Episode 83 - Tony's Comeback

We are Big Way Media. Hi, Mr. Walters. You see that guy over there? He's an actor.

The guy on the phone? He's surprised by me. I'm a cab driver. I'm the only cab driver in this place. Good evening and welcome to Night Mr.

Walters, a taxi podcast. I'm your co-host, HP, and with me as always is my co-host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? I'm foul. Get it?

We'll get into that. This is Taxi Season 4, Episode 19, Tony's Comeback, written by Sam Simon. Hey, from The Simpsons, we knew him. And directed by Michael Lesak, or Leesak, I'm never sure how to pronounce that. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming.

Once again, Father Malone, this is redundant, but we start in the garage, as we always start in the garage, as Jim starts talking to a guy who's reading at the poker table, a rather large, tall individual. The man Jim starts a conversation with is none other than Bubba Smith. Familiar face to everybody who grew up in the 80s, right? Absolutely. Couldn't forget him on Blue Thunder.

The television series. He was, of course, a former pro football player turned actor. I think he was best known. You're right. Blue Thunder he was very well known for.

But I think of him best as Hightower in the Police Academy movies. Oh, that's what everyone knows him from. Everyone knows him from that. One of my favorite lines of all time from that Police Academy movie where they ask him what he did in the previous life. And he says, a florist.

And they say, florist. And he goes, you know, flowers and shit. That was from the very first one? Yeah, yeah. A.K.A. the best one?

The best one, the one that was rated R and meant for adults, and then the rest was just obviously meant for not even teenagers, preteens. A little bit of Police Academy trivia. This is a glimpse into Father Malone and my history. The very first movie that we saw, we had just become friends, and we went to A sneak preview of Beetlejuice, the Tim Burton film, of course. A word of mouth screening.

They used to do those. Yeah. It was probably familiar territory to Father Malone because he was more plugged into that. This was all new to me. A couple things on that.

There were no seats left in the whole theater, so we had to sit in the very front row. Center, but it was in the very front row. The dummy seats. Yeah. The dummy seats.

And it was my first and only time ever sitting in the front row. And despite that, I really, obviously, Beetlejuice is a great movie. So I enjoyed it. But where Police Academy comes in is right after this screening of Beetlejuice, they played, I think it was Police Academy 4? It was the one, Assignment Miami Beach.

It was Assignment Miami Beach, which means it was probably 5. It was probably 5. It was the one with Matt McCoy. That's him. I was going to say Lenny Von Dolan, but he just looks like Lenny Von Dolan.

So close. Lenny Von Dolan is like the less attractive younger brother. He was. Father Mullen looked at me and said, hey, you want to just stay? I mean, they're not going to kick us out or anything.

So we said, sure, we'll stay for free to watch this Police Academy movie. I think we lasted, what, about 25 minutes? Not even? Yeah, just about that. We realized that life was too short.

We looked at each other and said, Yeah, let's get out of here. Meanwhile, we were like 15 years old and it was a free movie and it was a Police Academy movie. But you know what? That phenomenon I don't think is rare when you see a sneak preview of a great movie and then you're just watching whatever afterwards. Like even if it had been a really good studio movie following Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice was such a singular achievement as a film that was like going to be impossible to follow.

Impossible. And it's, this stands as maybe the only time I've ever really walked out of a movie in the theater, you know, which speaks more to what I choose to see. Yeah. I don't think I've ever really walked out of a movie. Oh, I've walked out of many films.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what the others, that was a significant one just walking out of that one with you. But I remember the other significant time in my life walking out of a movie. It was when I was high and watching a movie.

And I was like, this isn't even good when I'm stoned. I can't, I'm leaving. And that movie was Waterworld. I was so offended that it was just The Road Warrior. Yeah, and that obviously was a tough movie to make.

And yeah, tough movie to watch. Maybe tougher to watch than make. Fish star. Yeah. So anyway, Bubba Smith, he was on a ton of TV shows and movies in the 80s and 90s.

I kept waiting for Dick Butkus to show up here, HB. They were kind of joined at the hip. They would often appear together. And you should know that I'm the King Ad Whammy and you're Dick Butkus. He made appearances, Bubba Smith.

He was in Mr. Belvedere, Heart to Heart. Do you remember Heart to Heart? Of course. With Robert Wagner, Stephanie Powers.

Lionel Stander. Ooh la la, Stephanie Powers. Yeah. Mrs. H.

Mrs. H. Do you remember what the dog's name was in Heart to Heart? Bosley. Bosley.

No, it was not Bosley. That was the guy from Charlie's Angels. Oh, that's right. That was David something or other. No, I can't remember the name of the dog on Heart to Heart.

Sadly, Bubba Smith passed away in 2011 at the age of 66, which probably seemed a lot older then than it does now. We're kind of, you know. Yeah, man, he's young and it seems like to me. Seems young to me now for a variety of reasons. 66 years young.

H.P., you have permission to slap me if I ever refer to myself as years young. So Jim introduces himself to this man. His name is Lucius. And this somehow concerns Alex, Elaine, and Tony enough that they rush over from Coffee Cove to interrupt and introduce themselves. It's almost as if they just sort of all decided en masse to introduce themselves to this giant of a man.

In the garage. Well, there's a giant in their midst. They're fascinated. There's something new and shiny in. The garage for once.

I guess, because things get pretty boring there, I would guess. But Tony notices Lucius is wearing a Super Bowl ring. And Lucius tells Tony he got it with the Steelers when they won the Super Bowl in 1979. And Tony starts extolling the greatness of Lucius. And Lucius, to his credit, interrupts him to explain that he only practiced with the team.

He was third string. Side note, first side note. Wasn't he actually a Pittsburgh Steeler? I thought he was on the Raiders. I could be wrong about that.

He wasn't on the Bears? He started with the Colts. He played a year with the Raiders and a year with the Houston Oilers back in the 70s. So he spent most of his career with, at the time, the Baltimore Colts, not the Indianapolis Colts, the Baltimore Colts. These teams just leave and your fealty goes with it.

You're just rooting for laundry. That's the way it always works. So my side note here, Father Malone, is do you know why they call it first string, second string, third string? What the derivation of that phrase is? I've heard it my whole life and I never really thought about what it means.

No, I have no idea. Please hit me with some etymology. So it's interesting. It's actually an archery term. Archers would carry more than one string for their bow because... the strings would often break, and ultimately it became shorthand for any sort of replacement.

So a third string would be the third bow string that you would have in your pack, let's say, and just by definition it would be your third most reliable string in your pack. It's the one that you would go for after the first and second strings broke. Fascinating. So your first string of players are the real killers, and the rest are rather unreliably wounding people. Well, it's a sliding scale.

The second string are just a little worse than the first string, and then third string are worse than the first and second strings. I never thought to question or consider what that actually meant. It's one of those idioms that we use every day, but we use it a lot, and we never really think about where it comes from. I love that. That's good.

Take that with you. That's a little trivia from media. I'm not going to do anything with it, but I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate being appreciated. Alex eagerly asks Lucius that since they're all football fans, if he can ask some questions.

He becomes a little bit like a kid who's like cornered Mean Joe Green to talk to him about what it's like to be a football player. Tony asks Lucius if he misses playing and if retirement is tough and all that jazz. And Lucius corrects Tony that he's not actually retired. He got cut last season, but he's already written a few teams and he's determined to get back to the NFL. Elaine tells Lucius that he's not the only pro athlete in the garage.

Tony, in fact, was a professional boxer. Tony says. For about two minutes. No, for too long. It's more than two minutes.

Oh, yeah, that's true. It was long enough that it started to mess with his head. Tony says in disgust that he can't come back because of the boxing commission. They took his license away. And Lucius asks Tony if he still works out, and he even offers to work out with Tony if he still does.

And lucius has a real positive can-do vibe about him father malone that seems to be infectious in the in the garage i'm i'm infected Are you going to start working out too? I did. As soon as I watched this episode, I started doing calisthenics. Calisthenics, you know, with the. The medicine ball.

Knee drops, yeah. Here's another side note. When you were in grade school, Father Malone, did they have mandated exercise in the gym class that they have like a regimented, like you have to do this X amount of minutes every gym class? No, it wasn't like that, but we did have... coach and we did have you know gym where we you know we did jumping jacks and push-ups and all that kind of shit sure but it wasn't like you know start the clock. When i was real young i want to say probably sometime around grades one through five or six or whatever Whenever we'd have gym class, they would play this record called Chicken Fat.

Have you ever heard this record, Go You Chicken Fat Go? No. No? In retrospect, it was sort of music man-ish. It was sort of like it had a theatrical appeal to it, which makes sense because I found out later that Robert Preston sang this song called Chicken Fat.

And the whole point was exercise so you can get rid of all this chicken fat. In fact, I'm going to cut in chicken fat right now so you can hear it. Push-up every morning. Ten times push-up. Starting low.

Once more on the rise. Nuts to the flabby guys. Go, you chicken fat. Go away. Go, you chicken fat.

Go. Good morning. Hands on hips, please. Now then, touch your toes with me. Ready.

Touchdown. Up. Every morning. Down. Ten times.

Not just. Now and then. Four. Up. Five.

Give that chicken fat sacks to the chicken and so be chicken again. No, don't be chicken again. Is it from a musical or something? Chicken Fat, also known as, and I'm reading this right from Wikipedia, by the way, Chicken Fat, also known as the Youth Fitness Song, is a 1962 song written by Broadway composer Meredith Wilson, who, I didn't even know this, they wrote The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown and performed by actor Robert Preston. Here's where the calisthenics bit comes in.

It says it was commissioned as part of the President's Council on Physical Fitness. This was the theme song, apparently, to President John F. Kennedy's Youth Fitness Program and Millions of these records were pressed for free by Capitol Records, and they were heard in all the elementary, junior high, and high schools. Granted, I'm talking, I mean, I'm dating myself here, but this would have been like the early 80s, let's say. Yeah.

So this record. 20 years. Easily 20 years old by the time I got around to hearing it. An entire generation raised on chicken fat. But it was sort of, the whole point was this song, you would be doing the exercises while listening, kind of like the hokey pokey, but for exercise.

So I have never met anyone else beyond people who went to school when I did in my school who have ever even heard of this song. No wonder Last Starfighter was so successful. Subliminally, everyone already loved Robert Preston. Anyway, getting back to Taxi here. So at this point, Louis takes the mic from his cage, and he announces to the garage that he's going to make an example of the new driver that's starting today.

I guess we haven't seen this before, but this tracks with Louis that once he gets wind that there's a new driver starting, the first thing he wants to do is humiliate him. Well, we saw this with Burns, actually. Did he humiliate Burns that first day? He did, and then there was another driver who came in who was like, let me give you the rules. And it's basically like really curt and mean, but not like I'm going to humiliate you.

Sure, yeah. It's sort of like that guy from Stripes when he says, like, I don't want no one touching me. These are the rules. So they're keeping me books off. Francis.

Francis, lighten up. But this is very much, Louis isn't necessarily breaking down the rules of the garage. He's making an example of a new driver just to, I assume, cow the rest of the drivers into submission. Yeah, you're right. This is the first time we've seen Louis do this because they need this joke to happen.

This is a long way to juxtapose Bubba Smith's size with Louis' short stature. So, of course, he ends up announcing Lucius' name to the delight of the rest of the cabbie because they know what he doesn't know, which is this is a mountain of a man. And Lucius walks over to Louis and he just towers over the man. It's hard. We've gotten used to Danny DeVito's sort of diminutive stature, but ultimately it's.

It's like a regular man standing next to a grain silo. Right. What I was trying to say was that Danny DeVito isn't... He's short, but he's not... There's nothing medically going on with Louis that makes him diminutive.

But we've gotten used to seeing him next to average height people like Judd Hirsch and all these people. Now to see him next to Bubba Smith, who's probably like seven feet tall or taller and just a big guy, it makes him look tiny. Wait, I've got an idea. A movie, Twins, starring Bubba Smith and Danny DeVito. It could work.

Louis, when he sees... The size of Lucius, he grunts in frustration, but he still does his best to try and lay down the law to Lucius regarding $ 5 for any messages that he takes and no complaining about cabs or waiting around. And then Lucius starts to walk away after this little bit of a tirade that prompts Alex to ask, why did you take that abuse from Louis? And Lucius replies that, look, when you take a job, you play by the rules. And emboldened by this, Louis starts in again, but he makes the mistake of jabbing Lucius in the back with his finger like, and another thing.

And then Lucius whirls around and just says, don't you touch me again. And Louis, basically, it's like a Three Stooges gag. He just falls backwards right into Rieger's arms because they've coordinated this little like do-si-do thing. It's very fun. He's so terrified.

He freezes up like a possum. Yeah. Like, have you ever seen those goats? That just fall over? Yeah, they get scared.

It would have been really funny if he had just fallen over like that without him there and done like a Joe Cocker, like John Belushi thing rolling around. Missed opportunity. So then we cut to B-roll of Bobby Gleason's boxing gym, which we've seen in the past. We have, yeah. So returning B-roll footage.

Great work, Taxi. Yeah, well, you know, there's a little bit of continuity there. That's obviously where Tony's been doing his workouts. The gym, it looks a little different inside, I think. I was going to say, this is as good as it gets because we go inside.

Well, hold on. Before we even get to that, I'm questioning if it's the same B-roll because now we can see a sunshine cab parked out front. I don't remember seeing that when we first saw Gleason's Gym. No, there was an episode where we went to the gym and it was like sort of a formal situation. This is when he became Kid Rodriguez, I believe.

And the cabbies were going to go hang out with him at the gym. So I think the B rolls from that. I think if we were going to re-rate any of these episodes, I don't remember what I gave that episode where he masqueraded as Kid Rodriguez. Deserves five yellow lights is what it deserves. I'm telling you, it gets funnier and funnier the more I think about it and the more I see him with those pasted on sideburns and the mustache.

I think I might have underrated it at the time. So we cut inside now. Now the side note that you just brought up, this is a terrible, terrible gym set. Oof. For as good as they were in the past, and we've seen them where there's a boxing ring in the set And there's chairs set up and it looks like any bleachers.

There are bleachers set up. The key to a good taxi set is a sense of depth and a sense of scale. What we have here, however, it looks like they're in a small closet with a few chairs and a table kind of strewn around. It's nothing like the heyday of the gym set that we just talked about. The best part, though, is the forced perspective of the lights.

There's clearly a wall right there, and they have smaller and smaller lights leading up to a giant exit sign, like a regular-sized exit sign. It is the, oh my God, it's like community theater light. So they should have made the exit sign even smaller to make it look like it recedes. Further away, if that's what they were trying to go for, because it looked ridiculous. It looked like the exit sign was raining digital fire on the rest of the set.

It sort of speaks to how minor, ultimately, this particular episode is. This is such a crappy-looking set, and it kind of bummed me out, because in the past, like we said, they were fantastic, the gym sets. We cut inside, and Lucius is encouraging a whining Tony to complete a set of push-ups, but Father Malone, these aren't ordinary push-ups. This is another case where I think Tony was advocating for showing off his muscles and how he can do these things, because The way it's set up is, imagine a push-up configuration where you've got your hands under your shoulders and your legs way back. His legs are on a bench.

Each hand is on a chair, on the seat of a chair. And he's doing these push-ups by literally, like, diving his head in the space between the two chairs. To me, it looked really hard to do. I don't know about you. Oh, yeah.

No, that looks ridiculously hard. It's like all... You're removing the ground. You don't even have that to rely on. You have to use all your muscles all the time.

Yeah. If your arms give out, your head is going to slam into the ground. His head is literally, what, about a foot and a half off the ground at any moment? It's crazy. I guess you've got to train to train right.

Finally, Tony collapses in absolute exhaustion, and they're commiserating a little bit, and Tony talks a little bit about boxing. And that prompts Lucius to observe that Tony's always talking about boxing, so he must really miss it. Furthermore, Lucius mentions other football players that were able to make comebacks even after suffering concussions. So Lucius implores Tony to go to the doctor and appeal the licensing decision. Go back and fight the boxing board and, you know, definitely get in there and get some fucking brain damage.

Tony, you got to just believe in yourself. As long as you believe in yourself, brain damage is a myth. Look, medicine be damned. As long as you have the heart of a champion, that will overcome any concussions, any brain damage, any CTE. And actually, curiously enough, I think this was kind of the plot of the movie Rocky Balboa, where Rocky went back to the boxing commission and implored them to reverse the decision.

And Sure enough, he gets back in the game. So I guess in some ways, Tony is sort of ahead of the curve as far as this storyline is concerned. Good for him. Yeah, he's definitely going to get the most vegetated before anybody ever. Tony, the vegetable banter.

So Tony, after talking about this, Tony says that they'll just turn him down. They won't give him his license back. But Lucius, again. They shouldn't. I like to believe that Lucius is relentlessly positive, but there is something a little bit, I don't know, there's an undercurrent of.

Something going on. Yeah, man, a little bit sinister there. A little sinister where he's like, you got to go back. Don't listen to those medical doctors who might think they have your best interest at heart. Trust me.

What do they know? Those board of licensed professionals. Nothing you know better than them. He's like the devil on his shoulder and the angel. You can do anything you put your mind to.

Get your boxing license back and get some more brain damage. So Lucius goes on to tell Tony an inspirational story. Something that he thinks about whenever he considers quitting. And now I think of it every time I think I'm going to quit. So Lucius had a pet duck when he was little.

The name of the duck was Rosalind. And one day a car ran over the duck. And Lucius was eight years old. And he picked up that duck and he ran the 12 miles to the veterinarian. And every time he'd get tired, Father Malone, he'd look at the duck and think to himself, do it for the duck.

Do it for the duck. And it gave him the strength to make it all the way to the vet. And what's more, the duck made it. The vet said something to the effect of, look, if you had been a minute or so later, this duck would not have made it. But because you had the fortitude, the duck made it.

And that duck grew up to be comedian Rich Little. Tony takes this to heart and thinks about it. And then he goes on to try and do some sit-ups. And he grouses about, I can't do the sit-ups. And again, Lucius's advice is do it for the duck.

Do it for the duck. So now we fade into the garage where Tony and Lucius walk up to Alex and Elaine at the card table. And they go, hey, nerds, we're all buff now. He flips the table over. We got next.

I said we got next. Tony is marveling about what great shape he's in now because of what Lucius, he's pushing him to work out. Now he has that extra inspiration. Do it for the duck. He's marveling.

He's like, look at me. I am so, I'm in such great shape now. So the phone rings, and Jim answers it. It's for Lucius. It's a call from the Dolphins, Father Moon, the Miami Dolphins.

Oh my God, they called the magic phone. This phone is nothing but the bearer of great news. I mean, I guess this is, you know, this is pre-cell phone. So I guess you take whatever phone number you're given. But like, if you were a potential employer, Or somebody like in Bobby's case, like the agents or casting directors calling at all hours.

What would you think if they gave you some payphone number in the middle of a taxi garage? I would give them the taxi's number and pay the $ 5 to get the phone call. I would do that, too, because at least there you're guaranteed to have somebody answer the phone. The concern there is that Louie's going to screw it up for. You, though.

Right, and I understand that, but it makes more sense. Like, I have a day job that you guys can rescue me from. Call my day job, and you will get in touch with me. Right, and I think in Bobby's case, a few times he pretends that the number is his answering service. Like, he'll call for you, Mr.

Wheeler, and I'll take the call. I would give the dolphins... you know, recruitment office, the phone number of Sunshine Cab. Yeah, just say, look, if you need me, you can find me here. If I'm not here, leave a message. The dispatcher's name is Louie.

Just tell them where, you know, when you called and what you want. But for whatever reason, everyone opts for the magic phone in the middle of the garage on the pillar. So it is the Miami Dolphins. Lucius is a tryout with them, and he needs to leave tonight. It's so abrupt.

He's got to get on the next plane out and do his thing. But he tells Tony, you know, please let me know once you're recertified. I want to hear all the delicious details of your coming demise. I don't want to miss a moment of the carnage. Remember to call me after every bout.

I want to hear your slurring. Lucius says to Tony, look, why don't you call the licensing board now? That way, I can share the good news of your recertification before I even leave for Miami. And Tony is reluctant to do that because he doesn't want to ruin Lucius's news by telling him that, hey, I lost my bid for recertification. But he calls anyway.

And what do you know, Father Ballone? Tony calls, and he gets his boxing license back. I'm trying to imagine the process, because maybe testing changes from year to year. Maybe what some consider brain damage in one year, the next year, maybe they're more forgiving with the criteria for what the baseline of competency is. I don't know how he can be recertified in this way.

Well, they re-looked at the x-rays and realized that, you know, he probably wasn't going to have long to live anyway, so he might as well do so in the ring. Wouldn't he have to go in for a battery of testing again? Well, that's what I'm saying. I guess there's improvements in every field of So I guess that makes sense that maybe they reclassify these things over time. Maybe what is considered a hindrance or an injury might not be considered so bad years later.

Or maybe now they have a commissioner whose palm can be greased. However it happens, maybe Tony slipped the guy a few bucks and he looked the other way. It was Bubba Smith. Now that I think of it, he's so encouraging about it. Maybe he has a friend in the boxing commission.

He's like, I think you should do it. I think you might get lucky. It's already done. So Tony gets his license back and Lucius says his goodbyes to the other cabbies and heads out, but not before Tony insists on driving him to the airport. These guys are just such good buddies now.

It's the fraternity of athletics, I guess. They just, they bonded over that. They're united against eggheads, like, Rieger. I love that you've made them into these revenge of the nerds. It's like, it's like ogre.

A couple of swaggering jocks now, you know, they're working out every day. Just come in and flip over a lot of these tools. You should pick those up. You should be more careful. Like a lunchroom.

Like bumping people on the shoulders as they walk by. Oh, my God. This episode should have gone in that direction. So we cut back to the garage later where Elaine, Alex, and Jim are sitting at the card table. And Elaine is musing.

Although she never liked Tony boxing, there's something about his comeback that makes her think of her own dream. that have slipped away and alex asks what what dreams would those be and elaine is shy about them at first but then tells alex once she dreamed of being miss america father malone which elicits some laughter from alex. Alex has been a real dick lately. He really has been a real dick. And this is such a weird insult. She angrily calls Alex a yutz, which I don't think I've heard that.

I think I've only ever heard that in, like, Neil Simon plays. Like, have you ever called someone a yutz while I'm alone? No, but I remember it showing up in a lot of, like, Mad Magazines. Yutz? I guess it's probably a Yiddish-derived term.

Oh, of course, yeah. You know, it's great to plug in there when you have to write 700 comedy scripts per month. Yeah, I mean, I've heard and called and been called a putz, but never a yutz. I wonder what the distinction is there. Tony dejectedly walks into the garage, and Alex asks about his workout, but by the sounds of it, Tony is getting real lazy about his workouts all of a sudden, and Alex asks, look, what's going on with you?

Tony says, when Lucius was pushing me to work out, it seemed easy. But now I'm not so sure about, you know, where I go with this. Tony needs motivation. And Alex asks if he wants him to replace Lucius. Alex says, look, I'll do it.

But I'm going to be truthful no matter what. Tony is skeptical about this. But Alex wants to be realistic about all of this. He says they need to go to the gym right now. And I'm not going to take no for an answer.

Then a woman walks in. This is kind of odd. It's almost like a condensed B-plot, but it's not really. A woman walks in and asks for Louis. And this is evidently Louis' Aunt Lucia.

She brings news to Louis. This is like the godfather or something. She brings news to Louis that his uncle Emilio has died. And they have some spirited back and forth, Aunt Lucia and Louis. And when Louis asks if there's anything he can do, Aunt Lucia asks for money.

And Louis hems and haws. Aunt Lucia reminds Louis that she's the only one in the family who hasn't put a curse on him. And then Louis has this brainstorm. He says, look, there's a boxing match, Aunt Lucia. Louis has put $ 1, 000 against Tony.

And he'll give $ 300 to Aunt Lucia when Tony loses. And Louis demonstrates this by throwing a bagel at Tony's head. And it basically just like doinks off of his head. Aunt Lucia sees this and then she's jubilant because she sees that this is a sure thing because he looks like such a lunkhead, you know, immediately. What we've known all along.

You just need to throw a bagel at his head to prove it to others. To prove it, yeah. He's a dummy. So then we cut to the boxing ring. This is one of my, I do like this.

It's a lot of light and shadows to convey the idea that this is like Madison Square Garden or something. But we cut there, and Tony's getting introduced in the ring, and Louis and his aunt are sitting ringside, and Louis is even taunting Tony from the seats before the fight. The fight starts, and Tony's getting beaten really badly. He even gets knocked down in the first round, Father Ballone. His comeback is not going well.

Yes, it's about what we expected, though. It's pretty much what we expected. So then the bell rings, and Tony is dead on his feet. We cut to a subsequent round. The bell rings, and Alex asks Tony if he wants him to stop the fight, and Tony agrees.

But just when Alex has the towel in his hand, a literal throwing in the towel, when he rears back to throw it in, something catches him. It's actually a good bit of physical comedy. Like, he goes to throw it, but someone has grabbed the towel from him before he can throw it, and he looks back, and who is it? It's Lucius. Lucius...

He made the team, he made the Dolphins, but now he's come back. He wanted to see Tony fight. And Lucius exhorts Tony to go for the knockout, but Tony is unmoved. He says, look, this was a bad idea. Look at the guy.

He's faster than me. He's bigger than me. He's stronger than me. And then Lucius gets the other spectators in the crowd to start cheering for Tony. But then Tony gets immediately knocked down when the round starts.

Lucius then leads the for the duck, for the duck chant. He gets the whole crowd to do it. I think Louis and Aunt Lucia are chanting for the duck, for the duck, for the duck. This motivates Tony. He gets to his feet and he continues fighting.

And miraculously, Tony finds the strength to knock out. He rallies and knocks out the other bum. Lucius enters the ring to celebrate with Tony. And that's the end of the episode. Sort of like There's no button on anything.

There's no postscript in the garage. That's it. We see him. It's like a little mini Rocky movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like Adrian jumping into the ring here at the end. Which leads me to wonder, do you think that was part of their scheme with this? To make it sort of an underdog thing in the vein of Rocky? Oh, yeah. I think so.

I mean, this is what, like 81, 82? Yeah. We're on the cusp of Rocky III. Yeah, Rocky III was what, 1983? Yeah.

Yeah. So we'd already seen Rocky II and Rocky I and now, yeah, I think so. I'm sure boxing was just in the zeitgeist. And once again, we're in a landscape where you have to produce 22 to 24 episodes of television and any plot will do. Any inspiration will work.

So now we're going to talk about Yellow Lights, Father Malone. What does a yellow light mean? As a reminder to everybody, we score every show from one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode, and five is the best. And as is our custom, we throw it to you, Father Malone.

What do you give Tony's comeback? There's nothing wrong with the episode, but there's nothing really right with it either. I'm giving it three yellow lights. I concur. I actually gave it the same score.

I gave it three yellow lights. I've personally come to enjoy these Tony solo episodes, even though this one is very much a minor entry. That's the thing, you know, honestly, if the other Tony episodes hadn't been really good, then I might have given this four. But, like, this is just a middle-of-the-road Tony episode. It is.

And I also like Bubba Smith. He is such a warm presence. And there's also some funny Louis stuff, too, but ultimately, it's only slightly better than average. So, three yellow lights from Father Malone, three yellow lights from 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? Check me out on my show, Midnight Viewing. It's on twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. Fridays, it's all new stuff.

Mondays, with HB, usually. And then Mondays, we've got to rotate. We've got three different shows coming there. It's called Midnight Viewing. Everyone, go check it out.

As for myself, I know Father Malone mentioned the stuff that we're doing together. I don't know if you mentioned, we're in the midst of Von Doomfest. We're counting down the weeks until Avengers Doomsday, and we're focusing on every MCU character imaginable. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a band camp site, hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com. So thank you again 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 hpmusicplace at gmail.com. For Father Malone and myself, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you again next time. Bye, Mr.

Walters. Bye.