Weird being way media night, mister Walters can see that guy with it now,
he's an actor at all. I'm a driver and the only camp driver
in his place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters Taxi Podcast.
I'm your co host HP and with me as always is my co host,
Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? ESP? I
need you to know something right now. I do not record on January the
eighth. That's Elvis's birthday. That's Elvis's birthday. Now that should be your
clue those of this is not going to be your typical episode of night,
mister Walters. We're in that sort of a time between season one and season
two, so Father Malone and myself thought we would do something a little interesting
given that we haven't started season two yet. We're going to be looking into
a what I would call a taxi adjacent movie called d C Cab. Some
of you may be familiar with it, but this movie came onto my radar
as a result of hearing a discussion about the DC Cab soundtrack on the Amazing
Billion Dollar Record Podcast, which I would recommend anybody go check out. It's
hilarious. Anyway, in chasing up more info on the movie, I was
struck by the fact that professional Andy Kaufman friend and sometime Tony Clifton, Bob
Zamuda appeared in DC Cab. He's not featured prominently, but he's in it
enough. He's in it enough to make me hate him. The character.
I mean, not Bombsa Moody. He's doing a good job, but I
hate that fucking character. The interesting part of it is, I've been seeing
this movie here and there over the course of what the better part of thirty
years maybe more and what are you nuts? Eighty three? Brother, and
all of this time I never put together the fact that that was Bob Zamuda
playing this character. So I was really shocked to find out that he was
in this. And of course the tie in, as I said, is
because Andy Kaufman is in Taxi, of course, and they were buddies at
the time of the production of this movie, DC Cab Taxi, the TV
series was still in production at that time. It would have been I think
around the fifth season, the final season of Taxi. Not to say that
there was any sort of Taxi influence on DC Cab, but it is sort
of interesting, and there are some parallels to be seen, whether intentional or
otherwise. I think they're unintentional. DC Cab was on cable a lot when
father Malona and I were kids. We saw it many many times. I
probably I would have been about ten when it was on, and certainly coming
from a rather unsupervised childhood. As far as watching cable, I probably saw
this when I was far too young to really understand a lot of the humor
and certainly a lot of the sexual situations. Let's say, in a box
tucked neatly away, there is a video tape with a handmade label that was
typed by me that says DC Cab. Somewhere in my sphere. If I
chose to find it, I could. But yes, I've seen this movie,
not only from the onslaught that was delivered to us by cable television at
the time, which was again pretty severe. This movie was on a lot,
but I also video taped it so I could watch it when it wasn't
on. I'm almost certain I videotaped it as well. But for me,
I would videotape things and I would just put them on in the background,
like the fish tank. It wasn't necessarily that I'd watch it with great intent.
I would just put it on while I was doing other things because it
was a known movie. It was a funny movie, at least for the
time. In light of our examination of Taxi the TV series, we thought
it would be interesting to take a side trip here and delve into a Taxi
adjacent project like DC Cab. So let's get into DC Cab a little bit.
Now. The stars of this movie. This movie features one of the
more prodigious casts of the eighties. Oh it's an ensemble, baby, It's
actually a remarkable ensemble when you look at it. We have Max Gail,
who, of course is best known as Wojo from Barney Miller Mister t which
we'll talk a lot about coming up. Adam Baldwin, who was in My
Bodyguard. That's what I know him from, Gary Busey, from just being
Gary Busey, the nuts stop that Gary Busey Academy Award nominee for Buddy the
Buddy Holly Story. Yes, he's in this movie. This is true.
And I would actually say that his role as Joshua in Lethal Weapon, I
thought he was very very good in that because it was playing against type,
right, Are you implying that Gary Busey is not a fucking phenomenal actor.
I'm implying that the Gary Busey the character has supplanted Gary Busey the excellent actor.
Right. Well, I maintain that up until I can't remember the title
of the film with Rutger Howard, the Surviving the Game. Up until Surviving
the Game, we still get focused good performances from Gary Busey. After that
is when he becomes Gary Busey the Wooo I'm crazy all the time guy,
And I think that's fair. Actually surviving the game that was? Was that
the one with iced tea where it was sort of like the most dangerous game?
It was an update. Yeah, that was a good movie. Ernest
Dickerson directed that, goddamn right, Spike Lee's long time cinematographer, frequent director
of photography of Tales from the Dark Side. Yes, he probably made his
bones as a director on Tails from the Dark Side, Right, certainly did
so. In addition to Gary Busey, we have I would say a very
young but let's face it, all the actors in this are are really young.
Bill Maher is in this. He's so baby faced it's funny. Online
and weird looking. And it's very easy to forget because he's been Bill Maher,
the talk show host and firebrand for so long that he was a comedian
and he was an actor. He made a go of it, So it
was shocking to see him in this. I forgot that he was in it
House two, or he's in House two the second story, or that he
was in Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Bill Maher was out
there. He was working man. His smugness has finally swallowed him up.
But for a long stretch in the eighties and nineties, I was a big
fan of starting here. I think I would totally agree with you there.
For a time he was a welcome sardonic presence in film and on TV.
And I think you're right. I think his ego and his sort of stick
swallowed him up. And now it's indistinguishable from the real person. It's become
the person. So also we have Charlie Barnett, which we'll talk about this
really interesting stuff with Charlie Barnett. Otis Day from Animal House. Otis Day
in the Nights. He's in this movie. Paul Rodriguez. Adriguez, remember
fucking Paul Rodriguez. In the eighties, he had a sitcom what was it
called Aka Pablo aka Pablo. Yeah, I remember that was like a very
highly touted series. It went nowhere. So you have these really up and
coming comedians like Rodriguez and Barnett and mar but you also have Wittman Mail from
San frances Son Grady, and you have the this might be the debut of
the Barbarian brothers David and Peter Paul. I could be wrong about that.
Got love those barbarians. Man Marsia Warfield is also in this movie. We
could mention her Jill Shalen Scholan, Shalen Sholin, I don't know. I
think it's Scholin. I think it's well, I'll go with Schildin. Then
she she's a huge eighties mainstay. She's a horror maven, extraordinary. She
never gets mentioned, but she's like she was a big scream queen. One
of my favorite sort of discoveries as I was rewatching this is the Dispatcher.
Missus Floyd is played by an actress named Gloria Gifford who you've seen her.
She's been in a bunch of stuff, But for me and maybe for you
father alone. I most fondly remember her as the airport security officer in This
is Spinal Tap who stops Derek Small's when he tries to go through with the
foil wrapped zucchini. When she says, do you have any artificial plates or
limbs? That's that's Gloria Gifford, which I love it. There's a few
discoveries I made during watching this, and that was one of them. And
Devo and Salvos also in this movie. I'm sorry, I'm just remembering the
cast and you're not naming a bunch of the bunch of them, and I
just need to mention some of them. They're all real good, Like this
is a true ensemble movie, and DeSalvo actually appeared in Taxi. Eventually we
will see she plays. I believe she's like Tony's fiance or eventual fiance or
something. I think they get paired up. That's right. They like she's
his equal, Like she's basically the female Tony. Yeah, she's very tough.
I think that was her stock in trade at the time. She was
a tough talking New Yorker. Want to talk a little bit about Charlie Barnett
because I confess I didn't know much about Charlie Barnett before or even going into
this movie, and then I did a little bit because I wondered, he's
so prominently featured in this movie, but you haven't. I can't even think
of another role that he's had a prominent role, Are you crazy? Oh
no, no, no, no, no, no no. I remember
him very prominently on Miami Vice. See I didn't watch Miami Vice multi episode
and yeah, I and I thought he was going to be a huge,
huge star as well, because he is prominent in this movie and he's very,
very funny in this movie. And I'm sure you're gonna spill the SNL
beans here. You know exactly what I'm getting into here. He was a
young comic on the rise in the late seventies in New York and he auditioned
for SNL in September nineteen eighty and evidently then producer, notorious producer Gene Dumanian,
this is that Laurene Michaels has finally left SNL after his four year run,
and Geen Dom his assistant right at the time. Yeah, yeah,
she used to take over the show and has to restock the cast and ends
up. You know, some of them were pretty good cast members. I
mean, she did pick Joe Piscopo, who ended up being a good cast
member. She picked Gilbert Godfrey and who never got a shot on the show,
but he would have been good. And Tony Rizzano is that her?
I think? So there it was. Denny Dillon was another one of the
cast members. Gilbert right, Charlie Rockett sadly faded. He'd like to know
who the fuck did it? So, you know, I just that was
the Charlene Tilton episode. I just rewatched that recently. She came into SNL
in a very unenviable position. But anyone who's read any of the many books
that have been out about the history of SNL knows that I said she was
notorious, and she really was. I think the nickname that the cast members
had for her was the Iyatola Domanian. Among other things. She was looking
to hire as part of this new refresh of the cast. She was going
to high Charlie Barnett, But Barnett was he had very poor reading skills.
I guess he was next to illiterate. He must have been dyslexic or something
like that. That's also a possibility. You know, it's possible. I
mean this was we're talking forty years ago, fifty years ago almost that it's
possible that he who knows what he had going on, but he had very
poor reading skills and he was tremendously self conscious about it, so he didn't
show up for his second audition, and lo and behold, Eddie Murphy gets
hired in his place. Barnett would harbor great jealousy towards Murphy for years and
years because he always believed that his spot on SNL and his eventual rise to
fame should have been his. He might have a case actually, because Eddie
Murphy was going to explode no matter what happened. It's an interesting what if
because who knows what might have happened with Charlie Barnett. So what I also
found out was Charlie Barnett was Dave Pelle's mentor. Dave Chappelle was also a
young comedian, didn't have a lot of experience, and Charlie Barnett's thing was
he would go and perform outside. He would perform at Think in Central Park
and he would pack them out outside and he actually brought in Dave Chappelle taught
him the ropes a little bit, how to you know. I'm not going
to say he taught him how to be a good comedian, but Chappelle has
gone on record as saying that he was a big, big influence on him.
And in fact, before Chappelle walked away from The Chappelle Show, there
was a deal in place to do the Charlie Barnett Biography, a film biography
of Charlie Barnett that he was going to be involved in, if not starring.
When Dave Chappelle walked away from everything and just quit the show, that
project went away with him. I'd like to watch that movie. It would
have been interesting because I'm sure this guy's life. I'm reducing it to just
the paragraph, but it sounds pretty amazing. Oh it's pretty harrowing there at
the end too. So Barnett would meet a very sad end. He died
of AIDS. Dude to being an intravenious. He was a heroin addict and
he would die of AIDS in nineteen ninety six. So it's one of those
great what if questions about what he could have achieved if he had had that
opportunity. He's fantastic in DC Cab. He's very funny, he's a manic
presence, He's great. It makes you wonder what could have been watching him.
I should mention that DC Cab was written by top of Carew and Joel
Schumacher, and it was directed by Joel Schumacher directorial debut. It was not
his directorial debut, well, no, he wrote He directed The Incredible Shrinking
Woman before this, Yes, the year prior. Yeah. Yeah. This
was only the second major film directed by Schumacher, the first being nineteen eighty
one's Incredible Shrinking Woman with Lily Tomlin. He would of course become a prominent
director in the mid to late eighties and into the nineties. He directed Well,
Saint Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Falling Down, many
many others. Batman, So that was Batman and Robin Did he direct that?
And Batman Forever? Yes? And Batman Forever. So he's widely credited
with killing that Batman franchise, basically unfairly. Yeah, that's it was always
going to crumble in the nineties, and once Warner Brothers figured out that it
was a merchandising machine, there was no way anyone was going to have a
good vision for any of those movies he was. You know, they got
exactly what they needed at the time, which was a pop cultury, you
know, candy colored looking thing. Joel Schumacher. This is the second film.
He's a very sure footed already. I gotta say it's very well directed.
He actually co wrote it as well, so it's sort of interesting.
I knew him primarily from his eighties and nineties heyday and I've seen this movie
many times without realizing who directed it. But I was kind of surprised to
find out that he was so prominently featured as a director and writer. I
thought that was kind of cool. We have to mention mister T. Mister
T was hugely famous at this time. I mean, he'd just made his
debut in Rocky three the year before, but he was still one year away
from his best performance, which I think we both can agree was in nineteen
eighty four. Is Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool? Oh my god,
he's so good in that one. His performance of the song mother will bring
a tear to your eyes. Other there is no other, I think the
fool that you have to explain who mister T is to you. It's really
impossible to overstate how seismic Mister T's debut in Rocky was. With the mohawk,
with the gold chains, with the attitude. He didn't look or sound
like anyone else. The pop culture explosion around mister T was tremendous. He
was on different strokes. He was on the eighteen was a tremendous hit.
He was at the White House with Nancy Reagan on his lap. God bless
him. He's still around now. He's not as active as he once was.
The man must be in his late seventies, if not older. But
he's still got the mohawk, he's still got the chains, he's still got
the you know everything. I mean, he's mister T is just one of
those pop cul sure icons. And this was only his second feature film,
so that was kind of cool. Right now. He was a huge star
when this movie came out, and this movie was made before I think he
became mister T. What's interesting is the character that he plays is this character
called Samson. Out of all of the characters in this movie, there's a
lot of wacky characters we'll talk about, but Samson. You could make the
case that Samson is essentially mister T. Oh yeah, they picked the right
character for mister T to play in this movie. He effectively is playing mister
T. So I couldn't imagine Bill Maher in this role and mister T and
Bill Mahers. It really does play to all of mister T's foibles. He's
relentlessly positive, He's dressed just like mister T is in real life. He
is concerned about the drug dealers and the pimps in the neighborhood, and he's
trying to make something better. So this is really the mister T, the
public persona depicted in a movie. You could forget about the name Samson.
He's playing mister T that for all intents and purposes. I Son interview with
him for this movie, where the interviewer said that she was disappointed because he
has so many young fans and this is an R rated film, and mister
T vehemently agreed with her and said that he did everything he could to talk
to the director and the producer to cut out the foul language because that was
what was getting them the R rating. But he's at least proud to know
that his character was upright and forth right, like he went through the mud,
but I came out clean. That was an actual quote. The character
of Clubber Lang his debut in Rocky three, the thing that put him on
the map is probably the thing that's furthest from the person that he at least
likes to portray himself as here's a question, if any team had to hit
first and he had blown up as mister T and gotten the serial and the
cartoon series, would he have accepted the role of Clubber Lang after the fact,
like had Rocky three come after See Rocky three was in eighteen eighty five
and they said, we want to get mister T to be the villain in
this, I bet he would have said no. He probably would have said
no because a cynic might say that he's just doing this to portray who knows
what he's like in real life. But I actually really suspect I don't know
the man, I've never met him, but I suspect that he is like
that in real life. He's somebody who's very conscientious, likes to portray himself
in a certain light. And that's actually a very interesting question. I agree
with you. I don't think he would have done Rocky three. It is
such a heavy character and a scary character. Really. I mean, he's
very much a villain in that movie. There's no doubt about it. He
basically kills Mickey right. You know, people will say Drago, but I
think Clever Lang was the most frightening and fearsome villain in the Rocky universe.
He was, and it was like the perfect time for that perfect actor and
the perfect part. It was really a lot of It was an interesting confluence
events that took place that made him into this superstar who is still known and
recognized today. He well, he really. I mean even as a kid,
I remember seeing that movie. He was a scary dude. He could,
he would. You know, he was tough, he didn't care,
he was proudly defiant, and he whooped Rocky's ass. Yeah, you have
a prediction for the fight. Pin. Do you remember when mister t first
got celebrity before Rocky, he had won a strong man competition. It was
like a big deal. It had been televised and such. I heard that
it was like a bouncer was It was like a toughest bouncer competition. I've
never seen it. Yeah, that's what I mean. I don't maybe I
miss mistitled it necessarily, but yeah, the world's toughest bouncer. Basically I
knew that he was. That's what he did for work. He was a
bodyguard and he was a bouncer. And believe me, if I saw somebody
being guarded by mister T, I'd stayed all away from them because that dude
looks tough and he's big. Separate from this, I don't. Just coincidentally,
I was going down a rabbit and I found mister T famously did a
WrestleMania I think it was it WrestleMania three. Yeah, I know it's WrestleMania.
It was the original baby yeah, Oh, mister T versus Rowdy Ronnie
Piper and mister wonderful Paul Orndorf. For Christ's sake, HB no, your
history. I don't. But what I do know is the night before Hulk
Hogan and mister T were co hosts on SNL. You Little Things there they
go about me Fernando Hideaway. What I had been curious about is the cold
open for that episode was they had just done We Are the World. They
recorded it just recently. Oh my god, yes, the Prince sketch right,
I am also the World that's exactly right. So Prince didn't make it
to We Are the World. And if you watch there's this documentary on Netflix,
which is actually pretty good by the way, fatherm Alone. If you
have it's not long either. But the word at the time was Prince had
to bail out a bodyguard because he had gotten into some trouble. So the
cold open for SNL was what you said, I Am also the World.
It featured Billy Crystal as Prince and it was basically them recording We Are the
World, but the bodyguards come in and every time, like Paul Simon goes
to the microphone or Willie Nelson or any of these, the bodyguards come in
and put him in headlocks and beat them up. So everybody gets beaten up
except for Prince. Basically Billy Crystal's in blackface for this, you know,
which might have been acceptable at that time, but certainly now it's shocking to
see it. But I did find it. I thought maybe the Internet had
erased all vestige of existence, but it is there. You can find it.
It's not very funny, but you do get to see mister t and
Hulkogan in their prime, which is kind of cool. There's one good sketch,
and that's Christopher Guest as a guy trying to convince a family to send
their child to Camp Crystal Lake for the summer. I don't remember that,
so it's a the thirteenth thing. Yes, Oh, okay, I'll have
to I'll have to try and check that out. During Hulk Hogan is Jason
at the end. Oh, he's got the mask. Okay, point if
you go and watch this clip that it's the incorrect hockey mask. And even
at a young age, I went, that's wrong. It's one of those
triangle holes all over the entire mask, right, I know what you mean.
Yeah, yeah, that was I believe that was a Gary Kroeger season
of SNL. Also, that was just I don't think that was still pre
I think who. I wonder who the producer was at that time. Dick
eversall, you're absolutely right. Okay, let's get off and back to d
C cam, shall we. That's right. So DC CAB is really another
in a long line of slobs versus snobs kind of movies that were super popular
in the seventies and eighties. You have Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds,
and so on. The film stars Baldwin is Albert Hawckenberry, which is
a name that I've never forgotten since I saw this movie. Hackenberry. It's
a great name. So he's Albert Hackenberry. He's a young haysee who comes
to DC to make his fortune. His father served in Vietnam with Max Scale's
character Harold, and he comes looking for Harold to get his help to make
his fortune in the cab business. And is he Yeah, I have a
theory. H do tell Albert Hackenberry's father in Vietnam went by the code name
Animal Mother. I was actually just leading up because there's there's this great scene
where Harold and Albert are catching up their bonding over like pictures from Vietnam and
relics from Vietnam and and this all Vietnam by Jimmy Cliff is playing should be
pointed out, yes, which which is a It's a great scene because they're
putting on gas masks and drinking beer through them, and they have flamethrowers and
helmets and all this, and uh, honestly it did it looked fun.
I mean, they're drinking beers, they're reminiscing. I wanted to pour through
all that old surplus. No, it looked like a lot of fun.
Animal Mother is of course a reference to the movie Full Metal Jacket, Stanley
Kubrick's masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket, which featured Adam Baldwin in the role of
Animal Mother. So I actually, I think that's a great tie in.
I didn't think of it in those terms. Father Malone, but yeah,
you'd probably maybe his father was Animal Mother. Animal Mother's last name was Hackenberry.
We just never heard a fucking movie, that's all. He's good in
it. He's very, very good in it. But yeah, he's that's
I'm gonna go with that. Hockenberry was Animal Mother. That's perfect. Do
you remember the first motion picture but we attended to, or attended rather theatrically,
that would be Beetlejuice. It wasn't Full Metal Jacket, No, not
at all. It was a sneak preview of Beetlejuice. Oh, that's right.
But we did see Full Metal Jacket together, Oh, of course,
absolutely, absolutely we saw it. I don't recall the theater. It was
that twin that turned into the Hollywood theaters across from the Liberty Tree Mall.
Yes, it turned into Hollywood Hits you're absolutely right. Was it a general
cinemas It could have been. I couldn't tell you for sure. It's also
where I saw the feature film Superman. I saw Superman as well, but
I saw it there was a cinema in Peabody near the North Shore Mall.
That's where I saw that. Oh yeah, another two screen. Yes,
yes. DC CAB is filled with broad and over the top performances by eccentric
performers. I have to say Max Gail gives such a grounded, soulful performance
as Harold, it's almost like he's in a different movie entirely. Don't you
agree? I have one agree. I think he's first of all, I
think he's great in the ensemble of this movie. But he's so good that
it ends up hinting at a better movie that's just out of reach. Like
there, Look, we're gonna give into the nuts and bolts of this goddamn
third act eventually. But Manx Scale's presence and gravity and genial. You just
like him so much and you want him to succeed. And there's a very
sweet human story between him and Albert and Marshall Warfield's character, and there's a
lot of good human drama going on here, and then there's a lot of
crazy fucking bullshit, and the crazy fucking bullshit really takes over the movie at
the end, and the third act whelms it overwhelms it too. It's yeah,
you said it. You love the character of Harold. He's just so
likable, he's you feel the fact that life isn't going his way. You
feel bad for him, and you want him to succeed. Like you said,
he's he's great in this and that the stuff that establishes his connection to
Albert where they're talking about Albert's dad and at one point Harold even calls Albert
by his dad's name, and it's interesting moment. It's it, really he
keeps the movie, like I said, grounded. There could have been a
very different movie had they had the tone matched Max Gale's performance that he was
giving. But he's never not welcome. It's just the movie goes off the
rails despite him. Basically, the movie is frequently going off the rails,
and that's fine, but then it gets too much. But Max scale there's
a moment in the movie which has always stuck with me, where Harold and
Myrna have kind of a tiff over the fact that Albert is there, and
Albert suggests that he can leave and go get a hotel, and Max Scale
says, as long as you're in DC, you're staying with Myrna and me,
and he seems so heartfelt, like you can always live in this house.
That yeah, that's it's just part and parcel to what we're saying about
Max Scale and this sort of not really DC cab performance going on a cab
and he's the kind of person that you would want as your boss, somebody
who would go to bat for you. We'll talk about it, but he
basically gives everything he has and more to try and get the company to succeed
and to bring everybody along with them back. Scale is so underrated and he's
really fabulous. In this movie. Harold owns this ramshackle cab company and it's
populated by the kinds of characters that one only ever sees in movies. This
is These are these actors that we've been talking about. Gary Busey plays an
unhinged tabby named Dell, but really he's just playing himself, or at least
what we've grown to expect from Gary Busey, the kind of crazy ole.
You know, you never know what he's going to do, and it has
to be said the language primarily that comes from. And I'll just say the
character of Dell is so offensive to modern ears. I'm not going to go
into it, but there's some really offensive stuff going on in this movie language
wise. Look, it's a product of its age. We're not condoning any
of the problematic dialogue or situations or anything else from the bygone era of nineteen
eighty three. Look, some movies just did not age. Well. We
don't want to revisit Revenge of the Nerds at this point, and it's complete
rapy ending. You know, it's a little harder to watch. And this
isn't that bad. I don't feel guilty watching this. I just kind of
WinCE every once in a while, remembering how casual some people were with some
terminology. Mister t As we said, he plays a character named Samson who's
just a really He's a really muscular, tough guy that's trying to keep his
niece and the rest of the kids of the neighborhood from worshiping these ever present
pimps and drug dealers. They always seem to be turning up in the neighborhood
with these really fancy cars. So he keeps saying, you know, when
he's tied, it's the car, it's the car. I got to get
the kids away from the cars. He also holds the record for the worst
simulated driving of a car in a movie, because there's a lot of driving
in this and they're all it's we're not talking about the poor Man's process that
we've grown to love and Taxi the TV series. These are cars that are
getting towed and being filmed from the outside, so it looks like the Cabby's
are driving, but mister t and none of them are really that good at
it. I disagree. Paul Rodriguez is really good at it. You think
he's good. Maybe I didn't focus on him enough. Paul Rodriguez is good.
Everyone else has been on low. I will say either Peter or David
Paul driving backwards is doing a good job because they never stop looking forward and
backward and forward and backward to see where they're going. That's a good point.
I didn't give him enough credit for that, because he does. There's
a scene where he's just the cap can't drive forward, and the whole scene
takes place and he's talking to Albert while driving backwards down the streets of DC,
which is actually a laughing at it because it's kind of a funny scene,
a good scene. They're good in it. They're charming, those two.
There's such a punchline because they were the Barbarian brothers and they made all
these really bad direct to video movies in the eighties and nineties. But they're
affable. That's the best I can say. Affable. Bill Maher, he
plays I guess he's a frustrated musician named Baba Yeah. And I only know
that because there's a scene where he's supposed to be playing like a synthesizer in
the garage to convey the fact that he's got all this talent but he's wasting
it as a as a cab driver. He's like an electronic kind of a
musician. He's like he's trying to break through in the music scene, Like
I don't know, somebody like Georgiomeroder. We're going to get to him too.
Wittman Mayo, As I said, he plays an eccentric street person named
mister Rhythm who speaks in riddles. He'll go up to one of the cabbies
and they'll give him a dollar and he'll tell them some sort of fortune or
a riddle. Don't let you dick run your life right? Or the one
that I always remember is he Albert says, oh, what's the good word,
mister rhythm, And he says that that can make you will also break
you. If you make it through the night without committing suicide, you're doing
okay. I guess nowadays he'd be called an unhoused person. He lives in
a derelict cab outside the garage. He's got it made right there. He
takes everything, all this, all the forgotten, lost and found stuff out
of the cabs. He's doing all right. Everybody loves him. Otis Day
from Animal House, Like I said, he plays a Jamaica obsessed rosta cabby
named Bongo. Listen, he is not not Otus Day here. He's Dwayne
Jesse still here. I think he was credited as Otis Day, right,
incorrect. Sorry, I gotta go to IMDb. You're certain of this,
You're willing to stake your reputation. I will bet you something or other on
that. Yeah, sos Otis Day on IMDb. Oh as Dwayne Jesse Okay,
you're right, I guess I watched the actual movie with the credit.
Speaking of credits, Speaking of credits, yellow credits. There's a little little
taxi sort of tie in, but it has one of my favorite credits of
all time, mister T's credit, which comes up as mister and then it
scrolls R S T and then stops on T. The credits were interesting.
Some of them are like little stylized stencils that will be spray painted and then
the person's name is left behind. It was actually kind of cool. Yeah,
those credits are just like, we are the eighties, motherfuckers. They
scream eighties absolutely went around the clock. Another amazing casting discovery I made was
at one point there's a ski masked robber who keeps mugging Marsha Warfield's character who's
called Ophelia, and eventually Albert foyles the robbery attempt and the robbers arrested.
The robber was played by a man named Dennis Stewart. He was crater faced
from Greece. The Squaw is doing here. It was I was like,
wow that because his mask is ripped off at one point. He was all
over every eighties television series the action wise. I know he probably tangled with
mister T a few times on the eighteen. He probably did. He had
a sneer and he had a lane that he was very good and he's there's
another tax he tie in because he raced Danny Zuko for pink Slips in Greece
with Jeff Conaway Bobby Wheeler from Taxi, so that the hits just keep coming.
See that, folks, We're not just dicking around here with doing a
DC Cab episode. We're tying it back to Taxi. This all works.
DC Cabs main competition in the movie is the Emerald Cab Company. I hate
them. It's an upscale garage. They're Emeralds, so they have green everything.
The cabs are green. They wear these green satin jackets instead of the
traditional yellow checker cabs. And this is where Bob Zamuda comes in. Bob
Zamuda plays a character named Cubby. Perfect perfect name for that character right below
harm. He's the real Cliff Claven, Like if Cliff Claven actually existed,
he would be that guy. Oh that's a good call. He's very officious.
He drives for Emerald and he really delights in keeping the DC caves in
their place. He has a partner. But I don't know the other actors.
I've seen him in other things. Jim Moody. I believe it's Jim
Moody. Okay, what was he? What else was he in? You
know? You don't know. I remember him been something where he was very
earnest and very nice, whereas as opposed to hear where he's very not very
nice. Am Samudat Like when in his opening scene like makes fun of Man
Scales character makes fun of Harold because he was in Vietnam. He's he's singing
the fucking Green Beret song at him, like taunting him, Like what In
Dick, they're constantly trying to poach Marsha Warfield's character Ophelia away from DC Cab,
Like they'll go to the equivalent of Marios in DC Cab where they go
to have breakfast, and these two sort of slimy Emerald cabbies will come over
and go when Ophelia, when are you gonna come over and drive for Emerald?
Get away from these suckers. And she is under a lot of stress
because, as I kind of alluded to, Ophelia is constantly getting mugged by
this one guy and a scheme, and it's taken her to the breaking point,
and at least in one case she says she's gonna quit. I think
that's the scene you were talking about fatherm alone, where yeah charms, Yeah,
I still have a drink and talk about this. Harold is barely keeping
things together, trying to keep the garage afloat. They're constantly under pressure from
the head of the hack bureau. He keeps trying to shut the garage down.
The hack investigator, that's it. And the actor I didn't I don't
have the actor's name, but he's also he's this little sort of diminutive guy
with a mustache who's always trying to stick it to DC cab. Here's the
thing, because now we're mentioning the antagonists of the piece, right, these
are the antagonists. Where they go in the third act of this fucking movie
is absolutely bonkers. It's like, I know Joel Schumacher was totally sober at
this point in his life, but what the fuck? Man. But up
to this point, the plot makes sense. The garage is under thread of
being closed down. There's cabvies that are threatening to quit. Things aren't going
well, but Albert comes in and he's bringing this fresh enthusiasm. He's trying
to get the Caves to make something of themselves. Let me make a taxi
crossover possibility here. Albert Hackenberry. If they had hired him instead of John
Burns, Albert Hackenberry would have lasted five seasons. His name character. He's
a rube right up from the South in the big city, trying to make
it in the cab company or whatever, like whatever thing they would have given
him. But this guy in that role, stick him in the taxi.
I think it'd work. The difference is he's a rube. But there's nothing
childlike about Albert Hackenberry. He's very focused on what he wants to do.
He's come to DC to make his way and it eventually he wants to break
into the cab business, so you know, and he knows when he comes
in he's got to be realistic. He's got to start from the bottom.
He's got to get his hack license. A big part of the movie is
almost episodic, where he's driving with each and every one of these Caves and
learning from them and getting their perspective and frankly, their perspective is usually about
where to pick up women or how to do things the easy way instead of
the right way, but that's the movie, being a comedy, what are
you gonna do? Eventually, good fortune smiles on Harold's garage as they find
a rare violin that was left in one of the cabs, and the cash
god so hacky, very hacky. The reward is ten thousand dollars, but
Harold's greedy wife, Myrna, takes the reward money for herself, and all
the cabbies are understandably upset by this. But Albert, being the good guy
he is, puts up six thousand dollars of his own money with the stipulation
that they reinvested in DC cab and they get some They fix up the cabs,
they get a new paint job on the garage and everything. Now now
the thing of it is six thousand dollars. It's a lot of money,
but it doesn't seem like the life changing amount of money today. So I
did the research. In twenty twenty four dollars, six thousand dollars from eighty
three is worth approximately eighteen thousand, five hundred and seventy nine dollars and thirty
four cents, which is a good amount of money. They could do something
with that, certainly enough to fix up all the cabs and put up the
sign and paint the bit like everything we see. That revitalizes the company.
Yeah, definitely, imagine what's done with ten ten thousand dollars. I'm glad
you asked. Would have been worth thirty thousand, nine hundred and sixty five
dollars and fifty six cents, So that would have been crazy. They could
have had division advertising for that kind of money. That's true. But Albert,
because he's that kind of guy, he's winning everybody over. He puts
up his savings back into DC Cab and there's a great eighties montage of the
garage getting fixed up. They're getting new fancy yellow satin jackets with DC calb
on the back, with the satin jackets of the nineteen eighties. Man,
it look great. They look like a gang. It was a fantastic sequence.
And they're finally are able to make payoffs so they can drive customers to
the airport and it's great. They upgrade the garage and the fleet. Things
are looking up for DC Cab, but mainly beyond that, Albert's using his
youthful enthusiasm to motivate the Cabby's to make something of themselves. Even Samson takes
his share of the reward and he upgrades his cab. I think it's supposed
to be a Rolls Royce. It's a Rolls Royce cab kind of smashed together.
And he drives it to the neighborhood where the drug dealers parked, and
of course all the kids now flock to Samson and he smiles because he's doing
good work or whatever. Yeah, haven't mentioned the best feature of the car,
which is a little bubble dome on top that says DC cab is shaped
like the Capitol Building and it has a little airplane on a spindle that's spinning
around the Capitol Building. All the rest of the gold filigree nonsense that he's
plastered all over the cab is unnecessary. All he needed was that plane.
So things are looking up, like I said. But and here's where the
third act comes in. Trouble strikes. Now this is DC, and one
of Albert's roots is he has to drop off I think it's Tyrone's grandmother or
aunt and cousin or something. He has to drop off two family members that
work at an embassy school or something. They're housekeepers at the embassy and nanny's
and housekeepers and yeah, but we're never told what country they're from, because
the kids speak perfect English. I assume maybe it's Canada. I don't know
what country ambassadors children. Oh my god, I hate every part of this
sequence. Through the movie, you see him dropping these housekeepers off, and
these two little brats are always there, this boy and this girl, and
they're always there waiting with eggs to start pelting the cab. It doesn't make
any sense. They're just kind of assholes. But one time, Albert's dropping
off these ladies and the kids get kidnapped by John Diegel from Fumyvice. Like
there's a Miami Vice connection here. I don't know if they're supposed to be
radicals, because they seem like crazy radical type people, but I think they're
held for ransom. I think that's why. So they kid they kidnap the
kids, and in the ensuing craziness, Albert gets kidnapped as well, and
they get taken to some farmhouse. The police believe that Albert was involved in
the kidnapping somehow. I don't know how they made that, because there's witnesses
to this kidnapping. Here's the tension here, Here's the plot of the movie,
evidently, is that Albert gets kidnapped, he gets framed for the fucking
kidnapping, and then these cavvies have to go save him while they're under suspicion.
It's a mess, man, It is a mess because within this whole
thing that's happening is because Albert is suspected of being in on it. They
close down the garage so they're out of They've reached their wits end. No
one wants to They just want to give up. And it's mister t who
rallies the troops with this patriotic speech that he makes. I think it's in
front of the Lincoln Memorial or something. Id damn right, truth is Mark.
He marshals the troops. They finally find where they're holding Albert, and
it's actually kind of funny because all the cabs line up outside and through the
whole movie, Harold has this bullhorn that he's using. I think it may
be another thing from Vietnam or whatever. When the kidnappers hear someone's outside and
what the cabbys have done is they've all lined up. They have their headlights
on so they can't see them, but somebody has found red and blue lights,
so to the kidnappers it looks like they're surrounded by the cops. One
of the cars has like pylons on top of it, like those are lights.
Okay, look. The third act is a mess, but there are
some charms, including when he's talking to them through the bullharn I think Gary
Busey says, tell him you're Batman's some funny interesting moments. There's even a
part where at one point Albert escapes and gets to his the radio in his
cab, but no one's in the garage because it's been shut down. But
mister Rhythm intercepts the message and he's talking to mister Rhythm and he's saying,
I don't know, I'm in a farmhouse, is a windmill, and I
see Bruce Lee. Mister Rhythm gets this message and then he meets up with
the other cabbies and he says, yeah, Albert talked to him. He
said he's here and he saw Bruce Lee. And they're all like, Bruce
Lee, what are you talking about? So like one one group led by
mister t finds a farmhouse with Bruce Lee l E I G H on a
mailbox outside, and they're not sure. Look, this is the best part
of the entire sequence. These three idiots pulling up to this house where it
says Bruce Lee l E I g H. And one of the barbarian brothers
it says Bruce Legg. And then the family just kind of calmly eating their
meal when the three of them crash in, one from the door and two
from the win windows on either side, and they just look up and go
wrong house and then leave. That's a great sight. Gang. But eventually
Tyrone, who's also looking for Albert, he realizes that there's a drive in
screen, a movie screen not far from there from the farmhouse, and you
see him. He's screening Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee, and you see on
the screen. I don't know what. I don't think it's a real Bruce
Lee movie. It's absolutely not a movie. They realize that the farmhouse is
in view of a drive in cinema not far so anyway, craziness, Hi,
Jenks and Sue. They end up rescuing Albert. It's a high speed
chase. They pull him through the window and the van that he's being held,
and eventually they rescue them, the kidnappers get arrested, everyone figures out
what was really happening, and the movie ends with it's a literal ticker tape
parade in DC to honor DC CAB, not the original thing. I understand
if you notice the Barbarian brothers through the whole movie, I have beard,
but for this parade they are clean shaven. And it's my understanding that there's
some parts of the movie that either weren't filmed or are missing that explain why
they're all of a sudden clean shaven. But that might go towards what you're
describing. Yes, Evidently, the original ending of the movie took place at
the White House where Irene Kara is performing and has invited Tyrone, who invites
the rest of DC CAB, and that was the sequence. So it was
her performing the title song while they're all there together, and that's the end.
And then they decided they wanted something more dynamic after the movie had been
already shot, so when they got back, the Barbarian brothers were clean shaven,
and there's nothing they could do about that. That makes sense, I
should mention we didn't talk about this. We'll talk about the soundtrack in a
minute, but you did mention Irene Kara. Irene Kara, who at the
time was red hot. She had done a bunch of movie soundtracks. She
won an Oscar for the theme to Flash Dance. I think she was the
star of Fame Man. That's true. She was super popular and she was
really she had all kinds of songs on the charts. She appears in the
movie as herself. The character of Tyrone is obsessed with Irene Kara and ends
up picking her up, taking her to her hotel. And I guess to
your point, they have made a connection. Maybe she would have invited them
to the because she says, I'm singing at the White House. But nothing
else becomes of it on the cutting room floor, like the famed ending of
the Shining was it film? Though, I guess it might be okay.
There is a still. I haven't seen any footage of it, but there
is a still of Irene Karen and like kind of a red dress performing that's
attributed to the film. Was a promotional shot that was released. That makes
sense. Actually, while we're talking about Irene Carra, we might as well
talk a little bit about the soundtrack. The soundtrack for DC CAB was by
Giorgio Moroder, who really was on a remarkable movie soundtrack run of his own.
At this point. He had done Flash Dance, Cat People, Never
Ending Story, Top Gun. They all either were spearheaded by Moroder or heavily
featured his contributions Electric Dreams. Also, he did My God Forever in Electric
Dreams. Yeah, I just heard that the other day. It's Crazy danger
Zone, La Model's Never Ending Story. What a feeling. These are monster
soundtrack hits. Soundtracks were routinely in the top ten of the charts. All
mery man, Georgio Moroder did that. Yeah, Yeah, call me from
the Richard American Jigglow movie. Yes. In addition to his contributions to electronic
music in general, he was super hot as a soundtrack producer. We're always
in good hands, Georgijomroder's name and the credits you know. In fact,
when the when his credit came up here, I was like, I lost
my mind. I was like, oh, what a treat. I had
no idea, I will say, aside from the songs that are recorded for
the soundtrack, like you have like El DeBarge does a song and a few
other bands, but the instrumental music, I don't know about you. I
found it really really shrill and kind of annoying. There's a lot of like
did like as cars are racing around. That was a little much. I
think it's totally in keeping with how bullshit the fucking ending was. The lead
single for DC CAB was a song called The Dream subtitled hold On to Your
Dream. This was Irene Kara singing this was their big supposed to be their
big hit, and I remember it being on MTV a lot because I recognized
the song. But apparently it peaked at number thirty seven on the Billboard Hot
one hundred. It didn't really make much of an impact. I think this
might have been the beginning of the end of Irene Kara and Georgio Moroder's dominance
of the soundtrack sort of charts. You know, it's weird and electric dreams.
On that soundtrack, there's a song called the Dream Boy George performs,
Yeah. It's just so when I hear the Dream I automatically think of that,
which is also tied to Georgia a Moroner. That's just an odd coincidence.
I really really liked the Electric Dreams soundtrack. I remember at the time
watching that movie, and that's a fantastic sequence. There's a sequence where the
computer, I think the guide brought the computer so it would design an earthquake
proof brick. Yes, And while the computer is working on this brick,
that song the Dream by Boy George is playing. It's a wonderfully mellow kind
of ethereal song. It's beautiful. It's a gorgeous sequence, and it's the
best part of that movie. Honestly. I mean, look, there are
the charms in that film, like Bud Court clearly is just so wonderful.
He's tremendous. Yeah, that sequence in particular, I agree, it is
just a delight. So that's the movie in a nutshell. Like I said,
we've covered the actors and everything else, and I have to say coming
into it, we're not going to rate this as we would that there's no
yellow lights here. We didn't talk a little mentioned some things that I enjoyed
about the movie, So I've given I've talked a lot about the nuts and
bolts of the movie, but let's get into some other things funable and what
else did you come up with? In your research. No, no research
at all. This is just something I liked about the movie because there's a
this is an ensemble movie, and I really liked hanging around with them.
That I will say that it feels like and this is obviously not the case.
This was written as a feature film originally, Liberty Cab. I did
research that was that was the original title, and I got to read a
couple of the early pages of the script, only a little sample. I
give them credit for setting this movie in Washington, because it was It would
have been so easy just to say that this was taking place in New York,
because all you need is basically an inner city, right right. But
having said that, despite the fact that I think it's cool that they went
with a different type of setting, aside from the fact that these kids that
are kidnapped are children of ambassadors, it doesn't really figure you're in You could
very easily have said this is in New York and no one would have batted
an eyelish. There's nothing unique about this. I disagree with you on that.
I like that it's set in DC, and I like seeing all of
this the sort of regular landmarks, but then a lot of these sort of
local landmarks that you would seek out if you were there. I think they
use those neighborhoods pretty spectacularly. And the point I was making earlier about the
screenplay is that because the Thurn Act is so goddamn jarring, what it feels
like is a pilot in a first episode, but we never got a resolution
to the pilot before we got this second crazy plot. You know, like
this seems like, if anything, it could have been the sequel plot,
like had this movie been a hit, where we're just dealing with the Cabby's
and whatever little problem they've come up with that the Hack Investigator or the Emerald
Cab Company, like some sort of it's just so ooh. I'm sorry.
I don't mean to keep returning to it, but here's something I did like.
The sense of camaraderie and these characters is really infection, including this game
that they all play with each other, the sort of hide and seek where
they're all dressed in masks, hunting a particular mark for the night and while
all the time playing the Mission Impossible theme on their shitty tape decks in their
cabs and singing along to it and then singing over the mic to the point
where they can't, like the dispatcher can't even find a cab to go pick
up an actual customer that I loved. I was thinking about this as I
was watching this movie This Now. We saw this when we were super young,
and there were a lot of movies like this where it's like in us
against Them type of thing where you have a tightly knit group of people working
somewhere or friends like Revenge of the Nerds, they're all in the same frat,
and this kind of in a weird way, this kind of warped my
thinking of what it was going to be like once I got a job later
in life. Like in my mind, like wherever I worked, I was
going to be part of a crazy band of people. We're all going to
love each other and support each other. And I had this impression that I
was going to be best buddies with everybody that I ever worked with wherever I
decided to work, and that's obviously I learned later that's not the case.
But this movie conveys that idea very well. These are very different characters,
but you can tell they all love each other, they support each other,
and there's something spectacular about in nineteen eighty three. The diversity on screen here
that is true. It's never even really discussed as being odd or progressive.
They're just all friends and they don't care. There's like the Rasta guy,
there's the Gary Busey, crazy white guy. There's but they don't really call
out their differences in any interesting way. They all go to this like at
one point, all the cabbys go to like a male strip club to try
and pick up women. They don't care. They're just going to have a
good time. The only person that gets excluded is Albert because he's the odd
man out, he's the new guy. And there's also we didn't actually mention
there's this subplot involving this waitress at or this girl who works at a restaurant,
the Cabby Jill Scholin. I think her, I don't what's what's her
name, Claudette. Her name is Claudette, and Albert is it's love at
first sight. Albert is struck with love, but dumb her aunt, her
controlling aunt, who runs the coffee shop, will not let her deal to
date any cabby, and she's right to do that. God. They're also
gross and crazy. They're constantly getting into fights and jumping out windows in this
fucking diner, standing on tables and yelling at each other, like I wouldn't
let her date them either. A bunch. She has conditions that someday someone's
going to walk through that door with flowers and chocolates and some other gifts and
going to ask properly, and Albert fucking does it, man, And that
box of chocolates look delicious, and I want to look through that book of
Great Homes of the South. Albert is a good guy. He's fucking charming
in this movie. Like, I really like Albert Hawckenberry. I wanted to
be friends with Albert Hackenberry. He was so good. In My Bodyguard,
he plays Linderman, the scary character in the school where Clifford Peach is getting
bullied and Clifford Peach realizes he better hire his own bodyguard to keep the bullies
away, and Linderman, being the scariest dude in the school, played by
Adam Baldwin, is hired and through the course of the movie, Clifford and
Linderman they really they become friends, and he learns about Linderman and why he
is the way he is. He was really good in it. It's a
total one to eighty from Albert Hackenberry. He has to be sullen and depressed
and angry, and these are I don't think any of those adjectives would describe
Albert Hackenberry in the least. I watched Full Mental Jacket last night. I
haven't seen it in twenty years. Yeah, I mean neither, Yeah,
a long time. He's terrified in the movie. He's really good. His
opening scene, the cadence with which he's speaking to Joker when he first meets
him, this sort of weird, laconic, threatening but soft. It's really
off putting, like he throws you way off kilter. And that follows through
the rest of the movie. Man like, it just gets more aggressive and
horrifying. As I said, it's a masterpiece anyway. But he is really
good in it. Everything I've seen him and I didn't granted I didn't watch
Firefly. I didn't watch and I understand that he's like a cult favorite from
that TV show is a lot of the anc He's a solid performer. I've
never seen a bad performance by the guy, but he's really good in this.
There's no subterfuge with Albert. He genuinely wants to succeed and take everybody
with him. They all eventually because he comes in and they're all they'll ignore
him. They all give him the cold shoulder, like, nah, you
can't drive with me. But they see what an earnest, hard working guy
that he is, and he nuinely wants the company to succeed that he wins
them over, even Tyrone, Like Tyrone is the hardest nut for Albert to
crack. Everybody else eventually comes around, but Tyrone just there's something about Tyrone
and that character that you learn that he I think he went to college,
but he realized that he couldn't make it because the cards were stacked against him,
and he just decided to become this crazy guy. But Albert doesn't care.
Albert's just trying to make something of himself, and they eventually become friends,
and Tyrone is the one who leads the charge effectively to find Albert when
he's been kidnapped. I have to say, Charlie Barnett, we've talked a
lot about his sad history. He's really good in this as well. He's
really funny. He's not only really funny, he's good in the dramatic moments
too. He's solid throughout this entire movie, Like, I don't know why
he didn't just blow up immediately. It sounds like he had already inked a
three picture deal with a paramounter, one of these companies. I just don't
know what became of it. Was he just too crazy that maybe people didn't
want to work with him, or I don't know, But I do wish
that Dave Chappelle's movie Bilepick of Charlie Barnett had gotten off the ground, because
I think there's a really great story there. There's a tremendous what might have
been with this guy. Imagine if he had if he had gone on to
start him on SNL, he might have for all we know, he might
have still flamed out. He might still have not amounted to anything. But
we'll never know. One of the casualties in that season, most of that
cast got fired immediately. I don't know. It's heartbreaking to see somebody who
has such a prodigious talent and to hear what a sad end he came to
was was really a bummer because he's so vital and so exciting in this You've
got the sense that he was making the most of this opportunity in this movie
because this was his first movie. Everybody really is for what the movie is.
They're good and looking at this as kind of a hangout movie. It's
not really a hangout movie, but you do, you know, these are
affable, funny characters that you would like to spend some time with. They're
always doing crazy things. Like you said, they're playing this sort of fox
Hunt game at the beginning where they're chasing each other in cabs and wearing masks,
and I love it a fucking blast. Yeah, it looks really really
fun. I want to play the game that dell At wants to play.
You take a beer bottle and you spin it, spin the bottle, and
then whoever gets that has to take it and they shake it up. They
shake it up a real and then they put it right next to their face.
You know, I don't think that's in the script. I think that's
just Gary Busey bring in that. You know, That's the thing. We
have the benefit of forty years of Gary Busey antics to look back on,
And honestly, I wasn't kidding when I said that. It seems like he's
essentially playing himself in this which is funny because he's had other parts like he
was in Like, I can't say that about Point Break. He was fine
important Break as the cop in this one. It just feels like that's who
he is, based on seeing him in the public eye over the past twenty
twenty five years or so. You know, it's not a stretch. I
could see that being something that wasn't written. Maybe Schumacher's like, hey,
remember that story you were telling me Gary about you know what you used to
do with the kids in the neighborhood. Whenn'd you throw that into the scene.
I guarantee you it emanated from mister Bussey in some way. I might
be wrong. Somebody will pull up the script and tell me I'm wrong.
But there's weird stuff. At one point, Albert's having a conversation with somebody
and he looks in the bathroom and Dell is on his back in one of
the stalls, and Albert goes like, well, what are you doing in
there? And he goes, ah, I'm doing some intestinal yoga. He's
a fucking lunatic. You know, what's the only thing wrong with oral sex?
The view? It's good, it's good I'm recommending this movie. There's
a lot of problematic Huber in this movie, a lot of a lot of
juvenile nonsense. There's a lot of fucking funny stuff too, Gary Busey front
and center. Yeah, it's not unlike a movie like forty eight Hours,
where a lot of people have contended that you couldn't make a forty eight Hours
movie now because it's just so good. The way that Eddie Murphy's character is
treated in the language is just so offensive. Now, you couldn't make it
now because it's not now. That movie isn't now that it's of its time.
I look at these movies and yeah, I WinCE when I hear people
say some of the stuff they're saying. But at the same time, that
was nineteen eighty three, and so yes, you could not make DC Cab
now. You could not make forty eight Hours. Now you could. You
just would make it with the today's sensibilities, and that would be fine.
There's some not necessarily precient stuff, but just like as a wake up call,
like how long this has been going on? When Albert and Tyrone like
make their way back to the cab company with the fucking thief who's been pestering
Marshall Warfield the entire time. When Tyrone gets the gun from the guy,
they pull up to the cap, the cops grab Tyrone and wrestle him to
the ground like he's the guy, and he's like that he's not the and
he's just like, yeah, of course they're going to attack me. He
says that. He literally says that I'm here with the gun, of course
they're going to tackle me. And that's kind of that's really sad that here
we are forty years later and that's not only is that still happening, but
it's no much worse now. At least everyone's woken up to it. Like
there, it was like a punchline. I think to alter or censor something
like this to make it more palatable to modern audiences, I think is to
run the risk that you're going to forget that these things were problematic in the
first place. I'd rather go into it. And I'm not even suggesting you
put on like I know some movies have a little lead card that says we
regret some of the language. Look, but it was fucking forty years ago
and everyone was an idiot out in the open. I think people should understand
that this is nice. Eighty three things were different. Dell is there to
let you know that the cops are lace and the bullets PCP. That way,
it looked like you were on drugs the whole time. I didn't realize
how much of DC Cab is almost episodic, because a lot of it is
just Albert going on rides with the various cavies and getting into sort of strange
almost like encapsulated adventures. He goes with Dell and they drive a stripper to
a topless club and the stripper stiffs them, so then Albert has to go
in and try and get the money and he gets kicked out. Then Dell
has to go in and he it's funny because he goes in there and he
rips off the bottom of one of the waitress that stiffed him. I don't
know if you noticed this, but so he runs out. What else does
he grab? He grabs like a handful of fruits. Right, well,
look he runs out, he grabs the bikini bottoms. Yeah you don't see
it, but he dives into the cab and he's holding this little white statue
and it's really funny. Magic of Gary. It sounds like we're describing as
like an outrageous comedy, and there are certain elements of that. It's pretty
grounded for a lot of it. There's a charm to a lot of it.
And like I said, a big part of that is due I think
to the direction, and I think Max Gale adds a nice vibe to the
picture. Adam Baldwin his characters is great. We haven't talked about the cinematography,
and for this I want to see the floor because I'm sure you have
a lot to say about the director of photography. No, who's the director
of photography? Are you kidding me? No? This is one of the
dingiest, dirtiest depictions of DC that you'll ever see. Every cab it feels
like there's a funk inside of every cab. It's dirty. There's like soot
over everything. You can practically smell it all over the garage. But worth
noting is the DP of this picture was Dean Coundy. Oh my god.
Yeah, I'm so sorry. I feel like covered in shame here. Like,
yeah, I did notice in the credits like this, I got so
marvel I was marveling at like each credit after another that Yeah, it slipped
my mind. Shame on me, because it is a spectacularly well shot movie.
You're right, yeah, like nobody can shoot grime like Dean Coundy to
make it look cinematic and beautiful and authentic at the same time, Like how
do you make grime look wonderful? It came back to Escape from New York,
which I would say is similarly. I mean, we know that was
not that was shot in Saint Louis, right, Yeah, And it looks
and feels so authentically urban and dirty. I know a good portion of DC
Cab was shot on location, but I also know that a lot of it
was shot in Los Angeles. I couldn't tell you which parts, probably some
of the interiors, but there's a gravitas to the it's shot. I'll give
you another example when where we're talking about Harold's house where Albert is staying,
all you ever see is really just like it's like the living room where Albert
is just sleeping on the couch. But it looks so real to me.
It's sort of dirty. There's a part of the wall where the studs are
exposed. You really, it just it looks like a lived in crap house
in you know, in the middle of the city somewhere. I'm now thinking
of like three different Dean Coundie movies where he shot night scenes. So Escape
from New York, which is so spectacular and like bright in a way,
like all of those streets are like very well lit but realistic. And then
we have this movie, and then we also have Back to the Future,
which features a bunch of night scenes. Each of them are so delicate and
wonderful and perfect and of the movie. Like I couldn't necessarily say that that's
Kundy's style on each of those movies because they're so well suited to each of
the films. He's fucking fantastic, man, Like, why is he not
more well sung? I mean, I don't know what his If he's won
any Academy awards, I would hope so, But if not, at least
he should be up for like a Lifetime Achievement Award purely for his work with
John Carpenter of nothing else. Ay man, he shot the Thing and Roller
Boogie. You know what I'm saying. He's fucking fantastic, Like I don't
we should start a Cundy cast. We were talking about Back to the Future.
That's it. Couldn't be more different than the Thing or Escape from New
York, but it serves the picture so perfectly, and I would say the
same thing is true for DC Cab. It seems silly to be delving into
the aesthetics of a silly movie from the eighties, but damn if it doesn't
look really, really good and it feels authentic, right, Absolutely, More
often than not we run into these set bound things and the lighting is inelegant,
and that's never the case with Dean Gundy. He can make anything look
like you're in a real space, and not just some sets somewhere. He
shot fucking who frame around your Rabbit Man. He made it seem like I
felt transported to nineteen forties Los Angeles. It never felt unreal to me.
They were fucking cartoon characters, right, the man that was a magician with
light and with sets and with everything it was. Let me think about this
for a minute now. In terms of time frame, DC Cab, that
was certainly after the Fog and after Escape from New York, So it's not
as if he wasn't already an established in well respected DP. So I think
it's actually kind of marvelous that he would do like a movie like dc CA.
I mean, I'm sure it's a job and he likes to get paid,
but it's not like he coasted on his abilities. It looked and felt
great. Whatever the other shortcomings of the movie are. I looked and was
shot beautifully. Clearly, here's a man who just likes to shoot movies and
fucking does not matter the genre or the budget. If he's interested, he's
gonna go, and thank god he did for so many many of my favorite
movies of all time. I came into rewatching this movie and I feel like
I've said similar things in our taxi discussions, but I came in thinking,
ah, you know, I'm sure this is just going to be a juvenile
thing that I fondly remembered as a kid. But maybe he doesn't hold up,
and there's certainly aspects of that. I'm not going to sit here and
say that this is like a Citizen Kane of the eighties, but I will
say, and we started to mention this a little earlier, is if you
can see past some of the more juvenile and offensive bits of this movie,
there is a charm and the cast is wonderful. They're all young, and
some of them really surprisingly good for based on what they've done after the fact.
I was charmed by this movie in a way that I wasn't expecting to
be. And I don't think that was just purely nostalgia. I think looked
at on its own merits, I think it was actually kind of a successful
movie for what it wanted to be. What did you think faught them alone?
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. I knew even as a child
there are portions of this movie that were ridiculously juvenile, sub animal house,
like let's shock the audience because that's what they like. But there's also,
like you and I have spoken on a Christasher's podcast of a culture cast about
the film Heaven Help Us, similar kind of thing where there's a sweet movie
in there and then it's kind of surrounded by Porky's like humor because that was
the style of the time, and this film suffers a lot from that.
But there is a very nice human drama going on here between Max Gale and
Adam Baldwin and just I don't know that there's a comfortableness with this film,
Like there's a nice it's got a nice hangout vibe. Yeah, that's what
I was alluding to earlier. It is it's fun to spend time in this
garage with these characters, some of them off the wall, but it is
fun that they felt like they had to, like there had to be a
plot at some point, Like we really didn't need it the movie. The
problem is the actual ending to the movie is the end of the second act
when Albert gives them all the money and they revitalized the cab company. That
should have been the fun finale, Like, I don't know why they decided
they needed to have intrigue. You said it, it really went off the
rails when you have when you introduce these ambassadors kids and Albert getting kidnapped and
now it becomes a race to save Albert. It didn't need that. That
to me, in a movie that isn't all that realistic necessarily to begin with.
This just takes it that unreality to a whole other level, which I
don't think it really. The spectacle of them driving down whatever street in Washington,
DC as they're throwing a ticker tape parade for them was so unbelievable to
me and so silly. But even despite that, there's one moment where the
hack inspector whatever his name is, gives Harold the plaque, and he picks
up the plaque and he kind of shows it around. I don't know,
it felt real to me. It felt like, wow, you know,
this is how somebody who gets an award would re I don't know. In
the midst of all of this story of man scale man, he's so good,
like he's so good. I confess I didn't watch a lot of Barney
Miller as a kid, because if it wasn't it wasn't an action packed thrill
a minute. It seemed boring an adult to me. And there's really nothing
action packed about your average episode of Barney Miller, like a bunch of the
built world wordplay like who Cares? Right, No, But it's been so
highly touted as a good show and the actors is absolutely a great show.
It's just not for ten year olds, right. And I could say the
same thing for Taxi. When I was a little kid, I remember it
would come on just as I was getting ready to go to bed to get
ready for school the next day. And there was a time where if I
heard that end theme of Taxi or heard the start of the mash theme,
I got this stomach of melancholy. Yeah, because you knew it's time for
bed, it's I'm going to wake up and it's going to be school again
tomorrow. So there was a time when that was anesthetical to fun for me.
But maybe I should go back and watch Barney Miller and catch up on
hol Linden and the rest of the group. You know, Steve Landisburg,
wasn't he in that? Sure was he was Steve. That's right, Fish,
he was in it. You know ours over at weirding Way Media have
a Shabby Detective podcast about this. No, that's the Columbo podcast. That's
Colombo. Have a Barney Miller they do. Oh okay, I will have
to consider checking that out again if it's not already clear for whatever passes for
yellow lights in this particular episode, we're giving DC caaba recommendation. He should
definitely check it out. It's got nothing to do with Taxi the TV series,
of course, but as an adjacent depiction of the Cabby lifestyle, it
was pretty good between seasons. So we're doing taxi things. We might do
a taxi driver who knows. I think that I'll do it for this particular
special episode of Night mister Walters follow alone. When you're not discussing obscure eighties
comedies, where can people find you? You can hear me over at weirding
Way Media. I host a show called Midnight Viewing, the Horror Anthology podcast
with Mike White and Chris Dashu, where we discuss, well, we're now
starting to discuss tannels from the dark Side. We've got our first Taisman Dark
Side episode coming up where we have an interview with Robert Drape who's the director
of photography for like sixteen episodes. And that's where you can find me over
at the Midnight Viewing. I am also proud to be part of the weirding
Way Media network. You can hear me on the Noise Junkies podcast with myself,
Father Malone, and Mondo Heather's Heather Drain. You can also hear I've
done a few things here and there for Father Malone's Dark Destinations podcast, which
I would encourage you to check out if you love great audio drama. I
have a band campsite hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com if you want to check that
out as well, I'd appreciate it. But otherwise, thank you so much
for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review,
rate us. We would love to hear from you and any manner that
you choose. For myself and for Father Malone. Thanks again and we will
see you again next time. Ni