We're being way media think mister Walters is that guy with it. He's an
actor Phone Rise by them can drive, I only can't drivers. Hello and
welcome back to night mister Walters. A taxi podcast with us as always is
father Malone, Father Malone, How are you? I'm great for a good
time called Melody on the Wall by the phone and it plays in go ahead,
it's great. No, no, well we'll get into that. I
of course I'm your co host hp uh. Looking forward to digging into some
taxi tonight. Tonight's episode that we are going and I want to remind everybody
that we are doing this in broadcast order and not in order of filming.
We are going over episode four, which is Bobby's acting career. It was
written by Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels, and it was directed by James Burrows.
Let's get into a little bit of what you know. This is as
good a jumping off point as any. You were talking about the telephone in
the garage. What's going on with the telephone in this episode. It's very
it's kind of key to the a story in this episode, at least initially.
Once again, a plot revolves around the pay telephone. Yes, bygone
era of a bygone era. This is a relic of the past. Bobby's
waiting for the call. It's an aspirational episode, is what it is.
It's Bobby wanting to get out of the Cabby life and the only way that's
going to happen is if everyone stays off the goddamn pay phone call from superstardom
arrives and he gets to be in an off broadwaye play. This is another
of these episodes where he's reaching for the brass ring. In this case,
Bobby apparently has had a self imposed deadline on making it as an actor in
New York. He gave himself three years, and that three years is up.
The time is almost uff. I think he has like a day.
I think he's got like a day or two to meet his goal, or
that's it. He's got to quit acting forever, which, let's be honest,
would not be any great loss to acting. But that's cold. He's
a fine performer, Bobby Liar. He's hammy, There's no question. He's
hammy. And we'll get to that. Absolutely perfect for any soap opera or
orthopedic shoe ad that might be available or in this case the commercial that he
tries out for, which we'll talk about the A plot, like I said,
like we've been saying, is he's he's desperately waiting by this relic of
a bygone era, the pay phone, for his agent to call him and
give him a job. He's desperate. He because he believes his dream is
going to be over. And that's you know, it is what it is
of all people. Alex the pragmatist says to him, if you want a
job, you stand in line. This is a bit that he throws at
Bobby to give him this, you know, the gumption to go out instead
of sitting here like like an idiot waiting for a college, Get out there
and get a job, Bobby. That's what Alex does. So Bobby goes
out and starts, you know, beating the pavement trying to find a job.
He gets an this is another relative a bygone era. He gets a
commercial audition and it's Hutton. And when if Hutton talks pause, everyone listens.
This is I think ef Hutton is still around as a as a business.
But I didn't advertise at all anymore. You know. The thing is,
maybe we'll get to it well, we'll get to it. I suppose
this commercial, but it's supposed to be like humiliating, Like it's not humiliating
enough that he's having to audition for commercial, but he's just one face and
a crowd of people. But I would say that's actually a benefit, because
you don't want to be seen in a commercial as your first commercial or sort
of your first acting outing. Oddly enough that this was my favorite. This
is I'm damning it with faint praise, but this was my favorite part of
the show is when he goes in for this audition, because it's just like
sort of build up and you see all of the actors waiting for the for
the audition like kind of like turning their heads in this very sort of unique
fashion, and you don't know why they're what they're auditioning for. And then
it turns out it was sort of a funny reveal and the fact that Iff
Hutton doesn't they're not an advertising presence anymore. I thought it was kind of
funny. While this is all happening, we'll talk about the B plot,
which is equally as inconsequential, but it involves Alec and he's clearly he's a
he's a good guy. He's a dog lover. As we'll see, he
rescues a great Dane in his cab from an abusive owner who won him in
a poker game. This guy gets in the cab and he asked he's trying
to show off his dog Hamlet because he's a great Dane. There's a joke
about that in the show. No wait, a joke before it where he
says, do you know why I named him? That? He says,
because he lives in a small German town. That was a really good it
was, But I any plot that involves a reager, no matter how inconsequential,
is at least worth the price of admission. So yeah, any chance
Judhurst gets just spout off a few lines from Shakespeare, which he does immediately.
Yet, yeah, everyone, remember I'm a trained actor. Never let
it be said that I'm not the number one draw for this show. In
this episode about an actor who can't make it just reminders that the man in
the cab that the episode is quite an actor. Proceed The guy who owns
the dog tries to get the dog to do a trick and the dog doesn't
respond, and off screen you see him whipping the dog with his leash and
he's he's being very cruel to the dog. So Rieger, being the good
guy that he is, he kicks the guy out of the cab and holds
onto the dog and throughout the rest of the episode that this this abuser,
this this you know, this animal abuser tries to get the dog back.
First, he goes back there and demands that they give him back the dog,
and somewhere or somehow they they get locked up to talk to the guy
in his uh, you know, his foreign language, and they walk off
and it's haha, he's being confused by the language or whatever, which is
fine. And then just to wrap it all up, if we're going to
wrap up each plot separately, then the guy comes back again. This time
he's brought a cop played by I believe his name is Tarian Black from Black
from Hill Street Blues who later went on to be in Hill Street Lose as
another cop. So that was kind of cool. So he comes back asks
that they return the dog. They argue, Bobby has this brilliant like Solomon
like idea, too, Well, why don't you stand on opposite sides,
put the dog in the middle. You both call the dog and whoever the
dog goes to is the rightful owner. Somehow, the cop, ignoring all
all you know, possession is nine tenths of the log and what have you,
says, well, that's a good idea. So they separate. They
both call the dog. The dog goes to the bad owner, and you
initially think, oh, why why did you go with that owner? And
then all of a sudden you hear a very bad dubbed in and the dog
is now biting the owner, and the owner again a bad dub is saying,
take the dog back. I don't know what the dog and it's ha
ha, very funny. The dog gives the guys come up and are we
talking about that moment right now? Because I'll talk about that moment because it's
absolutely awful. Where it's basically the dog. It's like a guy sort of
twisting a little with a dog, and they've dubbed in this sound and it's
and after what we've seen this guy due to the dog and the way he's
been pursuing the dog for no other reason than to continue to brutalize it.
I wanted them to cut to this man's head flying through the air in a
big jet of blood. The overdubbing was bad. They like they clearly they
had to get They probably put like some a treat in the guy's pockets so
the dog would sit there and nuzzle him as if he was biting him.
But whatever, it wasn't it wasn't that effective. I think we're supposed to
get the idea that the dog was biting him in the ass ha ha.
It played a little too slapsticky. And the scene before the cop frisks each
of them, it's a meat frisk. He's got to make sure has any
meat on them. In the sway of the Don's opinion, why didn't they
take their own advice to put meat on this guy and have him run out
in this great day and chase him out immediate comic gold, I would,
I would think so to be fair, I found the whole thing rather embarrassing.
This part of that B plot, it just was it was unbelievable,
unrealistic, and it was just embarrassing to watch. So that's the B plot
from beginning to end. Talking about Bobby's bit again, he's given himself,
he's given himself a self imposed deadline to try and get a job. The
time comes he has a party in his apartment. This is the first time
you get to see his apartment, by the way, you see it a
few more times in the show. And another one of the good parts about
this episode that I will say is I love the set decoration for his apartment.
I think we've talked about the sets and how wonderful they are, but
I think they did an especially good job with his because it looks very lived
in. I have an entire page of notes on Bobby's thing because I have
not seen this episode since I was a child, and as soon as I
saw again, I thought I had an immediate memory of thinking, as a
child, I want to live there when I grow up. Obviously Fawnsi's apartment
would have been good, but then you got to live above the Cunningham's fuck
that I want to live in Bobby Wheeler's apartment, And so I wrote down
pretty much to everything I could see on the walls. You know, there's
a lot of texture to it. There's there's a few clearly either these are
shows that he has acted in or as a fan of the playbills. I
think there's a pair of ice skates on the wall, kind of hanging there.
There's a Mets banner, a poster that says feed lot, feed Lot.
There's another poster I couldn't make much of, but something's going on at
eleven pm. There's this paper mache mask. If you notice on his shelves
a lot of Chef Boy Our Day, the oversized can of lasagna, but
the spaghetti and meatballs as well some spinach. This is perfect. This is
exactly what you would expect to see in the Starving Actors apartment. Right,
It's all this like crap, instant food, canned food or whatever. It
feels lived in. It feels authentic. There's a lot to see. There's
a lot of little bibbs and bobs to look at it. And this isn't
the last time we'll see the apartment. But I love it's like this sort
of down. It's like it's a walkdown. So through his windows you can
see just the lower halves of people going back, and it's not as extreme
where it's like Laverne and surely like you're just seeing feet walking through the that's
actually spooky and a little weird. This is kind of cool. It's you
know, what it reminds me of actually was the apartment that Michael Caine has
in dressed to kill as the psychiatrist. That little you walk down and you
know, I didn't note this down as much as you did, but I
really should have because that it goes without saying that. That's one of my
favorite parts of this particular episode, which isn't saying much but credit where credit
is due. The set decorators are on point as always, so his apartment
looks great. He has everybody over because he still believes as midnight as approach,
it's like something out of like New Year's Eve or something, something is
going to happen. He's gonna get a call from an agent, his agent,
and he's going to get a job no matter what. And if the
time comes passes and he gets no call, Rieger, who's the eternal pragmatist,
realist, if you will, he says, basically says to Bobby,
well, you know, Bobby, you gave it a shot, but maybe
you're just not that good. I think I'm not sure if those are exact
his exact words. That's in essence, he's just saying, look, you
know, maybe it's just not your thing, man, Maybe it's just not
going to happen. You gave it three years. You gave it your best
shot. It's time to move on and maybe pick yourself up and do something
else. And Bobby goes ape. Shit. It becomes a monologue where he
kind of throws it back into Riager's face. I think he says, like,
you're not my friend anymore. I don't want to see you anymore,
man, I don't even want to know you anymore, and is kicking him
out, and Hirsch plays this perfectly. He just he has this look like,
oh, I guess I've done it. I have no choice but to
leave. And as he's leaving, Bobby kind of puts his arm around him
and says, you still think I'm a bad actor, And baha, it
was just improving that. Yes, I do have what it takes, which
is just stupid. Let's just be honest. It's it's a good scene and
it works. I don't think so. I think I think reader is part
of it works. I don't. I think Bobby is Hamhock big time.
I half agree with you. I think what's wrong is it's so overwritten.
It's obvious it's a monologue. You know as soon as he opens his mouth
that this is an act that he's pulling on Reager and if you cut,
if you whatever they filmed there, if you cut that down to like three
sentences, then his performance would be as good as Judd Hersh's. They gave
him too much rope to hang himself, and that's exactly what Jeff Conaway will
do. I could not agree more. And that's a that's a very good
point about and that's something I maybe should have kept in mind, which is
it is very the dialogue is very overcooked and overwritten. Had he done that
in three sentences, like oh my god, I thought everyone but you would
be behind me and this hurts the most and do the sad thing and then
launch into the anger and throw open the door, it'd be like whoa.
But it's this, Like oh, it's like this, and it's not you
know, it's the time and it's the medium and whatever. But it is
so telegraphed that it we're just kind of wasting time watching. Unless it is
more would have been the perfect Ye're absolutely right, following the unless it is
more would have been appropriate. But subtlety is never going was never going to
be Bobby Wheeler's wheelhouse, so to speak, nor is it ever possibly going
to be Jeff Conaway's wheelhouse. I found it, like I said, very
handy, very overdone, and to your point, very over overwritten. So
they kind of share a look and it's like whatever, and Paul never comes.
So then what does he do after the time passes and everybody's looking at
him with concern and worried about what he's gonna do. He he just shrugs
and says, hey, I'll give it another three years. Hey, what
he's what he's essentially done is take And this is again a cardinal sin of
storytelling. Is he's taken what is transpired in the past, the previous twenty
two minutes, and made it irrelevant, just crumpled it up into a big
ball and threw it at you as an audience member, and said, you
know what, you shouldn't care. Because Bobby didn't care. Bobby just kind
of shrugged and said, so what, I'll give myself another three years?
Well, why should I care? Could everyone come over to my place tonight
so I can just have a big dramatic meltdown and you can all witness it
and it'll be meaningless in the end. Yeah, we'll be there, Bobby.
They're gonna be I'd like to make a segue if I might a and
I'm gonna use the thing clumsy voice so over technique they used in this episode
to get us to the third act, where instead of just filming a scene
where characters sort of ladle out what what the next bit of information we need,
they just have Bobby read this endless bit of exposition over b roll.
Yeah, but downtown New York. I've never which I'm never sad to see
the b roll. The b roll in this episode is particularly good in that
opening scene with Rieger in the in the dog. Now we get some outside
shots in that cab, like pushing in us it's driving down the street.
Fantastic, I want to make I just want to mention a couple of little
things that occurred to me while watching the episode. Do you know how much
it is per mile there for for a cab ran? How much per mile?
Uh? Interesting, I don't know. Fifteen cents a mile, that's
my guess. Seventy five cents for the first seventh of a mile, and
then ten cents for each seventh of a mile. Is that printed on the
machine on the wall. It's on the wall. Oh, in the cab.
I've never that's so interesting. I've never actually i've tents a mile is
effectively with seventy five cents for the first one seventh of a mile. It's
interesting. I've seen that a million times, but I don't think I've ever
actually like thought it through. Now in the B plot in this episode HB
the Dog Party, Hamlet, Hamlet, when we get back to the garage
for the first time and we're easing our way into the A plot via the
B plot, uh, for for no good reason, we get to see
Tony dance and lift his shirt to show his six pack, his pre Brad
Pitt Hollywood six pack, right, yeah, yeah, it's a big joke
because Bobby has to punch something and punch me, and then he punches a
man. He crumples over like a like a sack of wet towels, like
a sack of potatoes. But the observation I want to say, we get
to see how effectively fierce he is, even if he was unprepared to take
that punch from Bobby Wheler. We know Tony Denza or Tony Banta is a
formidable character, right when this guy who we know to have beaten the dog
comes back looking for his dog for the first time, we have this big
wall of solidarity where like we don't see this dog. This I am Spartaca's
scene instead of should have actually happened on this nineteen seventy set television series where
sometimes morality is a bit questionable. On the show, Tony Banta walk up
and punch that guy square in the face and say it's our dog. Now.
If you come back, I'll kill you. That's kind of should have
happened during that moment. Anyone in that fucking garage should have walked up with
a ranch and said, did you hit this dog? You know what I
do to people who hit dogs, and then like grab his wallet and go,
I know where you live now, man. Part of it might be,
and I hate to say this, but maybe people weren't as plugged into
animal rights as they are now. They weren't because it's a goofy b plot.
And even when the police show up and Rieger's like, this is my
dog. This is a crazy man that police. That police officer should have
said, well it is with them. I mean, isn't possession nine tenths
of the law or so the myth goes like, so you can't just walk
into somebody's places business ago that thing's mine. I'm here with a police officer
and I'm going to take that you. Now, everyone here in this garage
knows this is Reager's dog. Where's the where's your papers on the dog?
Sir? And then the guy leaves. That would be the episode which we
can't help but thinking about it, because the episode of this lighthearted romp of
frivolity, because ultimately there are no consequences in the episode at all, begins
with a man whipping a dog in the backseat of a cat. It's awful
because it ratchets up in intensity because he starts to do it, and riger
says, you know, he's he's because the dog won't perform, and Rieger's
just like, you know, it's okay, I don't want to see.
And then he keeps hitting the dog and Rieger's like, hey, hey,
hey, stop hitting the dog, and the guy doesn't stop, and he
just keeps hitting and hitting and hitting hiuntil finally he's like, get out of
my cat, get on my like it. It just feels like it went
from being kind of a joke to like, wow, this guy is not
nice. Like this is bad for the dog. Here's where the ba plants
should have begun an end in the opening scene, gets out and punches the
guy full in the face and then drives away with the dog. I think
Rieger could have physically beaten the guy up, but I don't think I think
Rieger's moral compass would prevent him from wanting to be physical with somebody like that.
He just wouldn't do it. He just doesn't believe in the violence.
I think again, this, this tale of animal abuse is played mostly for
laughs. Yeah. Wait, but okay, so Bobby when he starts his
speech, right, I'm kind of defending Jeff Conaway because, as I said,
you can fix anything in editing. Buttt, this is a right television
to writers medium. They wrote the words, they're on the set, they're
effectively producing it, so he's going to say everything they said. Right.
But unfortunately, watching this some forty years after it's original airing, my mind
went to that Tenacious D sketch they did. They did one of their hurts,
the Death of a Dream, where they're they're listening like the different stages
of the Death of your Dream because they can no longer be musicians and I
like, that's what I'm thinking of. Well, Bob is just you know,
about anger and denial and then of course door to door rocking. Let's
break it down here, So let's talk about the good and the bad here,
not that we haven't already kind of gotten into it. I would say
for me, there's only really two, maybe three good things about this episode.
I thought the EF Hutton commercial bit it was kind of funny. Hamlet
the dog is adorable. He's a giant, lovable great Dane, clearly well
trained, and jud Harsh is just great to watch perform as reader as always.
Other than that, I get nothing else. Oh, in set,
decoration for Wheeler's apartment is spot on, But that's all I got. What
do you what do you have bought them? Alone? To that, I
would add previously mentioned the meat frisk that was I think that was a good
thing in the episode. I think at Dan's as ams as also previously mentioned
our thing of beauty. He's like a rock Jesus Christ. He's very fit.
You know what time day shift starts at the cab company or is this
another sign on the wall that I mess? I didn't know what when does
the day shifts start? Like five in the morning or something. Hey,
am, sir eight am. Oh, I guess that makes sense. You
know a night shift began midnight. No, it's absolute insanity. What I'm
about to say? Okay, three pm? Three pm? Where's the where's
graveyard? Graveyard doesn't get a graveyard doesn't get a sign because we've seen who
works graveyard, Travis. Is there a possible world where Travis Bickle existed and
at some point work for Sunshine Cap Company. I mean he would predate Reverend
Jim obviously, but rigould probably be there right trying get Travis advice like Wizard
did, and Travis just like I don't, I don't want to talk to
you. Where it gets interesting is Louie would have been a cabby at that.
Oh my god, it would have been. It would have been kind
of buddies right. Well, that's thank you. That's the other thing I
did want to mention that was good in this episode, which is, uh,
they ain't call Louie down from the cage to help in their solidarity wall
that they're not giving this dog back, and Louie answers a question. Effect.
It's the It's the equivalent of saying, well does a bear shit in
the woods, and he says, do old ladies get mugged? Like like
they The answer is obvious, do old ladies get mugged? Of course they
do. How can we not mention that as probably the best thing in this
particular episode? I agree, but that see that brings up that brings me
to my bad list? Actually hows this for a segue? One of my
bad things is that Louis hardly features into this episode at all. The story
amounts to absolutely nothing. Any tension that's built up with Bobby's big decision is
wasted when he just kind of ignores the stakes and shrugs at the end and
says, well, whatever, I'll give myself three more years. When you
do that, like you're you're basically saying to the audience, we don't care
about the stakes, We don't care about what's happening with these characters. So
why should you why should you invest your time and attention for the previous thirty
minutes if it all comes to not if it's this decision that Bobby has to
make, And he just shrugs and smiles rakishly and says, oh whatever,
Oh that's not cool. Yeah, we did not mention Randall Carver in this
episode because he's a sinkhole of charisma. There's not much going on with this
really not much to recommend this particular episode. This is the point of the
program when we talk about how many yellow lights this episode gets. What does
a yellow light me? Thank you, Reverend Jim. I'm gonna go ahead
and just tick this off. There should be a surprise to nobody based on
the tone of this review. This was one yellow light for me. It
was minor and inconsequential. How about yourself, Father Malone, what do you
give this episode? I'll give it a two. That's generous. I think
the line to old ladies get mugged, it's worth two yellow lights. I
think the delivery is I think that the I think there's a there's enough to
recommend this episode. Two. I don't know negated. I went back and
forth. Is this a two yellow light? Is this a one? But
the but so? I originally, frankly, I had two yellow lights written
here in my notes. But the more we talked about it, and the
more or we just got into, like what what I hated about this episode?
I couldn't pretend that this to me was worth an extra yellow light.
Okay, let me let me tryan sway you. The set decoration, as
previously mentioned, it was thorough and fantastic. The performances across the board were
consistent. It is overwritten. I think that's the problem with it, and
it is two rooted in sixties sitcom tradition as far as what the plots were.
But surely, my friend, the set decoration alone should merit its own
yellow light. It's close, But I'm going to remind you that this episode
was written by Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels. If this was written by some
writer that maybe was didn't do many episodes, or maybe this was a spec
script that they made into an episode. Fine, but these these are industry
veterans who have won Emmy's and all sorts of accolades. This is this is
not worthy of their their abilities. I'm gonna stick with one yellow light.
They can't all be gems. Some episodes are better than others. This was
not one of them. Thank you very much everybody for joining us on this
episode of Night Mister Walters a Taxi podcast, Father Belone, Where can people
find your other proclivity activity things? Father Malone dot com? For all of
my nonsense. All for all of my audio nonsense, go to Weirdingwaymedia dot
com. That's all of my shows and an entire galaxy of podcast stars.
As for myself, HP weirding Way Media. You can hear this podcast as
well as the Bandacheck podcast, Wolf Wolf and Raisin Get a Little Noise Junkies
happening Somewhere. That's that's also in weirding Way Media. And you might hear
my music and my not so excellent acting abilities on some episodes of Dark Destinations,
So listen for that. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll
see you guys next time. Thank you very much. Thank mister Brothers.