm done after this. The idea that he's having this remote battle with one of his own personalities is amusing. At that point, Tony runs in. He's exclaiming to everybody he's got a new job. It's part time, it's a couple times a week.

Tony declares that he's doing it as a change of pace because he's tired of driving people around day in and day out all week. And what's Tony's new job? Father Malone vaudeville performer. Show for vaudeville. Uh, no, he's he he's That took me a second.

No, he's as you said, he's the chauffeur. So Tony tells Elane that he hasn't met his fair yet. But she's named Longworth. Apparently, I guess he was hired by a woman to be her personal driver. Then Loca walks in from the back and we can we can see that.

When Loca comes back here, I did think, oh, I've missed Loca. Aside from the last episode, I can remember him in was the Bobby doesn't live here anymore where he's got the stupid runner joke about what he's going to give Bobby a gift before he leaves. He wasn't very good there. But but we're kind of I like this Loca. Actually I agree, because we get Loca with like a real doll up of sarcasm.

Because what happens is he goes over to the uh. He goes over, he comes out from the back and Alex gives him the message from Vic, and Loca makes this big like he Loca's like, oh, then, you know what, let's look at this engine, shall we? And he opens the thing. It's like, what do you see, Alex? Like, this is a side of Locker we never see because he's always been so meek and so sort of submissive.

We see it sometimes, and you know what, we've seen it enough that we've always pointed out how much we like this version of Laka, the sort of with it together version of Lakka. We get the impression that he's been kind of battling back and forth with Vic a little bit here here and there. So but he opens up the hood and he's like, Alex, what are you seeing here, Alex, Well, I see a lot of grease and a lot of oil. Yeah. Well, you guess what.

It's an engine, You're going to get a lot of grease and oil. So he gives Alex a message back to Vic and I do like when Andy Coffin does this stuff. He I guess we're supposed to believe it's like an old world insult where he grabs his right ear with his hand and he kind of like, eh, like, he sort of does this, he shoves the ear forward. Well, yeah, like he swings his elbow forward like he's at least like one of those sprinkler heads that pop out of the ground. Right.

I don't really, I can't say I know what the insult means, but it's I got a good chuckle out of it. It's some form of insult. Maybe it's a real one. Maybe it's one that they made up from Laca's home country, but it's funny. So now we fade in to a fancy car.

It's a limo where Tony is in the front seat. He's dressed as a chauffeur. He's got the little black hat. He's got a black suit on and a gorgeous woman glides into the back seat. This is Christina Longworth.

She's played by an actress named Rebecca Holden. She was absolutely stunning. I remember her best as April in night Rider. They replaced like like, I don't remember who the first actress was. She was fine, but they obviously brought in Rebecca Holden because she's just beautiful and charming.

Charming too. She's the effortlessly charming. Yeah. I don't want to I don't want to sell Yeah her her her ability short because she she does very well. I could have sworn Father Malone that she was on a nighttime soap like Dallas or Falcon Crest or something like that, because but surprisingly she wasn't.

But she has that beauty that I thought they always looked for in those kinds of shows. Well, the here's what I remember Rebecca Holden from I don't talk about this show very often because I think most of it was garbage. But Three's Company had an episode where Larry and Jack Tripper fall in love with the same girl, a girl named Bunny, and they both don't know that they're dating the same girl and at the same at The other plot going on is Jack has gotten a job as a mannequin in a storefront window, but like as a but he's a mechanical one, so he's he's got a cane, like and he's turning to like one set of luggage and like like waving his cane at it, and then turning to like some other product and waving his cane at it.

And he sees Larry and Bunny out on a date and he starts like smashing the shit out of the luggage and whatever other products he's supposed to be selling. And as a child, it made me laugh so fucking hard that it's the only Three Company episode I've returned to. And anyway, Bunny was played by Rebecca Holden in that episode. Wow, amazing recall on you follow. I'm gonna have to see if I can find that episode on YouTube.

As much as one can can bag on a show like Three's Company, because it was really all about TNA. John Ritter was was genuinely funny in that show. Really, he's a physical genius Kamatically, it's fantastic, And I loved the ropers when they were on it. I thought Norman Fell always made me laugh when he'd do the aside to the camera and insult his wife. It was just it was.

It was in retrospect, it was a fairly harmless show. But anyway, she was Rebecca Holden, and I know, I think she's still around acting and so forth. But at the time she was very much in the mold of an actress, like a Morgan Fairchild, somebody who looked so beautiful that it was it almost like hurt to look at them because they just look perfect. Right, Morgan Heather Lockley is the same thing you could almost you could put like Linda Evans to a lesser degree in the same. Category, much lesser degree.

Yes, he qualified much lesser degree. So Tony is where we all were. He's thunderstruck by her beauty to the degree that it takes him far too long to start the car and start moving, and but she's very gentle and sweet with him. Christina puts Tony and Eddie's almost immediately and they start to drive, and they're making some small talkers or they're driving around. Tony is is acting very overeager in his zeal to please this woman.

And we fade back in as Tony is now waiting outside in the car. She's in the Governor's mansion going to some fancy party. He's actually talking on the Carrs carphone, like Tony's actually talking on a car phone to Alex, which is I mean, I know that, like Elvis had the very first carphone ever ever put into use, so they've been around forever, but it was still I mean, and it's this is a fake. It's not a real carphone that they have and talking on. It's just a phone that they put in.

But it's still interesting to think that even back in nineteen eighty two we had such a We didn't have cell phones yet, but we had carphones, so that was kind of interesting. Yeah, it was not unexpected when he was talking on that carphone. I mean, it's a Rolls Royce. He's driving, for God's sake. By the way, a couple couple quick things.

We got new b roll for the first time in for fucking ever, probably the first time this season where they filmed the Rolls Royce like at the curb and then driving away and then driving down streets and my own my they definitely filmed it in Los Angeles. It's the other thing is the A couple of lines in this episode actually made me laugh out loud. One of them we skipped, which was when Tony comes in and says I got a new job. Louis says, what do they get? What are you?

A door to door simpleton? That made me laugh really hard. Door to door Simpleton. I glide over these oftentimes because I can't do them justice. Maybe I should just give them to you, But I also don't want to bog down these synopsis too much with my bad attempts at humor.

But yeah, I agree. With you, But occasionally a joke is so fucking funny that I'd like. I don't find myself laughing out loud while watching a television show. Often it's totally fair. I totally agree with you there.

So he's talking with Alex and finally he gets off the phone. Christina and this sort of big blonde guy get into the car, and the guy whose name is Doug starts to get fresh with Christina and she doesn't want any part of it. And Tony first starts to cough and try to make his presence known as he's driving, and Doug warns Tony to my and his business and drive the car. Tony counters he He warns Doug to stop being rude, or I'll ask him to leave. What if I don't want to leave?

What are you going to do? Then it gets into a bit of a you know, they start to kind of square off against each other as they're driving and Tony so Doug says, yeah, what are you gonna do about it? Basically? And Tony says, well, I'll have to. I'll break your face if you don't stop.

And now Doug, instead of doing the right thing, which is like, look, this guy is from the streets. He could probably kill me, he says, all right, you know what, pull over and we'll see who's who's the big man here. And HP At this point I felt a surge of bloodlust unlike anything I've ever felt, and I wanted to watch Tony decimate this fucking TOWRP. And you know he could have. I mean, it's Tony.

One punch and this fucking thing was gonna fold like a bad suit. But actually Tony finds a better solution to this. He pulls over and he says, oh, you stop out, saw, I'll be right behind you or whatever. So the guy gets out, and of course Tony sees an easy way to diffuse the situation he burns rubber and he leaves the guy on the side of the road, which I thought was very smart of him to do. That, absolutely, and I think I would have appreciated that had it been Alex or Reverend Jim.

But it was Tony Banta who should have just raised his fist while that guy was facing forward and talking to him and knocked him the fuck out in the cab. In the car, I agree. We should have seen some glimmer of that animal savagery that we know Tony is capable of. He didn't have to like bloody the guy and leave him for dead, but he could have defended this woman by showing him, showing her a feed of strength that only Tony could accomplish. Right.

Yeah, look, I'm no fan of violence, and I don't advocate it. But if I was a trained boxer and some funny dickhead was telling me to like know, to like to know my place, basically, i'd wreck that motherfucker. Should have seen something, but he went. You know, it was probably the more discreet appropriate thing for him to do, so well, it's. The thing to sort of set up a romance with this with this girl, Like he didn't get all fucked up.

Yeah, you know, didn't didn't show the animal side of her. But at the same time that might have been an attraction. Here's the thing where this ends up. He should have done it because it would have at least guaranteed him a night with her. It would have made more of an impression.

Like him walking back to the car and his knuckles are bloodied from you know, beating this guy. Without his knuckles are bloody with the other guy's blood. That's what I'm saying, contest, Yeah, like. That's what I mean. Like he it would have been like slick with his opponent's blood.

I think it would just be one punch, honestly, Like he would just knock the fucking guy out and then he'd crumple to the ground and he'd get back in the cabin go be like you know, one two thing Like. Yeah, Tony speeds away and Christina marvels at how he handled the situation, and she says something to the effect that like, what would you have done if you had gotten out and this guy would have He's so much bigger than you. And Tony basically starts to tell her about his experiences as a boxer, and this completely transfixes her and she she's listening to these stories that he's telling about this fight or that bout or whatever. She's in the front seat drinking from a soda cup. Yeah, they've they've at some point we fade out and back in, and they've they've clearly gone to like a McDonald's or something, because they're both now in the front seat and he's regaling her with stories.

It's it's funny because she's eating this up so much that Tony says, like, how about that. You know, all these years of boxing paid off. I have amusing anecdotes like he's he's really getting along well with this woman Christina and starting to develop some feelings for her. And then we fade out, we fade back in. This time we're back in the garage.

Now we have we have another bit here with the Withlaca. Loaca is once again dealing that this is bizarre, you have to admit. Loaka walks over to this same cab and he opens the hood and two things happened. First of all, there's a sign that's only revealed when the trunk is open that says clean up your act. But along with that, do you remember as kids there was a magic trick where it looked like it was supposed to be a can of peanut brittle and you shake it, oh, peanut brittle, and then you don't remember.

Of course, all you needed to say was can of peanut bril snakes in the can, baby, that's. Right, the snake would pop out. Oh it was a great trick. Well, four of those peanut brittle snakes jump out of the cab when he opens the hood, and uh, and that infuriates Laka and it's clear that this this rivalry with a. Little explosive goes off as well.

And his sandwich gets hal covered in oil and he says it was almost ruined, and then he goes to bite into it. It is disgusting, like he's the scene started with him nibbling on this sandwich for his lunch break and it gets doused half in this thing of oil. It's black. It looks disgusting. So meanwhile, Tony is skulking around the garage and Alex asks, why are you still moping about this woman, Christina.

Tony's bothered because he says the time that he's spending with Christina, they're the best dates that he's ever had. But they're not really dates. And Alex says to Tony just ask her out, like what are you waiting for? But Tony is afraid that she's only going to think of him as a chauffeur and nothing else. And we kind of begin this.

This scene begins basically, you know, we're gonna we're starting to see Alex and now Elaine. They're gonna give him romantic counsel. Yeah, like we got nothing better to do this afternoon. Yeah, we're just sitting around. We're not working or anything.

We're just we're just hanging around the garage. Let's talk him into this impossible situation that he will never benefit from. Maybe think of it that way, Like they knew he was they knew he was falling for her, and they were like, you know what, we should totally encourage this. Yeah, let's let's fuck up in this situation to the let's really fuck him up. They're going back and forth about what he should do.

And this is the other big laugh I had where Reverend Jim was like, take her to my place. I'm having a luau. I don't know what time. He's like, I don't care, I'm always having a luau. Basically, Alex and Elane, like I said, are counseling him about what he should and shouldn't do, and Tony's afraid of pursuing it as a like he relates it to boxing, Like, look, I pursued boxing, and it was it was a long shot.

And I feel like the. Very lucid moment of Tony Banta I was his side here, you know. Yeah. In fact, I gotta say HP when I saw the title of the episode come up, I thought, oh man, we've got to fucking do with a bant episode now, and I changed my mind. I think he's really good here.

His solo episodes tend to be pretty charming on their own. There's some of the best, honestly, looking back now, like like, I don't really have a problem with any of Tony's solo episodes. I will counter that with Tony and Brian. That was a Tony episode. You know what.

And I don't remember what I rated it, but I'm counting that as a good episode, a good solo episode, as batshit crazy as it was. I'm thinking more of the one that he did where his sister comes to visit him and she ends up falling in love with Jim and Tony is object objecting to this whole situation. I thought that was very charming and it was funny and the side of him that we don't often see. I had forgotten about that one. I was thinking of as like solo boxing episodes, which were always a hoot.

What was the name of the boxer that he assumed another boxer's identity, Kid Rodriguez. Kid Rorie. That's right, mustache, the sideburns is great. So yeah, I'm with you. This is fairly charming.

And for him to compare his fruitless pursuit of boxing to this, you know, attempting to ask this goddess of a woman out this way out of his league, I thought it was interesting. They're both long shots in their own way. Again, they're going back and forth. I'm not going to go into every idea they present him with, but we eventually we fade back in after commercial and they're still added. They're brainstorming, and Elaine tells Tony about her best date was her day took her on the Circle Line cruise around Manhattan, where she fell in love with him for the first time, but unfortunately, as ended up being her eventual ex husband.

It didn't work out well for Elaine in the long run, because it was this husband that she's always grousing about. Now, let me just say that early in the episode we got the horrendous sweater dress on Elaine. However, the rest of the episode and her outfits are on point. And I got to say in this scene in particularly another time where I was like, the direction here is great. She is shot so well that I just found myself falling in love with Mary lou Henter during it.

They also did some I noticed they did something different with her hair just for that particular scene, because I think what what it looks like is for the last few episodes, her hair is very flat. It doesn't really have Maybe that was just the style at that moment in time, but it didn't really have like the I don't know, the volume, the luxurious red hair that she's known for. And the eyes are popping to here, man, I'm telling you the whole thing that this is a very well directed episode of Taxi Louis. Louis then comes over and he's going to relate his story of being in love with a sophisticated lady. I think, doesn't Alex make some crack about Oh yeah, sophisticated.

Wasn't that the prison guard? And he's like, no, no, that wasn't the prison guard. No anything, yeah, no, not her, that's not just like there. Was a prison guard. But Louis relates his story about this beautiful ballerina that he fell in love with and she didn't want anything to do with him, but he persevered and won her heart because Louise says he knows a spot on a woman's body that turns her to jelly.

And then Alex says, well, if that's the case, why don't you like beating the women off with a stick. Why don't you Why aren't you surrounded by beautiful women? And Louis says it's not an easy spot to get to and turns to Eline and says, can you take off your right shoe? And of course Elaine tells him to drop dead. Alex finally says, look, Tony, you're ready to go.

You don't need us anymore, you just go, but he's unconvinced. Tony's unconvinced. But just then Vic pops out and ironically, actually I thought, well, there's no irony here. I think it was purely intentional. Do you remember how Vic announces himself to Tony at this point.

No, he announces himself by doing the Mighty Mouse here right, call Save the Day, which anyone who knows anything about Andy Kaufman knows that that was the skit that broke him on SNL when he was doing the Mighty Mouse with the record player and miming the words. I thought that was kind of an interesting little nugget. Sorry, I wasn't on board for that. He didn't like that. He didn't like that little Eastern no, no, no, I thought it was fine.

I thought it was fine. I'm just saying I didn't make more of it. That's fine. So he tells Tony that I've got the perfect line for you. It'll make her go crazy.

But Alex is like, don't listen to him, just, you know, do what you're gonna do. And then Jim comes over and says, well, I got a poem that will drive her nuts. And he reads this poem and it's a beautiful poem, but Tony complains that it doesn't rhyme, so never. Heard a free verse there, Banta. It's a beautiful poem, and Jim reads it, you know, exquisitely.

Finally, Elaine just tells Tony just be real with her and tell Christina how you feel. And then, emboldened, Tony finally decides to give it a shot and he leaves. We fade into the inside of the limo. Christina enters and she gets into the front seat again. They're cozy now, and Tony starts in with his spiel, or tries to, but then some other guy comes in talking business with Christina.

I think they had just come from a business meeting of some sort. He's kind of a dumpy guy with a mustache, and this was a guy I'm like, what the hell do I know this guy from? From the Everything? From everything, literally everything. This guy's name is Joel Brooks.

Again, he's one of these actors who's when I say, he's been in dozens upon dozens upon dozens of shows over the years. He was in Riptide, he was in Eight Is Enough, he was in We Got It Made with Angelia, and he was probably in we were talking about Three's Company. Was probably in that too. He's been in everything. His character's name here is Nick HP.

Before you go on, I'd like to read a list of credits as well. Go for it, Miss Michael Zenberg Journeyman television director who at least directed one episodes of the following shows. You might be interested in some of his earlier work where he did Sorry, The White Shadow, WKRP, New Heart, Family Ties, Who's the Boss, Heart of the City, The Tortelli's Cheers, Mister Belvedere, three episodes of Brocktoon, Oh Nice La Law, Midnight Caller, Coach, Quantum Leap, nine episodes of Quantum Leap, The Commission, Reasonable Doubts, The Single Guy, Jag, Mister and Missus Smith, Between Brothers, Caroline in the City, It goes on and on, Charmed Men Behaving Badly Remember that show, Crossing Jordan, The Schneider, Yeah, Boston Public, The Practice, Lost, Gilmore Girls, Eyes, The Wedding Bells, psych It's just Jesus Christ monk Burn.

Notice in plain sight, this is that's years ago. He's still working The Blacklist, Agents of Shield, The Good Wife, The Carmichael Show, Young Sheldon, and thirty episodes of NCIS, which he is currently still working on. That's incredible. I mean, that's somebody that they obviously they know that he probably shoots sufficiently. He probably gets all of his episodes in on or under budget.

It gets good performances from all of these actors. That's fantastic. That's a career right there. Yeah, you know. I mean that's not somebody who roll you know, is on the tip of anyone's tongue, a casual viewer.

But I guarantee you in television circles, it's like, get me Zenberg. That guy knows what he's doing. No doubt about it. I mean, the proof is in the pudding. For fox sake, yeh, forty years, fifty years.

I did miss a few names that you wrote right off because I was still laughing about mister Belvidere. We talk about what belvideering is. I don't think we did talk about it. I swear we talked about this. The guy who played mister Belvidere was Christopher Hewitt, that fuss budget English actor who used to do in commercials.

Anyway, he was in a parade of some sort. He was riding in a parade and he sat down too fast. He literally sat down on his balls and injured himself to the degree that he had to not act for a while, like he had to basically recuperate. That's what we talk about slatering on this show. Now we're talking about belvidereing.

When you talk about belvedereing, that's sitting down on your balls and hurting them. Wow. Yeah, that's new to me. Friend, you've never heard of belvidereing. No, that's surprising to me.

I only ever. Think of Brocktoon sketch Tom Hanks wants to put him in a jar. Not only might that be certainly top three SNL sketches of all time for me, but when I really stop and think about it, Tom Hanks is probably in at least one other of those top three. He certainly among many of my top ten favorite SNL sketches. Remember sober Prices, right?

I used to love when he did. That, Oh my god everything what massive head wound hair? No, that wasn't him, it was it was like mister short attention span or something like that, mister short term memory. Mister my god, look a wallet, that's your wallet? It is now?

Or they did that. They they did that that game show where they were all stand up comedians and they were all basically doing Seinfeld, but like long before Seinfeld even had his show, Who. Are the ad Wizards? Who came up with this one? Of course, he did David Pumpkins, which started out funny, but then they kind of overdid it.

Did you watch that cartoon? No? I did not because it was not good. I liked it very. Did you really?

Oh? I thought it was very funny. Yes, all right, I'm sure it's on YouTube, so you should check that out. And you know, Hanks is one of those people who you can tell easily could have been a cast member on SNL. Was he not the first five timers club?

No other people had been at Oh well, yes, other people had hosted five times, five times. But that was the first sketch. Right, That's what I mean that the first Yeah, the first time they opened up that part of the SNL universe, the back room where like he goes back there and like Paul Simon is back there, and Steve. Martins called me, mister Steve Martin, Like. Elliott Gould is slumming it back there.

They can't get him to leave. Robert Smigel wrote that back then, that that to me, that was like a revelatory sketch. Everything clicked for it. I just thought it was so smart, and it makes sense that Smigel wrote it. I mean, now that you say that, I'm like, of course he did.

It's great right up his oute. Just as Tony is still working up the gumption to propose a date to Christina, this guy comes back and says something to the effect of like, oh, you know what, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean anything I said, And he ends up proposing to Christina, never minding the fact that this goofball that there's no way he would be in this woman's league. I mean he's just this goofball with a mustache. She looks not a good match in my mind.

Well, it does prove one thing. She definitely would have said yes if Tony had asked her. Out, Oh yeah, without without a doubt. So so they he proposes, she accepts, and they end up sort of kissing. They're all shoved into the front seat still, and Tony is just beside himself, just bummed out by the whole thing and.

Making out. It's very awkward. And then finally when they when they when they release their their clinch, he weakly asks if she can go out on a date, and they kind of clare at him. It's it's it's a funny little butt fade. The commercial, we come back into the garage and oddly enough, Elaine and Alex they're taking it worse than Tony.

Tony's like, oh, you know, cheer up, but no big deal, you know whatever, what are you gonna do? But Elaine and Alex, I think are are upset because this is some indication of the death of romance. Which is ridiculous because she is a woman who has hired him to be her chauffeur in her Rolls Royce where she's going to the Governor's ball and it's Tony Banta. How did they think that was going to go? Well, they're clearly living vicariously or trying to live vicariously through Tony, because well we know Alex has very little love life to speak of, because we just saw him in the previous episode refuse to be involved with this Cabby Nina until he realizes, hey, you know, this might be kind of fun, and by which point she just decides she's over Alex.

And I don't know what Elaine's deal is, but she's she's always got fancy guys fawning all over her, offering to like, you know, take her to dinner and all this kind of stuff. So I don't get that part of it that was a little silly to me. You're silly to me. I'm silly. Oh you know, what are you gonna do?

So then and then Jim comes in and he says, well, not so fast. R romance is not dead. He says he found a woman that didn't know who he was until very late, you know, until last night. And Jim tried all the stuff that they suggested to Tony and it worked like a charm. And they're going out tonight.

This is the weird thing. They're going out tonight to collect aluminum cans. I know. That made me laugh really hard. Is this woman homeless that Jim picked up?

Like what's going on here? Or is she just a female version of Jim? And like that sounded like a great night out. There's someone for everyone, Like I said, the best part is Jim walks out sort of confidently in a way that we don't often see Jim do. He's like the cock of the walk.

All of a sudden, he's got a little bit of shine to him because he's got this date. And the applause is big and everybody's happy, and that's the end of the episode. Now we're gonna talk about yellow lights. What does a yellow light. Mean to remind our listeners, we grade every episode on a scale from one to five yellow lights.

One is the worst Taxi episode and five is the best. Also our custom We're gonna throw it to you, father Blone. What do you give Tony's lady? Ready? Yeah?

Five yellow lights? Get the fuck out of here. You are giving. Yellow one, two, three, four, five Count them. I loved this episode of Taxi beginning to end.

This is a in your estimation, this is a perfect taxi episode. I think for season four, this is a perfect Taxi episode. Five yellow lights. I liked all the characterizations here. I thought everyone got something to do.

It made me really like Tony Banta, which I haven't in a long time. I thought it made me laugh out loud multiple times throughout, which you know a sitcom ought to do. And I just had a great time. This might be in comparison to the last one, It might be in comparison to the string of episodes we've had. Sure, Nevertheless, this I would recommend to anyone watch as an episode of Taxi.

You think this is as good as the episode where they go to the art auction. This is on a par with that episode where you have all the Cabby's doing little you know, they all have their brace notes. Yes, because this mainly takes place in the cab company. Wow, I am it's been a while since I think you've surprised me to this degreef out of the one, I'm shocked for myself. I was going to give this two yellow lights.

I think I'm gonna come up to three, just because I do think. What cly, because this is on par with the Nina episode. We just watched them, you got the same out of it. No, No, I just got through saying I'm bringing it up to three. It's not two.

I'm gonna say three. Slightly above average. This is a nice Tony episode, right. We just got through saying that some of his episodes can be very charming, and I agree this one is kind of in that category. However, overall, this is just a trifle of an episode.

Not much happens, but gratefully. Now here's the thing that really gives it that extra yellow light. In my opinion, is that what we're seeing here is an aspirational episode of a different stripe instead of a Cabby dealing with a change of career that might alter the course of their future. This is just about Tony aspiring to date this beautiful woman that he's fallen for. So I dug that not enough to give it five ye other lights, mind you, but I will give it three.

It's slightly above average for me. Go ahead. I don't have anything that You've got your opinion. I've got mine, baby, that's all you know. That makes a world.

So three yellow lights from me, five yellow lights shockingly from Father Malone. So that's going to do it. They'll do it for this episode of night Mister Walter's Father Malone. Where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage. Well, if you want to hear all the exclusive stuff, go to patreon dot com slash fatherm Alone.

There you're gonna find shows like the Vault seven oh two, the Fallowout podcast I do, or the away missions that HP and I do, or the extra episodes the movie reviews that we do only for patrons. We do all that stuff there. But I know money's tight, everybody. Just you can listen to the show twice a week anyway. It's on Mondays and Fridays.

Mondays is Fest where HP and I are doing Von Doomfest. We're counting down to Von Doomsday like you all are. And every other week it's it's Mike White and I talking about horror anthology series. We're currently talking about Tales of the Unexpected, the roled dolld television series, which is a whot. And every Friday it's Father Malone's Weekly round Up where I do everything sort of new and current and in theaters.

Yeah, that's a lot. Father Malone is a busy guy. Now. The thing is, he's got something for everybody. If you like a little horror, he's got you covered.

If you like something a little more science fiction, he's got you covered. If you like superheroes, he's got you covered. He's got everything for whatever stripe of aficionado you are. Father Malone's got you covered. So please check cover.

I cover all genres. Really does busy, busy, busy guy. For myself, I'm not nearly as busy for myself when I'm not co hosting this very show with Father Malone. I host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I also have a bandcamsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. But again, I would urge you all to check out these fests Von doomfest that has been going swimmingly.

When this episode drops, it will have been a couple of weeks since the trailer dropped for Doomsday, and I think Father Molon will already have had some commentary on that trailer, so check that out. So thanks again for listening everybody. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, read a review, or rate us. We'd love to hear from you. Email is Hpmusicplace at gmail dot com.

Once again, for Father Malone and myself, thanks again for listening and will see you all next time. Think miss