Weird way media. Nie that guy with it now he's an actor phone and
the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister
Walters a taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host, and with me as
always is my co host, Father Malone, Father m Alone. How are
you this evening? I'm okay if you like revivals. It's like my favorite
line in this whole episode, which we'll get to. We are talking Taxi
season two, episode six, where for art Thal Bobby. This was written
by Barry Kemp and it was directed, of course by the director in residence
or the resident director, James Burrows. Reminder, we're doing these shows in
broadcast order and not in order of filming. We start this episode with the
typical b roll as cabs roll in to the garage on a nice sunny day.
Inside, Bobby brings his bookings to Louie and asks if there's any messages,
and he gets one message and to his dismay, he got booked for
a commercial. Alex sort of counters to him that generally, when you're an
actor or a struggling actor, getting a job is a good thing, but
Bobby's complaining that it's a commercial. It's a local commercial for a suntan lotion,
and it's not the kind of work that he wants to do, and
Bobby resolves to call his agent to stop doing this kind of stuff immediately.
I'm already kind of annoyed because in season one we saw him breaking his back
to get a job, any job before the midnight of the anniversary of the
pact he made with himself that he was going to be an actor or give
it all up. I think it's very superficial of him all of a sudden
to start grousing that, oh, this part is beneath me. Why am
I taking the Did you have the same impression, father Malone? Well,
this is a remake of that episode, so of course I was thinking about
it. That's exactly. Yeah, I wrote that down by the way that
I totally agree. Go on. Was it not his participation as just a
drone in a commercial that prompted him to want to quit in the last episode?
No, that him being in that Ef Hutton commercial. Yeah, that's
what brings him back to acting. That was going to be his lifeline that
he wouldn't have to quit acting. He was trying to book any job anywhere
just so he could make that deadline and not have to quit acting. Well,
obviously the movie Fame hadn't come out yet, so he couldn't have seen
that inspirational speech. But you know, the the the born professor saying like,
look, only one percent of you are actually going to be working.
The rest of you and to be waiters and delivery people. And you know,
and of that one percent, like ninety percent of it is just going
to be commercial work. So he's in the one percent and he's bitching about
it. And I get it, if your career is in skyrocketing, you
kind of resent the lower shit that you just have to do to pay the
bills. But he should realize it's nineteen seventy nine and he's getting his face.
It's a local ad, right, Okay, I see his point now,
even more if it was a national ad, I would be if Hutton
is a national ad. This is for some New York tanning salon. But
it's work, it's paid work, even something as inconsequential as a local ad.
I'm not suggesting he should be doing backflips and thanking his good fortune,
but I'm just saying, why respond so disdainfully at the prospect of doing what
you want to do, which is be a paid I don't know. It
just rubbed immediately, it rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah. To lighten
things up, we get a lack of sighting. Lacka is back everyone.
Louis tells Laca he has a Mesjenny summons him to his cage, and this
is total vaudeville. Instead of the customary dollar that Louis gets for a message,
he gives Louis a coin. Then do you remember this bit? Oh?
Of course, how could I forget that, this brilliant bit of comedy.
We've seen them do this with currency before. Louis asks what the coin
is and Loca says that it's a kebble. And immediately, like I said,
I could call with this was headed. But since Kaufman's involved on game,
because he can liven it up, so Louis asks what a kebble is
and Loka replies that it takes two hundred and seventy kebble to make a liftniche.
And this keeps going and then Louis says, what's a lift niche?
Back and forth, and finally Loca tells him the last denomination fifty liftnich equals
a matter, and then Louis says, well, what's the matter, And
of course what does Kaufman say, follow the bait? I don't even want
to you know, the joke everybody the bazooka Joe comic and Laka then cops
to it. He's like, I read it in the bubblegum rapper. He
says, what's the matter, And Laka says, I don't know, what's
the matter with you? Vaudeville and he smiles. The thing that got me
he's delight, his delight. Yeah, yeah, through sheer force of charm,
Kaufman made it work for me because he's so happy and so pleased at
having given this joke that he read in a bubblegum wrapper. It totally made
it worth it. I thought it was great, right, but it was
a slog to get there, and it needn't have been, because it could
have just been what's that or that's the matter, what's the matter, what's
the matter of you? Right? The bang bang bang not shifty kebble go
into a lift Nitz and Fisco sent to that and oh yeah, yeah it's
inelegant. But again, at the end of it, I was I was
chuckling. I thought it was kind of funny. So then Tony enters the
garage and he looks like he just came in from a softball game. They're
putting Tony in these baseball jerseys with the short sleeves. It's not a good
look. You're talking about his ringer, his yellow and white ringer T shirt.
Yeah, I loved that. This whole episode is about yellows and blues.
Sincerely, Bobby has a yellow shirt, Dance has a yellow shirt.
Elaine and Alex are both garbed in blue. Tony comes in and he's got
with him a Burns lookalike named Steve Jensen. Steve is played by an actor
named Michael Horton. Did you recognize him, father Malone? I didn't recognize
him, but I know he's a prodigious actor. I know he does a
lot of voiceover work. He's been in an a ton of a ton a
ton of stuff, a lot of television, like you said, a lot
of voiceover work. But I saw him in this, But I didn't make
the connection between Taxi and in this movie. He was in two Star Trek
movies. He was in Star Trek First Contact, and he was in Insurrection
both times as Lieutenant Daniels, which he wasn't heavily featured, but he's there.
He looks like he looks like he does here. I mean, it's
it's the character, you know, and he's instantly more likable than Burns.
Tony just picked him up from the bus station. Evidently he's come in to
New York to become an actor, and Tony, in his very simple mind,
had the bright idea to introduce him to Bobby because that's what a child
would do. Hey, what he says, what are the odds that you
know a guy comes to New York to be an actor and I know an
act. Alex's great response is fifty to fifty. Rieger's performance in this one
is somehow better than I've seen him in a long time. And he's been
really good the whole time. But I don't know, for some reason,
he's really natural here in this episode. I agree he seems looser somehow.
Yeah, well, I think this particular episode calls on him to offer counsel
in a lot of ways. He does that in every episode. For some
reason, jud Hersh is free and easy in this episode. So Bobby is
introduced to Steve Jensen, and he gives Steve the classic advice when someone says
they want to become an actor, Bobby says, don't. It's just he
runs down this whole litany of why it's soul crushing to be an actor.
You're getting doors slammed in your face. It's a heartbreak after heartbreak, on
and on, and then Rieger steps in to explain why Bobby is so upset
because he got booked for this terrible sounding local commercial. But what this does.
This actually excites Steve. He says, that's great. You know,
you're doing it. You're being an actor. That's what you do. And
something about his youthful enthusiasm and reaction kind of softens Bobby a little bit,
and it inspires Bobby to take Steve out for breakfast or whatever and introduce him
to his agent. So he's going to take him out and show him the
city a little bit. I thought that was kind of nice, you know,
absolutely so far, it's okay, you know, set up is kind
of blame, but they're they're muddling through it and everyone's given good performances here.
At this point, I was already having flashbacks to that Season one episode
where he's got to get a job or he's going to give up acting forever.
It's starting to feel a little bit like that, but we're not there
yet. See. You know what this is like a sideways aspirational episode.
You know, it's the not I'm getting the brass ring getting out here,
It's the I'm gonna quit everything and just be a cabby. Yeah. Yeah,
a lot of whining. We cut back to the garage and we can
see Elaine, Tony, and Alex are they're back to playing cards. The
last episode they took up chess, but that didn't stick evidently, so Tony
bops in and asks if anyone's seen Steve today, and Alex says to him
that they thought that Steve was staying with Bobby until he got his own apartment,
which is nice. Bobby had actually taken this guy under his wing.
He's letting him stay in his sweet basement apartment until he gets on his feet
and finds his own apartment. So that's cool. I took this as a
very ominous sign. Bobby expositions that he introduced Steve to his agent and he's
wondering how it went. Bobby keeps saying this was probably a terrible day for
Steve, getting doors slammed in your face or always miserable. So he heads
out to do his local commercial. Two of my favorite bits in this episode
have nothing to do with anything, and they both involve Andy Kaufman Locko.
So as he's on his way out to his commercial shoot, Locke presents him
with this wrapped box and Bobby says, well, what's this, and Lockett
replies, goat droppings. Bobby makes the obvious leap, and he says,
oh, is this because it's good luck in your country? And Locke said
no, and Bobby naturally says, why are you giving this to me?
And Laca says, I don't want it just away? So obvious. Of
course, it raises so many questions in one's mind. Number one, why
does he have goat droppings? And why has he wrapped it so ornately in
a box to present to Bobby. It's great. I love the mystery of
it. I love the weirdness of it. Absolutely, all that effort for
something that he just didn't want, like let's the oh, this is a
rabbit hole. I don't want to go down the goat dropping. Soon Steve
comes ambling into the garage. He seems like he's in this daze, he
doesn't know where he is. He has this look on his face, this
glazed look, and the Cabby's press him out of concern, like what's going
on? How is your day? You know? Everything okay? And he
says, yeah, I'm feeling great. I got a job. So the
first audition that Steve went on was for an off Broadway production of Romeo and
Juliet, and wouldn't you know it, he scored the lead. He's Romeo
and Romeo and Juliet off Broadway. They start in eight weeks. Of course,
they have to throw in a little bit to show how lunkheaded Tony is,
because Alex says, what's the part? And Steve replies, Romeo,
what plague Baudville? Oh I heard of that. Tony says, well,
you must be some great kind of actor, because Bob he's been trying for
a break like this for years. And at that point, the penny sort
of drops for Alex and he realizes with everybody else that this news that Steve
first audition out of the gate, he gets this amazing job. This is
going to shatter Bobby, This is going to wreck him because he's been toiling
away for years with little or nothing the show for it. When Tony wonders
who's gonna break the news, naturally, Louie is the one who offers.
This is a parallel, not to the one where he's set a deadline for
himself. This is a remake of the episode where he goes to work for
the soap opera. Yeah, and then then he gets written out of the
show. He gets killed off, but not before he's already made a production
to Louie of saying like, I'm never coming back to the garage. You're
never gonna see my face again. So he's gonna come with his tail between
his legs. And remember, Louie is so gleeful that it actually moves Alex
to violence against Louie. They chase each other around, so this is exactly
the same. So Louie is just rubbing his hands together, like, please
let me tell Bobby the bad news, because he lives for this stuff.
He's begging them let me give the bad news to Bobby, but Alex is
refusing. He says, all right, I'm not gonna tell him the news,
but you didn't say I couldn't call him, And then this chase ensues
where he's trying to get into the kge right. Yeah, it's good.
It's a really good bit of physical comedy. And you know what they got.
Here's the thing that reminded me again. I mean, how can we
not be reminded of that previous episode we were just talking about. But whenever
jed Hurst sort of springs up in a sort of offensive way, like to
tangle with Louis, I think of everyone in that garage, he's the one
I would want to fight the least. Jued Hurst seems like he could lay
anybody out. Man. I think we've all had that teacher in school who
never raised their voice, never really got into it with the kids. But
the second they raised their voice even a little bit, because it was such
a stark contrast to their normal mode of behavior, you snapped to it.
To me, that's the brilliance of Alex Rieger here, because he's usually such
a very level headed and easygoing fellow. But when he's pushed, when he
flips that switch, man, I would I'm Ali, I'm with you.
I wouldn't want to tangle with him. He'll kill you, yeah, man,
And certainly, well it's not so much him here as Nardo, and
more to the point, Tony lifting louis parallel to the floor, which is
a great site gag. Just them standing there and him clutching the cage trying
to get inside. It's almost like a painting. It doesn't excuse the fact
that we've already seen this when Judhurst ripped the grates off of the cage,
which is way more effective. This scene is funny, but there's such an
overwhelming sense of dejure vous for that first season episode. It really is like
a rewrite of that. We go to commercial, we cut back, we
see the familiar outside of Bobby's sweet basement apartment. Man looking for some cozy
fun. So the Cabby's plus Steve Jensen are all gathered in there. They
all have beers. They're waiting for Bobby to come in there. You get
the sense that they're trying to preemptively put him at ease before they have to
give him the news that Steve got this job. And Bobby bounces in smiling.
He's hugging all the Cabby's, But it becomes slowly apparent there's something in
the way that it's both the way it's shot, this tight shot of his
face, but the way that Bobby is going from person to person. Yeah,
Conway's great here because the gag is it's the fucking commercial that he did
tanned half his face so he looks like Batman villain Harvey two face dent,
but they don't feature it immediately. Like you said, it's this little game
they're playing with the lighting and everything, but Conoway's full frame turning from left
to right, so you can't really make you know something's wrong. You just
don't know what until Banta speaks up. He reminded me of Richard Dreyfus in
Close Encounters when half of his face is sunburned from the lights. Half of
Wheeler's face, like you said, has this it's tanned and the other half
is not. He's moving his head shaking it left to right, so you
see tan no tan tan, and you can hear the audience sort of start
to catch onto this and laugh. It's a great visual gag that they do.
I thought it was really good, and Conaway is a big part of
what sells this. As much as the cabbys are trying to ignore the fact
that half of his face is dark. Tony, ever uncouth keeps asking what
happened to you have face, and Bobby explains they had to put this lotion
on the side of his face and it won't come off. He's tried washing
it off and it's there for a while. Bobby expresses his gratitude to everybody
because he thinks they're ostensibly there to celebrate that he did this commercial, but
really they're all there to soften the blow for when he finds out that this
kid got a major part right out of the gate. He gives his special
thanks to Steve because he keeps reiterating this point that, boy, after the
bad day that you had, Steve, I know you didn't want to The
last thing you want to do is be in this party. And da da
da. Bobby keeps trying to ask Steve about what happened today. Well,
you know, but all the rest of the Cabins Preese company shit right here.
Oh, let me get to Bobby, did you do you want to
be here or something? Wait? Rite Bobby, Hey, let's let's do
a toast. They keep finding ways to distract him from finding out how Steve's
day went. Steve sheepishly finally admits that he had a great day that he's
playing Romeo off Broadway, and this is actually another great little visual bit.
I think it was just serendipitous. Bobby hears about this and he freezes for
a minute and he takes this big swig out of his beer, and when
he puts the beer down because it had been shaken, the beer just goes
everywhere. It just starts coming out like fizzing right out of the can.
I thought it was a great match to his attitude in that moment. What
did you think the frothing of the can is great? But if you're watching,
he's drinking when he's told that the kid got the gig, and he
lowers the can and then remembers he's supposed to shake it, so he takes
that quick drink to make the can do that. So it looks really unnatural,
because here's the thing. If his character, if his reaction after hearing
it was to start drinking, then he would have drunk the whole thing.
And he doesn't do it. He just does this quick like and it's just
to shake the can up enough. I watched the scene twice because I watched
the episode twice, and the first time I was like, what was wrong
with that? And then it second time, did it? He missed his
cue HB But the gag still works. Yeah, it still works. Bobby
then tries to give Steve some encouragement and say, oh, this is great,
and he tries to rally the Cabby's, and the Cabby's again are all
feigning indifference to this news. And that's when Elaine gives that great line reading
where he says, is this great? He's on Romeo, He's doing Romeo
and Juliet, And Elaine says, well, yeah, I guess if you
like revivals. It's like an Altman thing because like everyone's speaking at once,
you know, so this is cacaphony of voices, but hers just sings right
out, you know. According to the Lovies book The Official Taxi Fan Guide,
Mary Leeuhanner takes full credit for that particular line. She came up with
that line during rehearsals and she insisted she's going to be the one to deliver
that line. It works wonderfully. It's a great moment in the episode.
It is Bobby goes back over to Steve and he says, oh, it's
great, you made it, and he starts hugging him by the shoulders.
You made it, you made it, you made it, And he goes
for being nervously happy to choking him and saying you made it, you made
it, and starts throttling him by the neck. I thought it was a
fun little transition for Conaway. His face twists into this rictus of anger,
and I thought it was a funny little two faces taken over here, Harvey.
Then just soon the coin will merge. So you're carrying the Batman analogy
to its final conclusion there. You couldn't pay me enough to have my face
look like that. That's Tony Well, what a sensitive guy. We cut
back to the garage and Wheelers coming in. He's still got half of his
face is still tanned, and he asks Louis for a cab, and Louis
he can't help just laughing right in Wheeler's face when he sees this half tan
going on the rest of the cab. He's all try to buck Bobby up,
but he proclaims that he's not an actor anymore. It's all, he
says, it's all a bunch of luck. He's fishing for sympathy, and
I find it annoying that he's doing this because he knows that they're all going
to try to cheer him up or convince him not to do it, but
he does it anyway. It's dumb. The modern equivalent is I'm leaving this
Facebook group. Okay, yeah bye. By the way, I was going
to use that example, but Facebook is not in anymore. We're very old.
We're reviewing taxi we're talking about that's as modern as we get. It's
like my Space. When you're gonna leave a MySpace page and you say I'm
leaving. Bobby says that he's already left a message for his agent, saying
as much that he's quitting acting and he's done. Steve comes in to ostensibly
to apologize to Bobby for what happened, but then he asks Alex if he'll
run some lines with them, and then Alex sagely suggests that he run lines
with Bobby instead. This is it's dumb, like reverse psychology. A kid
wouldn't fall for this. It's dumb. Yeah. And also he should be
rehearsing for the play that starts in two weeks with the cast, and not
here at the garage. What is Steve doing here? Go find an apartment.
It's insulting the way that it's written. It's so obvious what Alex is
trying to do that even Tony the lunkhead knows what he's driving at. I
think he even says, oh, I know what you're getting at. Steve
and Bobby get ready to run this scene from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo fights
with Paris and kills him, and after initially Bobby makes a big show of
seeming so bored he's not giving anything to his performance, Steve actually says,
hey, can you give me a little more, Let's really make this work.
Yeah, it's so again this dramatic petulant thing that Wheeler sometimes does that
I really do not like. Where he's got a Snickers bar half in half
out of his mouth. He's not even chewing it. He's just mumbling around
it like I'm a dickhead. He's holding it like a cigar, he's not
eating it. The whole point of it is to rouse his acting passion so
that he won't quit. Bobby finally gets into the spirit of the performance.
I think he even goes off book. He doesn't even need the book anymore,
he could just recite it from memory. Their impassion performance compels the rest
of the garage to applaud loudly, which leads to my third favorite Laca moment,
and I think this was also done in season one, if I'm not
mistaken, at some point where they're applauding this performance and Loaca happens to be
walking in and he thinks that they're applauding for him. He says nothing,
but he just nods and receives the applause and walks across the garage. That
joke is evergreen. I don't care how many times I see it in how
many different shows or how many different situations. Somebody mistaking applause for their own
adulation is always hilarious. Every favorite moment I've had is about Laka, And
you could take those out of the episode entirely and it would not change the
episode one bit except make it less funny. So you could just watch some
special featuring Andy Kaufman instead of this episode. Oh and I would have enjoyed
it a hell of a lot more than this, not to spoil my review,
we wouldn't have gotten to see Bobby Wheeler do his death thing for the
fucking thousandth time in two seasons, not even five episodes. Into the season
six. Yeah, I could do without his hammy, you know. Oh,
As he gets stabbed with an imaginary sword and he falls to the ground,
I am slain. I expected in my life that people would proclaim that
a little bit more. It seemed to me that in every Shakespearean play,
when you die, you yell you are slain, whether stabbed or not.
So I thought that was just a thing we all did. I don't know,
I guess I never gave it much thought. But try to yell I
am slain right before I die. If I have the last breath in me,
I am slain, or maybe put that on my tombstone. So we've
seen him do dying better than this in previous episodes, and here's where it
actually counts, because this is supposed to be reinvigorating him in some way.
I guess it doesn't actually though, does it. It doesn't really, because
what happens is he falls to the floor, everybody applauds, and he says
to Steve, hey, you know a kid, you're great. Steve's response
is, you can't give up acting. We're led to believe that this performance
has affected Steve to the point where now even he thinks that Bobby can't quit
acting because it's such an amazing performance that it's an actor is complimenting him on
his performance. But in reality, it's not that good of a performance.
But then again, neither is Steve Jensen's performance as Romeo. But that's neither
here nor there. That's because I've stuck in that seventies kind of leftover from
the sixties Romeo and Juliet performance of Shakespeare. Everyone's still doing Shakespeare acting instead
of acting in Shakespeare. I think we probably have Kenneth Branna to thank for
bringing Shakespeare back to the masses, making it more approachable and making the dialogue
more sensical to modern audiences. He didn't change the dialogue, but it's the
way he's performed was the key there, right, But I think you're right,
it's still very Shakespearean. That's what we all suffered through in high school.
As I said, he says to Bobby, you can't quit acting.
The real truth of it, he says, is that look, if he
can be that good, If Bobby can be that good and he still can't
get a job, then this just proves that acting is nothing. But luck
He's actually right, it's one hundred percent right. He could have gotten off
a bus and walked into an audition and gotten a lead. The stars did
not align for him for whatever reason, and they did for Steve Jensen.
It could be his look. It could just have been that day they were
ready for that actor for that part. Bobby is speaking the truth here.
It's a crapshoot. No matter how you slice it. We can't control himself
any longer. This is the same fit of glee and laughter that he couldn't
stifle back in that season one episode. He bursts out laughing from his cage,
and he really calls Riager on Riager's transparent scheme to get Bobby to do
this scene. He says, what's on our mind, which is that was
a really lame thing for him to try to do. It was so obvious
that it was reverse psychology at work. Here. Bobby's the one who confronts
Louie, which normally we would have expected Alex to be the one to say
that's enough, I've had enough. But Bobby gets up and explains to a
chuckling Louis, like Louis can't even keep a straight face during this exchange between
the two of them, and he says to Louis, look, acting is
nothing but a bunch of heartbreak. Does Louis know how it feels to have
your dream slip away time and time and time again. But then Bobby admits
to Louis that he came into the garage that day is it really is a
beaten man. But he's found something that's going to get him through all of
the hard times chasing his dream to become an actor. He's found a light.
You know what that light is? It? To you, Louis,
I'm gonna make it just to fuck you. Conway's great here. He could
have been histrionic, He's not. He could have been underplaying it. He
isn't. He's right in the sweet spot there where he's just telling it like
it is. There's all the menace in the world in it, with it
none of it being presented as that. It's fucking good man. It almost
redeems the episode. But it can't. Possibly Jeff Conaway has to do this
while Danny DeVito is right across from him. He's laughing his ass off through
the whole thing. He can't. It's supposed to be this idea that Louie
can't stop chuckling, so Conaway has to get deep down and serious and break
it down for Louie. I would have been cracking up because Daniel Vito's right
there cracking up. You're right. It almost redeems the previous twenty six minutes
of the episode. But it doesn't it. We don't quite get there to
your point. He basically says to Louis, Look, you're the reason that
I'm gonna keep going. Every time I get beaten down, I'm gonna tell
myself that someday I'm gonna come back and shove everything you've said to me,
write down your fucking throat. And then he says, excuse me, I
got to call my agent, So you're gonna call the agent back and tell
him I'm not quitting. I'm back then, but then he does this move
where he raises the forearm and kicks out the legs simultaneously like a piston,
Like I'll kick you in the fucking face, Louis to Palmer, Miss stump
on you crunch. I thought that was Loui's move, though, that's Louis
does that. Oh even, yeah, you're right, I guess he has
done that in the past. I think that was his the echo of Louise
doing that move like a second, I like it even more. Yeah,
the last two minutes of this episode is really really good. Then we have
another what really passes for a bumper where and this is a very odd bumper.
I gotta say, a stupid bumper. It makes no sense at all.
Suddenly the coffee machine has gone and it's replaced by the candy machine again.
Why because we needed to be there? And yeah, okay, so
Louis pissed off, like you know, an animal has to act out and
smash something. So he's like, y'all like candy, Well take this,
and he dumps the candy machine over and then half heartedly stomps on maybe two
pieces of candy before walking off, all triumphant and angry and dismissive of them.
But he just gave everybody free candy. It's not much of a take
that to the rest of the cabbes. It's just like, I just overturned
this candy machine. I stepped on two or three candy bars, but the
rest are fine, have at it. Hey, I'm gonna have to pay
for this candy machine. The boss is going to freak the fuck out on
me. I might lose my job. Now have some free candy I win
the other thing that redeemed this bumper for me. And this is so niche
and I forgive you if you didn't notice this, But I don't know if
you remember. In the season one episode Hollywood Calling You and I had a
spirited discussion about an extra that was in the back. I dubbed him something
like Captain Marvel. I thought he was part of the film crew. You
thought he was part of the camp company. And I believe you were right
in that case. Well, not only that, but this confirms it because
as Louie is walking off triumphantly after stepping on two or three candy bars,
who's in the background watching all of this take place. Captain Marvel's there.
He's got the same shirt, he's got the same pants, he's got the
same hat. It's the same fucking guy. He's still a cavey. So
you're just sort of reveling in that right now. I got what it tells
me is he must have been a co producer or somebody on the staff,
because why would an extra still be there after one season's already gone? Are
you crazy? Have you watched like an entire run of cheers. Look around
that bar. All of those patrons are pretty much the same in most of
these background cabbys we've been seeing forever now, Blonde, leggy pants suit,
blonde is there. I've seen Appleman in the background. We've seen a bunch
of these people. Man, Lumberjack, Apple. Yeah. There was something
thrilling in seeing this extra looking exactly like he did the previous season for no
good reason. He's just there. I found it delightful. That's the episode
that is where for Art Thau Bobby. Now we're going to talk yellow lights
as we do. What does a yellow light mean? A reminder we grave
this episode on a scale from one yellow light to five yellow lights. One
yellow light is a terrible taxi episode. Five yellow lights is the perfect taxi
episode, and as is our custom Fallow Malone, I'll throw it to you.
What do you give where for Art Thou Bobby? A poor remake of
a previously annoying episode. I'd like to say that there are good things in
it, and I think I already have, but I don't need to JUSTI
find it any more than that. This one was better paced than the previous
Banta episode. It moved along at a steady clip. It's just that we've
seen all of this before, We've seen it done better, and if they're
going to do aspirational episodes, they got to come up with something new other
than I'm going to quit and I'm going to quit. Well, let me
ask you a question. You gave the Banta episode two yellow lights. You
think this episode is worse than the Banta episode. Yeah, I hadn't seen
the Banta episode before. I've seen this one before. I'm kind of surprised,
but I will tell you that I gave this episode two yellow lights because
you're frequently wrong, but so my rationale on this and again I say this
often, but I don't have to explain myself to you, but I will,
and the interest of our viewers. There's I think there's some funny stuff
with the Cabbys and Louis. It's you know, I chuckled a few times.
I love this stuff with Laka, despite the fact that it has nothing
to do with the episode itself proper. I agree with you that it's far
too similar to some of the episodes we saw in season one. In particular,
the episode called Bobby's Big Break featured Wheeler pushed to the brink of quitting
acting by circumstances out of his control. So yes, there are such similarities
between those two episodes, But all in all, I still think this is
slightly below average, if not enjoyable, on some of its own merits.
So I gave it two yellow lights. We're not worlds away like I always
say, but you know it's worth noting. Yeah, don't be poor poor,
don't be poorly written, and an echo of an earlier episode. That's
my ultimate takeaway here. I liked all the lot of stuff too, and
I like that last moment with Conaway, but the rest of its kind of
bad. Yeah, but you also said you liked Alex in this episode better
too. This doesn't right. I might have to go to two yellow lights.
Don't let me convince you you gave the score. You gave it,
Okay, listen, I gave it the one because I'm so mad that they
wasted our time with the Wheeler episode doing this with Wheeler when we've already seen
this with Wheeler. But you know what, the Harvey two face makeup and
his performance, you know what, not even Riger, not even Riger's performance
here. I'm gonna go with Conaway's performance gets it an extra hollo light.
I'm going up to two two yellow light. We're in agreement perfect, So
that will do it for this episode of night Mister Walters follow Malone. Where
can people find you when you're not clocked into the garage. You can hear
me over on weirdingwaymedia dot com, where I have shows like Dark Destinations it's
a radio drama and Midnight Viewing, a horror anthology podcast where we review tales
from the dark side, and midnight viewing anthologies Attack, where we review all
kinds of anthologies. You're covering Batman on the anthology series right, Yeah,
We've already covered Almost Got Them from season one, and the next up is
Legends of the Dark Knight from season three. Those are both anthologies within the
series where a group of characters get around and tell stories about Batman. Very
cool, very cool. So for myself, I can also be found on
the weirding Way network. I have been proud to appear in some capacity on
several episodes of Dark Destinations, which you have to catch it. If you
like good radio drama, good storytelling, please check it out. You will
not be disappointed. I've also been an occasional contributor to things like the Culture
Cast. I've also got a band campsite called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.
Look for some new material there, hopefully soon. Anyway, thanks again for
listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review,
or rate us. We'd love to hear from you in any manner that you
see fit so for myself and father alone, thank you so much for listening,
and we'll see you again next time. Hie, mister Walders