Weird being way media him. Mister Walters is see that guy with it now,
he's an actor at the phone the name, I'm a cam driver and
the only camp driver in his place. Hello and welcome once again tonight mister
Walters a taxi podcast. I'm your co host HP and with me as always
is my co host falla alone, follow alone. How are you doing HPO,
My Sonny boy. A reminder, we are doing these shows in broadcast
order and not in order of filming. This is episode twenty one. This
is the last episode of season one. The episode is called The Substitute Father.
It's written by Barry Kemp and of course directed by James Burrows Resident Directors
Burrows that was his term, a resident director, a director who shapes the
entire series. The episode begins and we're starting off in the garage once again.
You had mentioned in the last episode about pans, about Burrows's thoughts on
doing a pan pensiont he does, and we start off this episode with a
pan. We're following Jeff. We pan passed the length of the garage on
Jeff. We go past the poker table, which I don't know if you
noticed, but for one of the few times in the series thus far,
there's a bunch of extras playing poker around the table. It's not the Cabby's
that we know. I like it. It's a nice touch. You know.
They shouldn't just be an empty table because our leads aren't sitting there,
Like what about everybody else? They don't get a chance to sit at that
table. It's reserved somehow. Although you could see Banta going like, nobody
sit at this table even when I'm not here. One of the things I
love about the shot is at least two of the Cabby's at this table.
They're older, and they're all wearing these awesome newsboy style hats like you would
see a Cavey maybe wearing it. What I keep returning to in my mind
is a few episodes ago you mentioned you thought that there was a Marxist meeting
going on. They show up in this episode too. Man, they're in
the background here. They keep popping up the background actors. God, they're
perfect. They just feel like old New York caves that have been doing this
forever. You say you want a revolution, I still get the sunshine calf.
Elaine rushes in. She's looking like she just walked right out of Annie
Hall. She has this sort of trench coat with I don't know, like
a bret. Very fashionable, but she's in a rush. She was great
as always. I gotta say I'm not exactly stoked with her reason for being
here. It should never be a plot point that Elaine Nardo is going to
be absent in an episode. That's not something they should repeat. Ever,
it felt a little bit Brady Bunch like because she rushes in and loudly announces
that she has a sick aunt in Buffalo that she has to go take care
for. I think that was actually a plot point. I think Alice and
Brady Bunch went somewhere to take care of a sick relative. And that's when
remember she had a twin sister who was in the army. It makes everybody's
life miserable. I'm sure Lucy Ricardo had a sick aunt in such and such
at some point. This is the oldest trope in sitcom history. She goes
to Alex and she says she needs to go take care of her sick on
for a couple of days, and she's taking her daughter with her, but
her son Jason has a big spelling bee coming up. And she would hate
for him to miss out on this, so could Alex take care of her
son Jason for a couple of days. After some hemming and hawing, Alex
kind of reluctantly agrees. Elaine goes, Okay, I'm going to go get
Jason. He's waiting in the car, so she's going to bring him in,
and then while she's gone, Alex says, to no one in particular,
I can't do this. He's not looking forward to this in the least.
You know why he's not looking forward to this in the least HP.
Potentially it's because he's wearing seven hundred layers of clothing. He might just be
delirious here, which is why he said he has to begin with. He's
wearing a turtleneck, a button down shirt, a vest, and a jacket,
not to mention burgundy pants. Those are automatically going to give you at
least some sort of topsy turvy brained imbalance. They definitely went too far with
Alex's costume choices. In this opening scene, he's saying, Oh, I
can't do this. I'm going to have dinner with my sister one night,
and then I have a hot date the next night, he can't possibly watch
Jason for this whole time. Perhaps ill advisedly, he goes and asks Bobby,
who, let's face it, Bobby should be the last person if you
ask Bobby couldn't keep a goldfish alive for twenty four hours. Honestly, I
would ask Wheeler, but if he said no, I would take him at
his word that he had good reason to not engage. But I wouldn't ask
him in the first place. I wouldn't trust him. I don't know,
you know what, And I would ask an actor, because once the kid
starts flattering him and talking about his career and stuff, can't get enough of
him. So we lose a narcissist. And that's what he that's what he
craves. But he doesn't know. At this point, we haven't met the
kid. That's the problem. Riager is preemptively asking around for help without realizing
that the kid is Nardo's kid, and it's going to be kind of special.
And I mean that in the traditional sense is special, and not like
you know, mental or anything. I think we've all been in situations where
we commit to things that we have a knee jerk reaction of. I really
don't want to do this. You know, you're going to a party that
you're not really that enthused about. You're gonna go see somebody you're not really
that But oftentimes, at least my experiences, those can turn into great opportunities.
Like you go there, you have a better time than you thought.
That's what we're gonna end up seeing here. He asks Bobby if he can
help watch Jason, and Bobby protests, and Alex gives Bobby what I can
only describe as the gas face. He gives him this look that is right
out of Prime Minister Pete Nice's playbook. Oh my god, you're going deep
at the third base keeping oh yeah, oh yeah. And just the look,
the look that Alex gives Bobby is enough to make Bobby acquiesce. He
says, I can watch him on Thursday, but I have an acting class
on Friday. Then Alex goes over to Tony the Simpleton, who I probably
wouldn't trust with the child for completely different reasons, because I think he's like
Lenny from of Mice and Men. I think, without really really trying to,
I think he would hurt this child, like break his arm or something.
My god, this is just getting dark. All of a sudden,
and you know what, I can't even focus on Taxi right now. I'm
thinking about mc search. Alex does go to talk to Tony and and ask
him for help, but Tony says he's got sparring plans on Friday, which
is an odd thing to say, Like I got a spar with somebody on
Thursday. Wait a minute, Wait a minute. Were you implying that Banta
might hurt that child? Yeah, but I but not meaning to. I
honestly was really just daydreaming about MC search, So I didn't understand what you
were saying at all. Like what that's I'm correct, you are going dark.
That's horrible. Now, Banta would never hurt that show. No,
No, I don't think he would do it intentionally. I don't think he
would hit him out of danger back Torrence, like kid got into my papers
and I just pulled on the arm. No, I think that he might
accidentally break his arm without realizing his own strength, or or do something that
he would immediately regret. He's a man child, he doesn't know his own
strength. I got empty search, take me away. He can't watch the
kid on Friday because he's got sparring plans and now I also took a note
that we've got another tough guy pose for Gold. It's a tough guy productory
pose. He's sitting on the hood of the cab, but he's straddling the
left fender. It's it's very very discomforting. It's very weird. I don't
know why he's doing it. He's like the top monkey in the cage,
you know, just like just like he's like in a jungle book, you
know, King louis dejected. Burns asks why did Alex ask him? Which
I think is another clue that Burns is a done deal. Maybe Burns is
a ghost. At this point, have we considered that possibility that Burns has
been a ghost this entire time? Sixth sense kind of a thing absolutely like
maybe, you know, and not for maybe the run of the series,
but at a certain point, maybe when Cab eight oh four was wrecked,
maybe Burns ceased to exist on this mortal plane and he's and that's why we
haven't seen much of him, and he's had no impact since that day.
We've not seen his lovely bride, Dorothy Hamilcut since the accident. Oh my
god, HP, I think we've done it, We've unraveled it, and
it's fitting that this is the final episode. Okay, here's the thing.
I could totally watch a spinoff series, Ghost Taxi with John Burns navigating the
paranormal world. In that case, I would totally be on board with what
a rube he was, because we would all be a rube, because none
of us have been to the paranormal world, nor have we ever considered that
we would need a taxi. Glenn lest Charles, are you listening? This
is gold. Let's make this happen Ghost Taxi. I think the cabbys have
already written Burns off because they just don't. He doesn't seem to matter anymore
in the grand scheme of the workings of the garage. Alex, he says,
oh okay, yeah, I for some reason, it slipped his mind.
He asks Burns, but Burns, like the demon that he is,
says he has class on Friday, but he just wanted to be asked.
I would hit the guy like he makes this big show of being hurt that
no one asks him. Then when Alex asks him, he says, I'm
busy, you prick say that cat mind? Can you consider Burns his feelings
for once, nobody's asking him anything anymore. Plus, that's true, he's
about to lose his job or is it life, or maybe he's gone on
to a fulfilling career in the forestry Forestry Service. Hey, that's a possibility
we haven't considered yet. I hope I'm now pulling for good old John Burns.
But he does say that he can take Jason Friday morning if Tony can
switch his sparring session. So look at that. He's out there trying to
do good. They're all rearranging their schedules, trying to make sure this because
it's only for a couple of days. The spelling Bee is on Saturday,
and I want to say, this is maybe a Wednesday or a Thursday,
so it's not like they got to watch the kid for a week. It's
a very short span of time. Elaine comes back in with Jason and it
introduces him around the garage. I also noted here this is the first time
we've seen this, but when we see Bobby Wheeler, his shirt is legitimately
unbuttoned more than halfway down his chest. It's very off putting. I mean,
there's a young boy in the and he's walking around like Casanova, very
disturbing. Whiller is not going to tamp out his sexuality just because some kid
has shown up unannounced in the garage. He's a line, he's got a
he's got a prance, and he's got that mane of hair that he likes
to shake around like a lot of tame him while can't be broken HP.
Elaine says some hurried goodbyes to Jason, she hustles out. Unfortunately, she
hustles out for the balance of the episode, putting that aside, putting him
that we're now going to be robbed of Elaine Nardo for the rest of the
episode. How about the fact that she's dropped her son off for an indeterminate
number of days with no change of clothing or like food. Did she give
him any money? Like it was just like they were driving by and kicked
him out of a car. He's got no bags. You would figure they
would make a show of her saying, here's twenty dollars if you need anything,
here's the number that you can realise me at. Here's the phone number
of my ailing aunt. Please call me and keep me abreast of the living
situations with my child, like saying is he still breathing the little things like
that, I'd like to know while I'm away. It does cast some doubt
on her story. She could be anywhere. Who knows. Do we even
know that? Are we sure that her daughter is going to be with her?
We don't know, We don't. Maybe she pawned off the daughter on
her art gallery people, and she's off with Tom Selleck for the weekend,
and you know what at the end of it, what she'll have at HB
A lovely me. So she leaves. Now the Cabbys and Jason are in
this awkward silence because they don't know how to treat a boy, and he's
he doesn't know these adults, so they all end up kind of amscraying to
make lame excuses. Oh you gotta go do this. Everyone leaves except for
Alex and Bobby and Jason. Alex grabs before he can rush off and asks
him to watch Jason while he gets something out of his locker. So Alex
goes upstairs. Bobby awkwardly starts a conversation with Jason by saying, Hey,
so you're a kid, Huh. That's pretty much how I start conversations.
That's the same level of comfort. I feel usually like, so you're what
the child? Okay, how's that going for you? Jason already like immediately
turns the charm on these adults, and he says his mom told him that
Bobby's an actor and that he's actually a great actor. And as I alluded
to earlier, this pushes just the right buttons on narcissist Bobby, and all
of a sudden, Bobby's face lights up and he leans into the conversation.
He's totally into the conversation now. All the awkwardness is evaporated because he's been
complimented by this kid. That's right, Wheeler knows what the kid knows what
signed the bread is, butter is on. And this leads to a conversation
where Jason admits to Bobby that he's kind of nervous about this the spelling Bee,
and he asks Bobby how does he keep from getting nervous when he performs?
I'm sure you notice this. This kind of took me out of the
scene a little bit. Bobby's response to Jason is clearly looped in. He
says, everybody gets nervous in front of an audience, but if you look
his lips aren't even moving when he says the line. Did you notice this?
It's a rare misstep. I did not notice it. Does anyone step
on Bobby's line at that point? Just like Louie interrupt or something? No,
no, no, no. What happens? He says the line and
Alex is coming down the stairs. Alex Conway doesn't even have a line.
All he's doing is laughing, And somehow they decided maybe to make it more
clear that he's conversing with his boy and not just laughing. Oh no,
I understand their motivation for doing it. I'm just wondering how they got out
of it. And I guess that would be that'd be Rigger coming into the
scene. Alex comes down the steps and he announces it's getting two layers of
clothing and added a new one. That's what Alex riger just went up to
Dore. I'll take off this coat and I will take off the puffy vest,
cortex cortalics, and instead I will replace it with a corduroy blazer.
Well, he's probably sweated through all of those layers and he had to and
now he needs a sponge, so he put on a corduroy blazer. So
he says to Jason and out they're going to get some breakfast. But suddenly
Bobby is totally invested in this kid, and he says, no, no,
no, don't worry, I'll take him out for breakfast, and they
rush out of the garage. They're laughing the whole way. After they've gone,
suddenly very timid, and this lends credence to my theory. By the
way, a very timid Tony creeps out of wherever he's been hiding in the
garage, and he asks if they're gone, and he admits that he panicked
because he doesn't know what to do around a kid. Probably out of sympathy
to this naive simpleton, Alex offers to then take Tony to breakfast. But
this just proves my point, by the way, the idea that Tony is
afraid that he will cause bodily harm to this meaning to he's frightened that this
child is going to be his mental superior. That's ultimately within his heart of
hearts, that's what he's concerned about. Meeting the meeting Nardo's child about,
or I would like to pause it. Another theory that Banta is in fact
the child's father, you gotta look at that kid, looking a lot like
Banta get the same hair. Actually it's the same hair complexion, looking a
little bit tony ish. Also, the last episode, we had a lack
of good background players. You're saying here, we certainly got a return of
the Marxist revolution, and in this particular scene, the return of Leggy blonde
in pantsuits. She's sitting in the back having a conversation. I just wanted
to call her, really, the one who was in the aluminum foil colored
no no, no, no, no, no, no, no no,
that's that's space girl. Uh okay, Lady blonde in pant suit is
this it's like this all red pant suit with this like orange shirt. And
she missed mystically appears once in a while, I guess, just so good
luck on the cab. He's so. We cut to a b roll of
a cab rolling into the garage, the cab number eight o four. We've
seen this fucking shot a lot. Man. I hope they're I hope they're
going to send out a new second unit crew for second season. Here eight
oh four is like the Mary Celeste of cabs. Yeah, man, And
you know what, in the end, credits of this show, like they
follow a cab through the streets of New York at night and it's eight oh
four. Again, it's the ghost cab that you just maybe it is not
right because Burns died in that cab, so maybe it's just a tribute.
Oh geez, I take it all back. And you know what, earlier
in the episode, when the establishing shot of eight oh four arriving in the
cat at the cab company, they do that shot from the back of the
cab of the silhouette of a driver. We don't know who the driver is,
but really, who's the passenger, because who would be going to the
cab company. It's Burns. It's the ghost of Burns returning for his scene.
So we're back in the garage now and Louis is taking a complaint call
in his cage and I have to say, this is one of my favorite
Louis bits. I remembered this as it was going on. Yeah, he
says, you say one of the drivers was rude to you, and he's
as he's doing this, he's taking notes down with a pencil and he says,
well was it he said, exactly? I see, And how fat
are you? I love the casual, insulting way that he responds. Danny
DeVito is the master of delivering these lines with just the perfect note of passive
aggression. I don't know's he just there's something so brilliant in the way he
delivers these lines, I think. And he's got quite a few good lines
in this episode. I had to say, this is a really good episode
for Louis to palmer Tony runs into the garage. He's sort of chasing off
after it. Hold on, I got to say, this is something I
always wished one of my managers would have done for me. Not necessarily that
I'm out there like making fun of people or anything, but you know somebody
who would go, let me just ascertain what kind of an idiot you are
complaining, you know, like, oh, I see, you're actually the
problem. It's not my employee. The wonderful thing is, through the course
of the scene, we'll see him finish up this call, and at no
point are we led to believe that the person on the other end of the
call is catching on to what Louie's doing like that. The call begins and
it ends, and I think he even says, Okay, I'll make sure
that person is reprimanded. He's able to deliver these sort of zingers without the
person on the other end of the of the phone really catching on to what
he's doing. Yeah, that's a rare talent. I've only known a few
people in my life who can do that, and they always marvel. This
is sort of an odd episode, but we do see quite a bit of
Louis in this, and we get some insight more insight into his character,
which I think is really great. It's a good showcase for Danny DeVito.
Tony runs into the garage playfully chasing after Jason. He's gotten over his reluctance
to to watch Elaine's son. He recognize, I guess or he accepts that
he's his intellectual superior. Tony tells Louis, oh, two boxing lessons and
he can already beat my brains in. And here we get another great Louis
line. Louis replies, what took him so long? It's classic to Palma.
We get a lot of that in this episode. I love when he
gets after Tony. It may be like I really appreciate that because of my
history with this series so far. But we talked about this at length a
couple of episodes ago, that Louis is really the only person who can get
away with insulting Tony in this fashion because he's Tony's boss, and even though
Tony could literally punch him into oblivion, Tony will never do that because Louie
is his superior and it's a wonderful dynamic between the two of them, and
we see it here. Tony goes to get Burns, who's apparently going to
be taking over watching Jason. He's going to take Jason out. Louis wraps
up his complaint caller and he starts his own conversation with Jason. He admits
to Jason that it's kind of funny he doesn't dislike Jason as much as he
does other kids, and he's in a rare bit of candor. Louie says,
well, it must be because they both have a single mother raising them
in common. Without being saccherin about it, they're peeling some of the layers
of the Louie onion back and giving you some insight into him. Oh,
make a mistake, this is a Louie episode. It really kind of is,
isn't it. Oh? Ye, as we'll see we get shades of
everyone's reactions here. They're all involved, they all have the little mini arcs.
This is about Danny DeVito's Louis de Palma figuring out his place in the
universe and whether or not he can have children, or whether or not he
would want them. I wasn't thinking of it in those terms, but you're
absolutely right. As we'll see, Burns comes out and he says that he
and Jason are going to go see Death on the Nile. Oh, it's
a perfect kids film. Agatha Christie, Yeah, really, played by Peter
Houston. Okay, so look, this episode aired on May fifteenth of nineteen
seventy nine, which means that probably filmed a few weeks beforehand. Death on
the Nile was released in September of nineteen seventy eight and ended up playing for
about two years. For those of you who are under the age of one
thousand, movies used to play in movie theaters for long periods of time.
They'd stay around forever, So Death on the Nile was definitely around in the
spring of nineteen seventy nine. But it begs the question, since that's the
age, these are other movies that were playing that he could have taken the
child too, like The Whiz or Lord of the Rings to Ralph foxt how
about Watership Down. You could have taken it into that, but I think
in keeping with the Death on the Nile theme, like why not take him
to go see hardcore? That was also playing time. How about the Deer,
That's a perfect kids movie. I think the absolute perfect kids movie would
have been Paradise Alle featuring Sylvester Stallone and armand De Sante as brothers in Hell's
Kitchen in the nineteen forties. Tom Waits is in that movie too. Oh
my god, it's a trifecta of greatness. All those would have been interesting
options. We can only hope that they don't end up at the Circus Cinema
on the forty three was playing right then. I guess Jason admits to Burns
that he feels bad because he hasn't really started studying for the spelling Bee that's
going to happen in a couple of days. Burns rather childlike. He doesn't
pout, but he sulks about right. I guess we won't go to the
movie, and I'll have to tell Susanne that we're not going to meet her
afterwards and seeing how did you acted? Burns is and this shows how mature
Jason is for his age. He insists, no, let's go to the
movies. Let's go. I have plenty of time to study. I'll put
us oute of my studies. Let's go see your movie. Silly, silly
man. When I say mature, obviously he should be studying. But he's
at least able to recognize the disappointment in Burns, and he tries to make
him feel better. And I think that's admirable for a boy that young.
Here's the last I'll say about Death on the Nile. Yeah. I saw
Death on the Nile in the theater. I was taken to see the movie
by my grandmother. Really yeah, and oh I loved it. I thought
it was like the most adult thing in the world. I thought, oh
my god, look at adults being adults solving trimes. Was it an R
rated movie? I don't think it was R righted I out of curiosity,
But this is the last episode of the season. Let's just want to break
this down a little bit. What was your first R rated movie in the
theater? Do you remember? Does a drive in count Absolutely? I remember
we're seeing the film Orca with Richard Harris and uh, what's her name but
Jacqueline Bessett. Who oh, no, jacquelbe said bo uh Derek, oh,
Derek, Yes, yeah, Orca with those two. Yeah, that's
the first R rated thing I remember seeing projected, and that was at a
drive in and it was in a double feature, I'll point this out with
Star Wars, and it was the opener for Star Wars. So I had
to struggle mightily not to sleep through Orca in order to get to Star Wars.
I got as far as Darth Vader showing up at the in the doorway
of the Tanta four, and then I was asleep on the top of the
car. You must have been pretty young if if Star Wars was the main
feature, it might have been a re release of Star Wars. See.
For me, the first R rated movie that I saw in the theater was
Beverly Hills Cop with Eddie Murphy, so I would have been eleven. I
remember my dad, my brothers were away. It was just me and my
mom in the house. I don't know where my brothers and my dad were.
And yeah, she just decided to take us go to the movies.
Maybe we had nothing else to do, and I had this a similar reaction.
I thought, Wow, this is such an adult movie that I'm seeing,
you know, like, there's not a lot of sex. There's really
no sex in it. None. There's a strip club scene only putting myself
in my mom's place. It wasn't a lot of moments where she would have
had to cover my eyes. It's because something objectionable was happening. It was
a lot of language and in violence, obviously, but I'll never forget that
was the first I remember walking out of it saying wow. Actually because by
then I had seen many rated movies on cable, but it was a big
deal to see them in the theater. I guess, yeah, HP.
Let me tell these two stories together. A decade later, in nineteen eighty
nine, my grandmother and I went to the movies and she wanted to see
Beverly Hills Cop too, and I wanted to see whatever the fuck I wanted
to go see. So we went to separate movies and at the end I
asked her how Beverly Hills Cop Two was, and she said to me,
why won't they just let Eddie be Eddie. I just want to let that
out into the world that my grandmother was a cool lady. So they're going
to go to this movie. You barely can hear it, but Bobby,
when Bobby hears it, they're going to go to the movies. Bobby does
say, but it'll be g rated. So by now, I think Bobby's
really feeling himself as a surrogate parent looking out for Jason, which is great.
Alex tells him to be back by six because he's got Nicks tickets.
Oh my god, they're running this child ragged. Don't they understand He needs
to study, He needs to know how words are spelled. I think there's
a moral in our future, but we haven't gotten there yet. Burns and
Jason go to see Death and then Nihle and good movie. Peter used to
know hercy. It's what every ten year old kid wants to see. Madam
already the fun. That's why Peter used to know. So Alex checks with
Tony to see about additional coverage for Jason because they've run out of options now
they you know, neither Tony nor Bobby nor Burns can cover him for a
period of time. And at this point, Louis starts to loudly cough to
try and get their attention to indicate that, hey, he'd like to watch
Jason, because clearly Jason and he have shared this moment and he feels like
he'd like to watch Jason. It's like Burns all over again, except Louis
means it. Clearly. Alex and Tony have figured out what Louie is after,
but they keep playing this charade to make him become even more ridiculous with
his coughing. And he's coughing, and I guess the point where Louie is
almost hacking up alung. He's coughing so dramatically that's too much. It was
exhausting. It is too much, And we get another vaudeville moment because Tony
finally says, I got it. Let's ask Louie. And Alex's reply is
I don't want him to catch his cold, so but up up, we
need a sounder for that. Every time that happens. As we fade out,
everybody's all smiles. They're all coming together because they all love taking care
of this Elaine's sun. So we cut to this is this part was interesting?
We cut to a nighttime b roll as we fade into what I believe
is Alex's bedroom and his apartment. This is another interesting sort of set decorating
situation where he's getting changed in his bedroom, he's putting on a shirt.
But in the doorway, you see it's like a corridor and there's even a
radiator. Did you see on the wall there's at least eight pictures of what
look like child drawings of trains just plastering this part of the hallway. And
then ominously, right on top of that is a giant piece of paper that
I could The only thing I could read on it was the word in large
letters, the word collection. Did you see this too? I didn't,
but now I'm frightened. I'm intrigued, because, I mean, the train
thing is weird enough as it is, but this leads me to wonder is
Alex is he getting evicted? Is he in trouble with a collection agency?
Why is there this giant paper on his wall covering all these trains? Now
that you put it that way, is this a child criminal organization that is
threatening him, but they're letting him know that the train is coming for him?
Is there an enforcer named the train or because it's a child criminal organization,
is he that chow chow. So is this like a Bugsy Malone situation?
I hope so Alex has dressed for it in the past. We mentioned
in an earlier episode he was just very much like a like an extra from
Bugsy Malone. So maybe that gang is showing up. Fat Sam's gang is
going to show up here to let him know he can't be parading around like
them sending him a message, that's what they're doing. So Alex is changing
in his bedroom and Louis and Jason arrive. Jason's wearing a sport code and
button down shirt and the collar, I swear to God is about twenty inches
wide. It's the biggest caller you've ever seen on a ten year old boy.
Jason announces that that Louie took him to the wrestling match, which sounds
like a lot of fun. Actually, I'd love to go to the wrestling
match with Louis and Louie's mom, right, Hell, yes, that would
have been I would. I wish we had spent a little time there with
them. It was probably like really old school wrestling matches with like gorgeous George,
George the Animal Steel and all these great It's gonna yeah, and it
took place in like a community center or some sort of like like a gym
somewhere like a hall. Yeah, exactly, like some high school auditorium.
I'd love to have been part of that experience. And they just judging from
their demeanor, they had a great time. And it's nice to see that
Louie has really stepped up, that he's really enjoying. As we said,
this is kind of Louie's story. He's enjoying taking care of Jason, spending
time. All the cabbys love this kid, so Elaine is doing something right.
Louis asks what Alex and Jason are going to do, and Alex says
they're going to go out for ice cream, which begs the question. We
see Alex getting dressed. He's putting on a nice button down shirt and he
has a nice pair of slacks. It's like the middle of the night.
Why is he dressing up so fancy to take the kid out for an ice
cream cone? I couldn't figure out staking him to the plaza, getting up
some golds like the ice cream something. It's very fancy and it's very late
to be having ice cream too. Why wouldn't riger just go buy some ice
cream and make Sundays at home like Welcome home, Jason. Let's have some
ice cream and get some studying done, get a little bit of hot fudge,
make their own Sundays. Right there would have been great. It made
perfect sense. Jason once again says that he really needs to study for this
spelling bee. Now it's Friday, the Friday before the Saturday where the spelling
bee is going to take place, so he's run out of time. Effectively,
Alex admits that they've kept him so busy all the cabbies that he hasn't
had time to study, and he kind of feels bad about it. Alex
asks, are you gonna be okay tomorrow for this spelling bee? And Jason
says he just needs one good night to study. At that point, there's
horn blasts outside. It's Louie's mother hawking the horn comes My favorite line,
my favorite line reading in the entire episode. It's Louis shouting down to his
mother. What does he say, Tom down, you crazy lady. Look,
keep your pants on, crazy lady. And that's on, crazy lady.
I don't know something about crazy lady. When you're talking to someone you
love is hilarious. It's quintessential Louis de Palm. It's perfect the way he
yells that down, Like you said, the dichotomy, because we know that
Louis loves his mother very much. She's a single mother, raised him alone.
But they have such an funny, antagonistic relationship, but there's real love
there. I love to see that. Equally acceptable is devil Woman. It's
charming the way that he treats her and calls her these names, but you
know that he loves her. Alex leaves Jason alone in the bedroom to study.
The kid takes out like a big pile of books. I think there's
a dictionary mixed in there. And sure enough he opens the books and just
as quickly, Jason shuts his eyes and falls asleep right there in the bed,
right on the books. So he's had no time to study. Oh
my god. On a very special tax day, we fade in. It's
a school auditorium. It's time for the spelling bee. Look, the last
episode, you didn't like the set decoration for the Plaza Hotel. They more
than make up for it with their rendering of a school auditorium. It was
amazing. Well, let's talk those goddamned exit doors because I want them in
my house right now. The exit doors are painted in an arrow pattern with
the word exit on it. It is a work of art. It is
gorgeous. I would sit in that auditorium and just stare at those doors.
People who like us, old people who have lived through the period that's sort
of rendered in this show. We saw this. This was a thing that
you saw in public buildings. There must be a name for that style of
design. But yeah, it was an arrow, pointing, straight up,
giant arrow that covered the door with the word exit written vertically going up the
door. It was brilliant. There's a stage. There's an actual stage with
American flags on it and a moderator. On the left hand side. There's
seating for what appears to go on for rows and rows of chairs with parents
filing in. It was one of the best set decorating that we've seen yet
on this show. I thought it was wonderful. Yeah that's saying a lot,
because yeah, look, but in the last episode it was the lackluster
third ap a new location. But every other episode has just been topping itself
over and over and over again. We're always impressed with how amazing they make
their world whenever they step out of that garage, and this is a topper.
What a way to go out. They topped themselves. I mean like
we've seen them build gyms with a boxing ring in them, We've seen them
build out reception halls for high school reunions. This topped at all. The
only thing that they just didn't top was Bobby's basement apartment, which I think
is still the gold standard. But this was great Bobby's basement apartment. That
was a recurring location. We're talking about the third act locations that take place
in a location that we'll probably never come back to. At this point,
a nervous Alex and Jason file in the rest of the cabbys arrive to watch
Jason compete, and he's thrilled. It's like all of these surrogate fathers come
in here to watch Jason. It's just a fun little scenario where these cabbies,
these sort of some of them, like Louis, we didn't know that
he had this in him to be kind of an expectant father figure in a
way, and it's just wonderful to observe. And Louis says to Jason he's
got nothing to worry about. He's had to look at the rest of him,
and they're all loses. Something in the way that De Palma says the
word loses, It rolls off his tongue like honey, it's perfect, and
he says that a bunch of times in this scene. I love it.
HP. I'm I'm gonna hire Danny DeVito in a cameo to call you a
loser. I would love that. The moderator, as I said on the
stage, announces the start of the beat. All the kids file in,
the moderator announcing the name of each contestant, and after the first girl is
introduced, I love this moment. The father who's sitting near Louie proudly says
to Louie, hey, that's my daughter, and Louis says, will she's
a loser right to the guy's face. It's so great. Jason is introduced
and the Cabby's it's like they're at like a Yankees game. They go nuts
cheering for him. At this point, Louis bets the father whose kid he
just insulted. He bets the parent twenty bucks that Jason's gonna win the spelling
beat and his father has understandably taken aback, and he says, I do
not bet on my child, to which, yes, you guessed it.
Louis comes back and says, that's because you know she's a loser. Couldn't
get any better. So carnucopia of losers for you here. I'm in love
with the idea that it's this guy's doing nothing more than cheering his daughter on,
and he's got this yahoo in the audience who calls her repeatedly a loser.
It's perfect. In season two we should have a segment like Loser of
the Week. A bit of trivia. By the way, one of the
kids on the stage is introduced as Mary Lou Hartman. As you might guess,
this is a relative of Mary Lou Henner. In fact, this is
Mary Lou Henner's niece Suzanne. In a little cameo, Wow, good good
for her keeping here in the family. Better than Conaway's sister scamo right where
they just during that soap opera the beginning she got laughs though, so maybe
Conaway's sister is the victor here. What was it it was like? For
better or for worse? Was that better? For worse? My god,
man, I keep getting it wrong. The spelling bee starts and Jason takes
the stage. Banta says, oh, the first round is always the toughest,
and again Louis can't help but give it to him, and he replies,
you ought to know, Banta, that's the only round you fight in.
Of it, He's giving it to Tony any chance he gets. It's
great, Louis, heaven, I didn't think of it until you mentioned it.
But this is really Louie's episode. I keep returning to that central notion
right now. We used to feel doubly robbed that they were so interested in
the goddamn plot of this episode of keeping this kid from studying that we did
not get to see Louis de Palm and this kid at the wrestling match together,
with Louis falling in love with him and wanting to be a dad.
And that would have been a great set. They would have built the whole
wrestling ring, maybe like an auditorium or a hall of VFW where if they're
fighting, would have been great. I'm in this high school auditorium. Put
a ring in there. Instead of the seats, we still get the doors.
Uh perfection. Jason correctly spells the word phosphorus, and again the Cabbes
are cheering like they're at a baseball game. Alex is embarrassed and he says
to know in a particular you know, excuse our excitement, to which Tony
adds, yeah, we're his father, which is actually kind of sweet.
I've been beating up on Tony for this whole episode, but that's kind of
nice to see him feel like a part of Jason's life. He didn't think
he could handle it, but he is. Yeah, man, you know
that's you beating up on Banta. I don't have any problem with that guy.
Hey, look, I'm admitting that I'm a little wrong in this case.
I can change. So we fade out or we fade in. And
it's clearly later on in the competition. I think a lot of the kids
have been knocked out. It's Jason and I think a couple of other kids.
Oh a note, by the way they cut to the Cabby's. Did
you notice they cut to the Cabbys and Jeff Conaway really makes a meal out
of this yawn to sell the idea that they've been sitting in this auditorium forever
watching this play out. Did you notice that it's right, Bobby Wheeler registering
to everyone in the auditorium. Eat things up there, man. He's supportive,
but he ain't that goddamn supportive. He just yawns like nobody's business.
It's crazy how much he yawns. The third to last kid is knocked out,
and now it's just between Jason, and ironically it's the daughter of the
man that Louis repeatedly insults, and they go back a few times, and
unfortunately, in a head to head matchup, Jason loses on the word for
meal. And that's the word I wasn't familiar with. You know what?
Vermal means something green. I don't know what. According to the Mirriam Webster
Dictionary, for meal is a noun which means gilded silver. Who knew?
You learn something new every day. The other girl in the spelling Bee nails
the word and she wins, and Louis, of course, jumps out of
his chair and starts yelling fix, Fix, and the other caves hustle him
out of the auditorium before he can cause any more trouble. They cut to
the garage and the rest of the caves are trying to cheer Jason up.
About his spelling bee defeat. Again, Alex admits that the Cabby's should feel
bad because they kept him too busy to study. At that point, Elaine
hustles back in. She's still wearing her trench coat beret combo, but it
sounds like her aunt is on the mend, which is good. Looks like
Elaine didn't bring any clothing for her selfie either. She's clearly too irresponsible to
be a parent. You got that phone call and just hustled out the door.
It casts doubt on what she was actually doing. I think you're I
agree with you. I think she was spending that time with the art collector
played by Tom Selleck from the Caveto four episode. She's still wearing the same
clothes she wore three days ago. She gives Jason a kiss and says,
how are you? I missed you? How is the spelling beat? And
Jason tells his mom that he lost, and Alex again takes the bullet for
Jason and says it's all their fault because they kept him too busy, But
Jason admits it's his responsibility to do the studying and he didn't do that,
and it's his fault for not studying, and Elaine is so proud of him
for taking responsibility. Jason says, is goodbye to all the caves. And
after Elaine leaves, all of the cabby's there, and again it's Burns,
it's Tony, it's Bobby, it's Louis and Alex. They all become really
pensive. They're missing their proxy fatherhood and they get very reflective about it.
And Louis, of all people, breaks the silence by sharing a bottle of
twelve year old scotch that he's been saving for a special occasion. I noticed
it's almost a twelve year old bottle of scotch. To me, that's realistic,
because you can't expect a bunch of New York cabbies in this garage to
have something that's like a Louis the thirteenth, like a bottle of super expensive
scotch. That to me seems realistic. That's the best they can afford.
Well, I think Louis didn't Louis say they found it in a cab Did
he say that? I don't remember that part, which begs the question can
you imagine what the lost and found at a cab company in nineteen seventies New
York looked like it must have been a treasure trove of the weirdest and coolest
stuff ever. Everything in that garage just looks like it has soot all over
it. Imagine that the the Lost and Found is just so gross. When
you dig through that box of biline that probably yeah, it'd be Saturday Night
Specialists and afro picks Galore Louis pulls off this bottle of scotch, and all
of these men admit that they're thinking about having kids now or wondering about what
it would be like because they've got this. They've had this glimpse of what
it would be like to be. Of course, it's not the same thing,
because this kid is fairly mature, and it's not like they're changing diapers
or anything. The experience has been positive enough that they all feel like,
well, are we missing out? Hug of the Pole, the poll of
fatherhood, the title pull the primal Pole. Yeah. Even Bobby, who's
the most self absorbed of all of them, even he is now wondering about
what he might be missing. Not because he says, well, I've been
I spent my whole life avoiding this, but now I'm wondering what am I
missing? Then, Alex, of course, being Alex, he bringing them
back down to reality a little bit, and he says, they're only thinking
about the good stuff, not about all the money and the heartache that goes
into it. What I found interesting, Father Malone, and I'm curious if
you had a similar reaction, is not once does he ever talk about the
fact that he is a father. Yeah, at no point during his laundry
list of all of the woes that come along with being a father, he
never says, now I hear that this is what it's like because he didn't
go through any of this because he didn't raise that job. I think it
would have been a very interesting choice head, because he could have then made
the point like, well, I'm feeling it even more acutely than all of
you because I had fatherhood and I gave it up. I willingly gave it
up, and now I'm not a day goes by that I don't think about
that decision. But he doesn't do any of that. That I think was
a little bit disingenuous. I think they missed an opportunity in the writing to
really nail it, you know, Yeah, you think about all the bad
stuff I certainly did, and I ran as far as I could, all
the way to the Sunshine Cab Company like the rest of you losers. So
don't think you're just going to run out and have a kid now suddenly,
because Nardo has a good one. But it's sweet that they're all sitting around
wallowing a little bit in there uncertainty and their sadness over possible missed opportunities.
We actually have a bumper in this episode, and it's actually cute. All
these men, these cabs are still in the garage drinking. Louis breaks into
the song Sonny Boy with Alex, and eventually all the rest of the cabbes
join in and they finished the song together and it's a sweet note and the
show on. But by the way, we also get for the season finale
to get another Pan's a tough guy sitting on the cab moment. Did you
notice that? Oh, certainly he's on the hood of the cab again.
He can't help it, He's got to sit there. He doesn't belong.
Can I say that the Sonny Boy sequence were because Alex keeps doing that like
jokey Mystery Science Theater three thousand d kind of thing. Maybe like you know
calin response where he's asking questions where the next lyric of the song will be
the answer. It's it is very cute again, it keeps it from getting
two sugary sweet and saccharin. It's a little funnier that way should have ended
with Jeff getting on the microphone and going, could somebody go pick up a
passenger? Are all of you drunk right now? Is that really? We
have no Cabby's Great Laca since the Mama Gravis episode. I believe we haven't
seen hide nor hair of Laka. I don't know where he went. Did
he go back to the old country? Is he living in shame because of
what his mother did with Alex? Still? Who knows, but we haven't
seen him for a couple episodes. Now, as is our custom, we're
going to talk about yellow lights. Now, what doesn't all light mean?
As a reminder, we grade each episode on a score of one to five
yellow lights. Five yellow lights is the perfect quintessential episode of Taxi. One
yellow light is it doesn't get any worse than this. This is the worst
that Taxi has to offer. As is also our custom, I'm going to
throw it to you father alone, how many yellow lights do you give Substitute
Father. This the season finale of season one of Taxi Substitute Father. I
give two yellow lights. It is neither here nor there. It is neither
hot nor cold. It is lukewarm. Therefore I spew it from my mouth.
Really. Wow, that is very terse and to the point. It
just didn't really make you feel anything either way. No, it's good to
see the gang and particularly the relationship between Louis and the boy, but it
only made me wish that it was an entirely Louis episode with the boy and
made me obsess on a scene that didn't happen, But they brought it up,
so I feel justified in doing so. Which is the deleted scene of
Louis to Palma and the child at a wrestling match released the DiPalma cut.
I can't disagree with what you're saying. Well, I can, but I,
on the other hand, I gave this episode three yellow lights. Actually,
when I came into this episode to watch this episode, I had a
memory of watching it however many years ago at the last time I watched it,
and just the memory of the plot and the synopsis made me think,
going in, Oh, this is probably going to be a two yellow lighter.
But then I watched it again it was better than my memory led me
to believe it was going to be. It is a very SITCOMI plot,
there's no question, but I think it's really nice to see the male leads
of the show showing this different side to their personalities, especially Louis, because
to the point that You've made several times, it becomes a Louis episode because
he's probably the least likely to go on to have kids, so it becomes
more special for him this bond that he makes with Jason, and I really
like that. Yes, it's a fairly predictable episode. You know that they're
running this kid so ragged that he's bound to fail at the Spelling Bee,
But I really liked seeing these cabbes band together to take care of e Lane's
son. And there's some really, really solid laughs during the spelling be scene.
Particularly it's all Louis. I mean, if I'm being honest, Louis
is really the driving force to the humor in that part of the episode,
So I still found it genuinely funny. I love his line readings. We
talked about keep your pants on crazy lady. That is quintessential Louis de Palma
right there. For those reasons, I'm going to give it three yellow lights.
This is slightly above average for me. If Burns had taken him to
see Halloween, which was still playing theaters, then I would get a bit
of three yellow lights. If he had tried to do that, then Bobby
would have objected and said, no, no, it has to be a
g rated movie. I'm taking him to see a holiday movie. And then
Bobby Wheeler would leave and he'd say, I wonder if Halloween is still scary
in the middle of June. It's the end of season one. Folks,
Thank you so much for sticking with us, and we look forward to more
taxi talk for season two coming soon. Follow alone. When you're not clocked
into the garage, where can folks find you? I just want to stop
before I plug anything and say farewell, John Burns. We'll meet again.
Don't know where, don't know where. He might have been a ghost the
whole time. We're gonna have to re examine all of that. Anyway,
if you want to hear anything I'm doing, over to Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.
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Please check that out. If you so does so, that's going to do
it. For this episode of Night Mister Walters. Thank you so much for
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you in any manner that you see fit for myself and for father alone.
Thank you and we will see you again next season. Night, mister wals