Episode 82 - The Unkindest Cut

Good evening and welcome to Night Mr. 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?

You can always trust a Malone, even if he's a hairdresser. We'll get into that. This is Taxi Season 4, Episode 18, The Unkindest Cut. This was written by Barbara Duncan and Holly Holmberg Brooks. Teleplay by Sam Simon.

Hey, we know him. And it's directed by our favorite Superman villain, Noam Pitlick. Pitlick. Fucking Pitlick. Say his name backwards.

I got him to say his name backwards, yeah. And then he won't reappear for one more season. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. We start in the garage as Elaine walks in and starts mooning to Alex, Tony, and Jim about somebody named Fred Collins. Fred Collins struck me as a very odd name, Father Malone.

It's a really boring name. It sounds like either it's like an Apollo 11 astronaut or some made-up name you give when you're giving a prank call. Hey, this is Fred Collins. That works. I don't know.

It just seemed very generic to me. I knew a Sean Collins growing up. I knew somebody named Collins, too, Father Ballone. It's apparently a very common name around these parts. That's Irish, baby.

Is Collins Irish? I guess it would be. I guess it's, yeah, I guess. I don't know. Elaine is excited because she's seeing Fred tonight.

Apparently this is her new. But she's not. She's not seeing Fred tonight. You see, she's going to attend the same gala as Fred. She'll be sitting next to Fred, and that's when she's going to work her magic.

Indeed. So, but by way of explaining, Tony says, you finally got a date with him. Anyway, she clarifies that, well, it's not really a date, but she knows, as you do too, Father Malone, that he's attending, Fred Collins is attending the Japanese costume show at the Metropolitan. I like him already. Elaine, just envision for a minute what the Japanese costume show is. must entail.

This was the early 80s, so maybe not as much was known about the world, the culture of Japan, perhaps. I'm sure it was very exotic, and I'm sure it was curated in the most racist way possible, even if it was inadvertent. Do you figure that there were women dressed as geisha with hors d'oeuvres trays and serving drinks and things like that? Are there white people dressed that way, unironically? Yes.

Yes. good that's a good call it's probably very accurate so she elaine stresses that this is the cultural event of the year and not only did elaine get herself invited. How but i because of the gallery maybe. Probably she must have you know cast you in a favor or two with her contacts. If she knows somebody who knows somebody right. And they you know they they You know, they put in a good word for her and they got her an invite.

But not only that, Father Malone, she's got this invite, but somehow, and I don't know how she could determine this at this point, but apparently she'll be sitting right next to this Fred Collins at the dinner afterwards. How is one to know that she'll be sitting next to this fellow? How do you know ahead of time? When you go to a wedding, right? You're attending a wedding.

You don't know in advance what table you're going to be sitting at, nor do you know who you're going to be sitting with. So how could she know that in advance? I guess it'll remain a mystery. Tony assures Elaine that, and these are his exact words, you're a knockout, baby. Tony is such a charmer.

Oh my God, I wanted to slap him when he said that. Like, what was that? Keep your lummox mouth shut. Well, the only thing missing is him giving her a little, you know, chuck on the chin. Hey, he's looking at you, kid.

Hey, take this poster and hang it in your office. It is of a cat, and he's trying to hang on. Hang in there. It will inspire you. Elaine really wants everything to be perfect, Father Malone, which is why she did this.

And when she says this, she strikes what I can only describe as like a Vogue pose. Like, think of Madonna. I'm not talking about tutting. which you've brought up before where you do the thing with your hands. She's striking a pose. What do you think voguing is?

Striking a pose. Yeah, but tutting is with your hands, I thought. Yes, and that's what she's doing. She's making that pose with her hands. That's how you know she's voguing, because she's tutting in a subtle way.

That's fair. Maybe she can lay claim to the first vogue broadcast on network television. She scooped Madonna. She was a gay icon long before Madge. She was a trendsetter.

So she strikes a pose when she says this, as if to say, like, marvel at my beauty. And the guys are all somewhat confused by this. They don't really know what it is she's trying to point out. They should have, though, because if a woman is doing that, it means. Look at my hair.

Yeah, I got a haircut. Dummies. I went and got my hair done. And that frustrates Elaine because, you know, bingo, no one noticed her new hairstyle. And it cost $ 25.

That's a lot of money. And $ 78. Did you do the math? Did you put it through the machine? You know what?

Somehow I didn't do the math here, but we're going to get to some math breakdowns in a moment. That's funny because I was watching the episode. She said it took $ 25. And I said, I wonder what HP will come up for the equivalent. Well, I don't have that data here, but we're.

Going to get into it. Let's say $ 75. It's like she got a $ 75 haircut. It's probably about $ 75, which is a lot, even today. It's pretty reasonable now, actually. $ 75?

Where are you going? For a styling? For a woman's hair? Yeah, for like a salon thing. Yeah, that's really good.

I suppose. That's what she did here. But I don't know how much that costs. When's the last time I've been to a salon? Long time ago.

Apparently a long time. A haircut costs $ 25. Yeah, a haircut is $ 25. $ 30 when you... $ 30 or a little more when. You kick in the tip. Yeah, that's for a dude's hair that's just short anyway.

Not to mention a giant style job. True, true. I mean, do you go to... Where do you go to get your haircut, Father Malone? I go to the hair cuttery at the end of the road.

I don't know the name of it. Is it a barbershop? I mean, is there a pole up front? Yeah, I don't know. It's like a salon of some sort.

Plenty of men and women. All right. Frequent the place. Sure. Does the guy take his kerchief and go, he slaps the chair and goes, hey, Mr.

Wallace, come and sit here, my finest chair. No, it's a pretty lady. Oh, okay. Ooh la la. All right.

So, again, she got this haircut just for this occasion. And then the non-response from the other cabbies was, convinces Elaine that they're right. It's not special enough at all. The haircut is not special enough. So she's resigning herself to make an appointment with somebody named Vincenzo Seneca.

Ooh, that sounds important. Which is as exotic as Fred Collins is ordinary. I think apparently Vincenzo Seneca is the hairstylist in New York city at this time. Uh, Tony cautions. Vincenzo Seneca.

It's like Pepe O'Brien. Tony cautions Elaine that, hey, that sounds pretty expensive. And Elaine says it'll probably cost her $ 100, which is a lot of money even today, Father Malone. But unlike what I did with the $ 25, I did run the numbers in amortization.org for $ 100 back in 82. What do you think it would be worth today?

In the year of our Lord, 2026. $ 183. 75. $ 344. 74. Damn it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to spend that money on myself.

Yeah. But that's a great deal of money. To a working cabbie like Elaine, that's a fortune. She deserves it. So Louis then gathers the cabbies around.

This mysterious object covered in a sheet. It's next to the coffee machine. This is what we're seeing here, Father Malone. We're seeing an honest-to-goodness B-plot. Feels like we haven't really seen a B-plot in a long, long time.

That's funny. I had the same feeling because it was such a natural transition and it was right there in the garage. It was like, here's the A plot, pan over, B plot. B plot. And this isn't, like we've had B plots that sort of fizzle and they're only really one scene and you never hear of it again for the rest of the episode.

But this, we do get a callback at the very end of the episode. It's a true runner because we keep coming back to him. This is a true runner, exactly. So Louis announces to the cabbies that there's a morale problem in the garage. Cabbies are always complaining that they're bored while they're waiting for their cabs.

And then Louis unveils this mysterious item and introduces the garage to Pac-Man. It's a Pac-Man machine. Did you know that in the original incarnation his name was Pac-Man? I did, and they had to change it because they were afraid that the Americans were going to deface it and make it Pac-Man. That knowledge is courtesy of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World for me.

Well, I had Just because I'm a video game nerd. Paku, Paku. I knew that. But one of the funny aspects of that is they did not have to do that in Japan. In Japan, they're civilized enough not to vandalize these machines.

What's amazing about this appearance of Pac-Man, Father Malone, is that, number one, it's an actual Pac-Man machine. Nowadays, if there was a similar plot contrivance, they might make up some stupid made-up video game. You know, hey, this is a skydiver guy, and here's why you play. This is actually Pac-Man. Not only is it actually the real Pac-Man machine, but it's actually plugged in, and it's working for all of them alone.

It's not just sitting there with, you know, angled away from the TV screen. You can see that this thing is functioning and powered up. And someone gave their sound effects engineer all of the music cues. All of the music cues. So a little bit of trivia about Pac-Man here that I researched.

Pac-Man was released in the U.S. in October of 1980. And I'm sure you remember, Father Nolan, it became a huge sensation worldwide. I had Pac-Man fever, as had we all. We all did. In fact, at that time, my family had an Atari 2600.

And my dad bought us the infamous crappy Pac-Man port for the 2600. Do you remember? Did you ever play it? It was terrible. Yes, I had it.

It was terrible because there was so little memory on the machine that all of the characters... Well, they all looked like ghosts because there wasn't enough memory to show a solid... you know, pixelized version of Pac-Man. So everything was sort of, like, coming in and out of view. It was sort of like they were all ghosts, basically. But even now, Father Mullen, when I go to Fun Spot up in New Hampshire, which is, by the way, it's the world's largest arcade, I always play a game or two of Pac-Man up there, which is, in fact, the actual cabinet that Billy Mitchell famously achieved the world's world's first perfect score on Pac-Man on July 3rd, 1999.

Did you wear an American flag tie in his honor? Did you eat some hot sauce right before you went in there? Yes! I'm so glad you knew that he has that hot sauce business. But you probably know that from the documentary, right?

Of course. We've all seen that King of Kong documentary, right? Wipe my butt! You see, He was already an object of ridicule amongst me and my friends before that documentary even happened. Because when you would go to a fun spot.

He was like, okay, I'm a fucking total dork whose entire existence is based on this video game and my hot sauce and the fact that I wear an American flag tie. How can I add to that, mullet? It's remarkable how hateable he is in that movie. And apparently in real life, he's, you know, no great shakes. He's like sued.

He got... he got one of his scores wiped from, from, uh, twin galaxies, which is the, like the record book of, of all of these video game scores, because they found out that he had used an emulator to, to achieve his high score. And then he sued them and is a whole thing. I mean, you're right. His whole personality, his whole, you know, way of life is built around video games and this hot sauce business. And he'll do anything to, uh, to protect that legacy.

I remember that there was a Taxi episode that involved Pac-Man. I didn't realize it was this one, and also I didn't realize, like I said, that they had the real machine and it was actually working. So I thought that was cool. I remember both of these plots vividly and was completely surprised that they're the same episode. This to me might be, for me, my most memorable episode of Taxi.

No kidding. As a child, yes. This wouldn't be my most memorable Taxi episode by a long shot, but That's interesting. Well, I saw it soon after I saw the feature film Creepshow. So you might understand why.

Oh, of course. We're leading up to that. We're hurtling towards that reveal, Father Malone. The reveal of Pac-Man gets a huge pop from the audience. Applause.

It's crazy for a video game. There's sustained applause for it. That's how big that game was at the time. It was huge. This was when arcades in the U.S. were really on the ascendancy.

And Pac-Man was a huge part of that. Louis chooses Jim to play the very first game in the garage. And Louis goes on to explain the game in broad strokes for Jim, who seems a little skeptical or a little trepidatious about playing this thing. But Louis is banking on Jim's compulsive personality to get him to play. And Louis even, like every good drug dealer, he gives Jim a free quarter to play.

No, no, the first one is on me. Yes, exactly. It's a very druggie moment. Very much. So he puts the quarter in, and literally within seconds, you hear that familiar Pac-Man, like three times in succession, which could never actually happen in the game.

But anyway, he loses all three of his lives within seconds. But then Jim proclaims that it's the greatest thrill of his life. And Louie leaves Jim to continue playing as we pivot back to the A plot, back to 11. How did he earn those quarters, HP? One quarter at a time.

Is that a John Hausman relation there? Remember there was an SNL sketch about kids addicted to video games? And the implication there was this little girl had turned to prostitution to continue to play video games. No, I don't remember that. Oh my God, yes.

Yeah, like, you know, with the money you're spending on a video game, you could buy the brand new Juice Newton album. You don't remember that sketch? No, was that the Tim Kazerinsky years? Yes, it was the weird period of SNL. Ah, Robin Duke, gotcha.

Yeah, exactly. Gary Kroger. Who's the guy who played Needleman, the oral surgeon? Villains, drilling. It's stuck in my head.

His name is Needleman. He's an oral surgeon. I'd love it. That's maybe. I like Robbie Benson movies.

Brilliant. You will never, never, ever stump fucking alone on this stuff. He's just amazing. Yeah, SNL is like my other personality. It's a little weird.

I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can remember Gary Kroger... In the pre-taped bit about Needleman, it was a dating service. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it started off like the typical video dating profiling. Hi, my name is Harvey Needleman.

And then it turns into this video, yeah. So speaking of dating, we're going to pivot back over to Elaine. Elaine just got off the phone with Vincenzo's salon. There was a cancellation, so she snagged an appointment that afternoon. But then Elaine...

We're going to see her kind of pivot back and forth between wanting to go and not wanting to go. She says she's going to have to cancel it because she can't afford it. But then she says, but I'm entitled to treat myself. And then she swings back and says, no, it's too much money. So she goes back and forth, beating herself up a few more times before she finally resolves that she's going to go.

Treat yourself. We fade into Vincenzo's hair salon. where a nervous Elaine, she arrives for her appointment. Now, this salon, Father Malone, might be the most 80s of any set we've seen in four seasons so far of Taxi. You forget that episode that took place inside a Rubik's Cube. I was thinking to myself, what is he going to bring up?

With special guest Clara Peller. Time to make the donuts. The Dunkin' Donuts guy shuffles in. Yeah, and Tony's wearing that shirt that says, Frankie, stay relaxed. Spuds McKenzie surfboards in with a Budweiser.

Neon for everyone. So the walls of this salon are all this flat gray with all the chairs are transparent plastic with chrome legs. Ghost chairs. Ghost chairs. Very big in the 80s.

It's just it's just screams 80s, which is kind of a shock in Taxi because. Taxi is sort of built on this notion of the crumbling garage. This garage has been around since probably the 50s. And when we occasionally see Alex's apartment or Elaine's apartment or what have you, these aren't up-to-date, newly furnished So to see this was quite a culture shock. I thought it was good set design.

Yeah, no, this was not bad. It didn't really call attention to itself, but it was still impressive. Yeah, and it looked like I would imagine an upscale hair salon in the 80s looked like. Certainly the girl behind the fucking counter is 1980s girl behind the hairdressing salon. Oh, yeah.

To me, she looked like she came right off the screen of that movie. Remember Perfect with Jamie Lee Curtis? That's what she looked like to me. Wow, that's perfect. That's the 80s right there.

It's the 80s in a movie. And she's kind of a snooty receptionist with her nose in the air. And she tells Elaine that Vincenzo's running a little late, which leads to some awkward silence. Elaine nervously asks what Vincenzo charges. And the lady replies, well... $ 225 for a Seneca design, which, by the way, is $ 775 in today's money.

Almost $ 800, which Elaine is freaking out at this point. The receptionist asks Elaine if she has anything else she wants to do today, like wax or an eyelash tint. All of this is making Elaine feel completely self-conscious, uneasy, and embarrassed about the whole... Which is weird because we're used to seeing her as this sort of glamorous, beautiful, sexy woman who is very self-confident and knows who she is and knows her value. So it's weird to see her as a shrinking violet.

Yeah, particularly because they're forgetting the art gallery portion of Elaine Nardo here. The destination that she's getting this hair from style for is just indicative of this other portion of Elaine. She would know when she walked into that salon what that receptionist attitude was going to be. You know what I mean? She might have even stopped at home and gotten changed before she went to that particular salon.

She probably would have known customers of Vincenzo at the gallery. Maybe associates of hers who have gone and had their hair done and. This is like working class girl goes to the snooty salon right now. And that's true, but it's also not true because Elaine knows the score. It's not.

I think Elaine, I agree with you. Elaine would have been more on the ball and she would have walked in there with more confidence, I think. At the very least, would have been ready for this woman's attitude. Yeah, she would have been uneasy about the cost of everything, but then again, like you said, she would have understood what the cost would have been coming into this. So it's a little bogus in my mind, but nevertheless.

The lady, the receptionist offers Elaine a drink, and then we get our first look at Vincenzo, and he's played by none other than Ted Danson. One of our favorites, Ted Danson. According to the Lovey's book, it was Danson's work on this episode that actually impressed the Charles brothers. which no doubt led to him snagging the role of Sam Malone on Cheers, which, let's be honest, was career-defining for him at that time. You alluded to Creepshow earlier, which I remember watching on HBO at that time. He featured prominently in that, and something that tied you over.

Harry Wentworth, yes. That was his name. Yes, one of the lovers who get buried up to their necks in sand, and then they come back as zombies, waterlogged zombies. You can't kill us, Richard. I gotta say, aside from the notion that Danson is versatile enough to play a role here that is really 180 degrees from Sam Malone, if I'm being honest, I found his performance here completely dated and basically a caricature of the flouncy hairdresser.

Oh, I disagree. I think it's a bit more refined than what the sort of limp-wristed hairdresser character that we were used to. I get the sense that even that is an affectation of this guy Vincent, whatever the fuck his name is from wherever the fuck he's actually from. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, like, he seems like everything seems like an act with this fellow.

And, like, yeah, that's what I took away from it. It's a weird compliment that I'm paying him even though, like I said, I found it to be a little bit dated. The fact that this guy can go from playing this effete hairdresser to playing this washed-up jock ballplayer, Sam Malone, and then everything. He had just come off the onion field, mind you. That was like his big splash.

Right. I forgot about that. Yeah. Was he in... We talked about this, that movie with William Hurt.

And Kathleen Turner, wasn't he in that as well? He's in Body Heat. Yeah, you're goddamn right he is. Yeah. He's one of these actors that has just been around forever.

And he, you know, he can't be pinned down. He plays a lot of interesting characters. I loved him most recently in Man on the Inside. It's been a couple of seasons of that. I thought he's wonderful in that.

The Good Place? He was great in The Good Place? Good Place, I don't know if he won any Emmys for that. He should have. He should have.

Because he is so phenomenal. You're absolutely right. He's amazing in that. I loved him in that. Such a great character.

This is Ted Danson in his earliest form. Baby Danson. Really is. It's actually his hair. I was going to say, it's actually his hair.

So... Uh, Elaine introduces herself to Vincenzo and then with a series of flourishes, Vincenzo not so subtly puts her down. He says something like, do you normally cut your hair yourself? And Elaine is immediately off guard and uneasy about this whole situation, but she describes who she is to Vincenzo about how she's a cab driver and how important this, this night at the, uh, at the museum is going to be for her. With Robin Williams.

Vincenzo makes a bunch of suggestions about what he's going to do to her hair, including changing her color, but Elaine, as politely as she can, says no. And this sets off Vincenzo, because I think he takes it as an affront to his artistic sensibility. He keeps insisting to Elaine, look, you need to leave the hairstyle to me. And reluctantly, Elaine eventually says, okay, I trust you. And then we fade out and back in.

It's some time later. Vincenzo is putting the finishing touches on Elaine's hair. Vincenzo is blocking the camera. So you can't see what the final result is. The mirror.

Give me the mirror. Like the Joker. It's right. Get a mirror. Vincenzo spins her chair around and reveals a hairstyle.

I would call, personally, I would call the missing persons. I was just going to say Terry Bozio, dude. The Terry Bozio, exactly. Remember, they were fantastic. Yeah, they were.

And, like, exactly. And you know what? Look, this is an outrageous haircut, and we're supposed to think, like, oh, my God, this is the most horrible thing. But as a lover of New Wave, I was like, well, that's really kind of cool, actually, Elaine. Very current, very cutting edge hair.

I think it's too flouncy. If they could tone it down so it's like a human-sized haircut, that would be super fucking cool. The problem is it's clearly a wig. They didn't actually do that to her hair, so it's going to be big and poofy as a result. But to your point, it just looks...

I mean, he did what he set out to do, Vincenzo, which is give her something that is very on the bleeding edge of style. And Elaine, when she sees this, she literally shrieks in terror and starts to scramble out of the salon. But Vincenzo stops her and really goes out of his way to embarrass her because he gathers the entire salon around them and asks all of them what they think. Isn't this a good haircut? And of course, everybody is subservient to this cult of personality that is Vincenzo Seneca or whatever his name is.

So they all say it's fabulous, but some people are obviously laughing at Elaine. And she's horrified and she runs to the counter and goes to pay for it so she can leave. And Vincenzo then condescendingly says to her, well, I guess I can't do cab drivers. And he's just, there's no need for it. I mean, he, I don't know.

He's, I guess he was stung by the fact that she didn't fall over herself with gratitude about this haircut. So she runs out. And we fade out. We fade into the garage where Alex and Tony walk in and they see Jim is still feverishly playing that Pac-Man machine. Pac-Man feverishly.

He's got Pac-Man. Fever. Remember, did you own the album Pac-Man Fever? No, I did not. I'm proud to say I did not.

I have it in my collection, but I can't remember when or how I came across it. Buckner and Garcia, they're the ones who made Pac-Man Fever cashing in on the Pac-Man craze. But what's wonderful about the album is that every song is featuring a different arcade game of the time. Oh, yeah. There's Do the Donkey Kong.

There's Centipede. There's a song about asteroids. It's great. And by great, I mean it's just an artifact of its time and not very good. Just horrible stuff.

It is horrible. And you know that their material kind of began and ended with Pac-Man fever, because that's the first song on the album, which is always a surefire sign that, okay, this is the best of what we have. So the rest of it will travel. Get ready for filler. Right.

Yeah. Although I do have a soft spot for Do the Donkey Kong. I think that is kind of funny. Nevertheless, Jim is still playing Pac-Man, and he's apparently only left the machine to go out and beg for more quarters. And Louie comes down the stairs.

He's announcing paychecks for everybody. When he gets to Jim, he doesn't have an envelope. He hands Jim a giant bag of quarters. He's given Jim his pay in quarters because clearly Jim has asked for it in those denominations. It must be so heavy.

I don't think Jim asked for it at all, I think. You think Louie's presuming? I think Louie just went, let me just give him 200 quarters. I'll bet he'll spend every last one, just like the casino. Hey, here's your paycheck.

Have a drink on us while you're at it. Jim is so Jim that he doesn't even question. He gives him this bag of quarters and he encourages Jim to get back to the game. And Alex tries to step in and get Jim to stop playing the game. And for his troubles, Father Mullen, he earns a derisive lighten up from Jim, from the normally sweet Jim.

That was my big laugh out loud moment in this episode. Christopher Lloyd's delivery of Lighten Up made me laugh hilariously. It had that irritable quality of somebody who's been just staring at a video screen for hours and hours and hours, and they're just so jittery. It's like a drug addict. Don't waste my time with your bullshit right now.

I'm in it. Just at that point, Elaine comes in, and she's weeping openly to Alex and Tony's horror. She's so upset. Tony doesn't even recognize... Elaine until Elaine turns towards him and he kind of does a double take.

Oh, it's you, Elaine. She's inconsolable. She says she can't go to the show now because look at her. And Alex tells her, well, just fix it. But Elaine actually shrieks at him that she can't.

Once you do stuff like this to your hair, you've got to leave it for a couple of days, which I didn't know. But I guess it makes sense, all the chemicals that are involved, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you can still put on a hat or something, you know. Side note here, Father Malone, maybe my favorite part of this episode, and I don't know if you noticed this because you always have an eagle eye for background players and interesting things happening, interesting business happening in the background.

While Elaine is sobbing near the back of the garage, I don't know if you noticed this, this extra started to walk in. He was a dead ringer for Mario from, we were just talking about Donkey Kong. He looked like Mario. He walks in and he sees Elaine and then he walks back out. I thought it was a marvelous little, because, you know, these extras usually just kind of walk in and they go about their business.

But it was almost as if he kind of wanted to seize his moment and actually try to be part of the flow of the scene. Well, as a bit of business for an extra to walk in and see that, you would want to leave, right? Like, oh, I don't want any part of this mess that's going on. In this garage. I'm out of here, you know?

It wasn't as if you could read an expression of surprise on his face. In fact, his face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. That was the vibe I got, as if he didn't expect to be getting filmed. Like, he kind of broke the fourth wall in a weird way. Oh, good for him.

Like, that's some smart thinking. He's doing some good character work back there. He was, but generally those background characters are usually, quite a few of them are just people involved with the show. Like we've seen Richard Sakai has been back there and a few other people. Captain America there.

Oh no, Captain Marvel, pardon me. Captain Marvel. So I'd be curious if this guy was a legit background player or if he had some other. role in the show. But anyhow, I got a nice check. Or, like you said, it was actually Mario from the video game Donkey Kong, who just made a quick appearance, and that was their tribute to side-scrolling.

Yeah, he was like, hey, where's Donkey Kong? You got Pac-Man, but where, you know, hey, it's a me, Mario. What's going on? It was minor, but it was memorable. So, getting back to Elaine, she's furious at Vincenzo, but really more importantly, Father Malone, she's mad at herself for letting it happen.

She knew that she didn't belong in that world. She didn't She knew she couldn't afford to get this haircut, but she still allowed the guy to make her look ridiculous. And at the same time, she paid him a lot of money to make a fool out of her. Marilu Henner is really spectacular in this scene. I felt really bad for Elaine here.

Felt terrible. Even though, as we said earlier, it doesn't necessarily fit with her character. She does make the most of this moment. Alex says, well, look on the bright side. The worst is over.

It's like, the fuck are you talking about alex the worst is just beginning. Well he goes on to like goad her into the going back here by saying like what are you gonna think like every time children are laughing at you like dude what do you alex there are ways and means of things friend Then. Louie appears, and he starts to kind of make a crack about her hair, and you think that this is Louie's... By the way. It's like a horror movie moment when he walks on, like, in the background, you know?

Like, if they had racked focus to him, then I wouldn't have been surprised. It's kind of like that moment where the character is in the background, where Snake Plissken is finally sitting down for a second, and you see this creepazoid, like, coming to let everyone know to come out of the sewers now. Like, that's what this moment is with Louie DeBalma. Well, that's the joke. When, when Alex says, look, the worst is over.

And then Elaine makes a comment like, well, where's Louie implying that the worst is going to be when he gets a load of what happened to her. So Louie appears, he, he does make a crack about her hair, but, but really at the end of the day, he is way more sympathetic to Elaine than we all, any of us thought he would be. He, and it's actually somewhat, he, he, he secretly loves it. I mean, he does. It, And despite the fact that we've already seen him peep on her when she's changing clothes and really violated her in a true sense, there's something sweet about what he says here, Father Malone.

He says, look, he looked forward to seeing Elaine every day. It was like this bright part of his morning to see Elaine walking into the garage. And he says, he compares it to somebody desecrating a work of art. And When Tony explains that it was all this hairdresser's doing, and then when Louis says this line about it's like someone ruining the statue of David, this really starts to incite Tony's bloodlust. Want me to go fucking knock his teeth in?

I'll do that shit. I think that's exactly what he says. He doesn't quite say that, but he does say, I think he does kind of like pound his fist into his hand and he says, they should go and break this guy's head, which is not necessarily, I'm going to fucking knock this guy's teeth out, but for network television. He's going to bust this guy's head. Tony's going to do it.

He could do it. If only he had said, I'm going to break his face. I love that. We've talked about how much I love that line. Louis says, look, the hairdresser's got to pay for what he did.

Alex says, look, just because Vincenzo gave Elaine a bad haircut, does that make him a bad guy? And Elaine then tells Alex about the cab driver crack that Vincenzo made and how the whole shop was laughing at her when she was in shock about this whole situation. And Alex asks, well, what did you do then when everybody's laughing at you? And he was, you know, talking down to you. Elaine says, I did nothing.

I just left. And this now incites Alex, who says, look, you could have asked for your money back. You could have asked for a redo. All of these things you could have done, which I think it's a little presumptuous of Alex. To assume that she'd.

Be clear-headed enough. I mean, she was in shock about what this guy had done on this important occasion. Rub it in. Like, what are you doing, Alex? Yeah.

Yeah. If you want her to get her money back, why don't you just go down and get it for her? Why don't you do it? So Alex won't drop the issue. And even though Elaine at that point, she just wants to move on and just get past it.

But Alex, and this is what we talked about. Alex says, you feel foolish because you took it, right? So then you need to go back there and you need to tell Vincenzo that. Elaine doesn't want to go, but Alex says, look, I'll go with you. So.

The whole garage should go with them. It should be like a scene from DC Cab. Like 17 cabs surrounded. this like this little hairdresser shop you know Mr. T like smashes out the window and screams sucker at them. So the two of them so Alex and Elaine leave and Louis who's been kind of hanging back he hears the address of the salon and he then says, oh, you know, 3.20, whatever.

Ah, I'm going to go too. So then he takes off separately to see what's up. And then we fade into the salon as Alex and Elaine arrive, and the snooty receptionist assumes Elaine is there to apologize to Vincenzo. But Alex refuses to allow Elaine to be intimidated about this. Alex holds up a mirror to Elaine, who at that point is kind of shrinking back for everything.

When she sees her reflection in the mirror again, that gets her furious all over again, and now she demands to see Vincenzo. Marilu Henner is killing it in this episode. She really is. Quite good, and it's been forever since we've seen anything approaching an Elaine-centered episode. Feisty Elaine.

I just think it's nice that she got another episode, a little moment of... specifically about Elaine, so that's good. I like that it's an episode that isn't just about some other guy. Oh, wait, it is. It kind of is. So then Vincenzo arrives, and Elaine tells him how upset she is that he basically bullied her into this haircut and made her pay for it, and Elaine wants her money back and an apology for how he treated her, and Vincenzo flatly refuses.

That's when Alex steps in, but Vincenzo... is unafraid of a scene. In fact, he starts to make a scene of his own where he's like, everybody, you know, here's what's happening. And he's yelling and being very theatrical about this. There's going to be a scene. There's going to be a scene.

How delightful. And he makes a big to-do with the entire salon. He even goes so far as to refer to Alex as the Jewish Defense League. She even brought the Jewish Defense League to come get me. And I'm like, whoa.

Yeah, and it's now Alex's turn to be a fumbling dummy. Instead of, like, punching the guy in the face, he's like, wait a minute, I'm not affiliated with anyone. Yeah, for some reason, that doesn't ignite his ire. He gets, like you said, he's like. He gets flummoxed, just like Elaine did.

She should have said, see? You see how he works? Right, yeah, this is what I'm talking about, Alex. You see what he does? So then, fortunately, Louie then arrives, and he demands to see Vincenzo.

And if Vincenzo starts to make sport with Louie, but then Alex insists, look, Elaine has to handle it herself, and he makes Louie literally... sit in the corner, and he starts ordering him around like a dog, like, sit, sit, stay, stay. That's what he is. He's the attack dog here. It's really funny. I've said this before.

There's always something delightful to me when Alex and Louis bounce off of each other in this fashion, and they kind of get a little antagonistic. It's really delightful. You know what I like? I like having a character who's a prick 99% of the time, and that 1% when you need them, they show up. Yeah, and this is one of those moments where Louis becomes kind of the hero of the piece.

We all have the friend who's like, he's an asshole, but he's our asshole kind of a situation. This is Louis, isn't it? Brought to life. We've seen so many episodes where Louis is the dirtbag and Louis is the cretin. And here, he still is, but he's kind of using his powers for good in a way.

Vincenzo starts to peacock about how much the people love his work, and Elaine then tries to entreat the rest of the salon to admit that they've been unhappy with their haircuts. Who was going to cop to that? Come on now. Yeah, because they're all afraid of Vincenzo because he is the it guy. He's the it salon.

So after another crack from Vincenzo, Elaine pulls out these two bottles, which I guess were supposed to believe these are like hair dye or some kind of chemical. And she's holding them over Vincenzo's head, ready to squeeze and do something terrible to his head. And Alex, again, intercedes and says, look, you'll be no better than him if you do this. And Elaine realizes that, yeah, she's a lot better than Vincenzo and she ends up leaving. And this, it's predictable, but it's still funny.

Louis tells him, look, wait up, I'll be right out. And then he goes over and he dumps a whole bowl of something. Looks like red hair dye, basically. Like red hair dye or something waxy or something. I don't know what it was, but it's this goopy red stuff in a bowl.

He pours it right over Vincenzo's head. And Louis gives the old, look, she may be better than you, but I ain't. And then he struts out of the salon, but not before... inexplicably giving the snooty receptionist like a big smooch, which is a little gross. You've got to throw a little bit of sexual assault here at the end as you're walking out. Like, I was so on your side, Louis.

Yeah, I mean, it's supposed to be his defining moment of triumph, but in retrospect, it's really gross. And we want to give something to both villains, right? We want them both to suffer. So in a way, having to kiss Louis is probably a fitting punishment, but it's a little wonky and weird nowadays. That's true because the receptionist is every bit the villain that Vincenzo is.

She's also been demeaning Elaine through this whole episode. Like if he had walked by and lit her blouse on fire, like that would have been funny. Yeah. So they leave. And then now here's the button on the B plot.

We cut back to Jim in the garage still playing Pac-Man. And his game ends again. And Jim admits as he's digging into his pocket for another quarter that he doesn't know why he plays this game. He says, There's flashing lights. There's monsters chasing you.

He says, I get enough of that in real life as we fade to black. H.P., can I comment on that for a moment? Yeah, of course. Because I remember that vividly as a child, seeing that for the first time. Because whoever I was, or whomever I was watching the episode with, was an older figure.

I couldn't tell you who it actually was. But they said, cheap joke at that moment. It's vaudeville. Right, but they specifically said cheap joke. And it was the first time I considered that jokes could have values that some had a higher value than others and that was a really cheap one to go out on.

And you don't know if it was your mom or somebody else that you were watching it with. I want to say it was one of my cousins or just sort of an older friend um who said that. And yeah, but certainly that brought me back when, when the episode ended, like, oh yeah, I remember this bit because I remember it, it making me reevaluate what I thought was funny, just sort of in general. So this, this was a very memorable episode for you. I'm telling you.

That's cool. So, so that's the episode. Now we're going to talk about yellow lights. What does a yellow light mean? And just as a reminder to everybody, we grade yellow, these taxi episodes on a scale from one to five yellow lights.

One is the worst taxi episode, and five is the best. And as is our custom, we're going to kick it to you first, Father Malone. What do you give the unkindest cut? I give it four yellow lights. I'd give it five if it were more of an ensemble.

Really? Yeah, I like this episode a lot. It made me laugh. I liked both plots immediately. I liked all the motivations here.

I mean, I know they make Elaine more of the working class hero than the sort of erudite character she can be in order to facilitate some jokes here. But overall, well, maybe this is just nostalgic Malone here, but like, yeah, this is a very, very memorable, formative episode for me for Taxi. And rewatching it, I liked it sort of overall. And I think Ted Danson is actually really good. Sure.

I mean, that's fair. That's fair. I personally gave this three yellow lights. I was on the fence about giving it two or three, but I ultimately gave it three. Now, one is one alone is for this being part of Ted Danson's origin story, because if he doesn't kill it here, then I'm not sure we see him as Sam alone.

And we may not be talking his we may not be speaking his name in reverent tones here in twenty twenty six. Hey, you know that if feet hairstylist guy, he'd be perfect for a jock who's a drunk in Boston. Well, it's my understanding also in reading about this episode in the Love East book that his initial run at the character was not as theatrical and it was a little more grounded and realistic. And it wasn't working. So they had to kind of go back to the drawing board.

Could you be a little more flamboyant, if you know what I mean? Wink. Anyway, it was his ability, I think, and this is only me, Just theorizing it. Part of what makes him appealing to the Charles brothers, perhaps, is his ability to make those adjustments and become a memorable character. Now, my truck with the character is I personally feel like it's a dated portrayal.

But, you know, your mileage may vary and it clearly did. So anyway, it was one yellow light just for Ted Danson and his early work. here and one was just because they featured Pac-Man prominently and I thought that was really cool it's this is not an episode that I rewatch with any real frequency but you've swayed me a little bit I think there's more value to this episode than I remember there being certainly And I can appreciate that this was a very formative and memorable episode for you. But for me, this is slightly better than average. So four yellow lights for Father Malone, three yellow lights for me. That's going to do it for this episode of Night, Mr.

Walters. Father Malone, where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? Okay. The show is called Midnight Viewing. It's on twice a week.

Every Friday, HP and I do a roundup of new and current streaming and or theatrical features. Every Monday is a rotating series of shows. There's a fest. HP and I are doing Von Doomfest right now about MCU characters. There's also the show I do with Mike White about horror anthology series, and there's also a show called Consoles and Buttons and Switches, or Buttons, Switches, and Consoles that I do with Laura Grillo where we look at movies about old tech.

So There's quite a lot to choose from, and there's a Patreon channel where we do a whole bunch of other shows that have nothing to do with anything I just mentioned, and those are worth checking out, too. Cool. And as for myself, in addition to all of those places that Father Malone just mentioned, I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a Bandcamp site, hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com. So thanks, everyone. Hey.

Hey. I'm being that little girl from Oh. From Art of Noise? Hey, maybe hopefully an episode of Noise Junkies featuring Art of Noise coming soon to a podcast catcher near you. But nevertheless, thank you so much for listening.

Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, or rate us. We'd love to hear from you. Our email address is hpmusicplays at gmail.com. For Father Mullen and myself, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you all next time. Night, Mr.

Walters.