Taxi | |
---|---|
Main title caption |
|
Format | Sitcom |
Created by | James L. Brooks Stan Daniels David Davis |
Starring | Judd Hirsch Tony Danza Danny DeVito Marilu Henner Christopher Lloyd Andy Kaufman Jeff Conaway Carol Kane Randall Carver J. Alan Thomas |
Theme music composer | Bob James |
Opening theme | "Angela" |
Country of origin | ![]() |
No. of seasons | 5 |
No. of episodes | 114 |
Production | |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | ABC (1978-1982) NBC (1982-1983) |
Original run | September 12, 1978 – June 15, 1983 |
External links | |
IMDb profile |
Taxi is an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC, and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC. The series, which won 18 Emmy Awards including three for Outstanding Comedy Series, focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher. The series was produced by the John Charles Walters Company in association with Paramount Television.
Taxi was inspired by the non-fiction article "Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet" by Mark Jacobson, which appeared in the September 22, 1975 issue of New York magazine. This article helped suggest the idea for the show to James L. Brooks and David Davis, though nothing from it was used directly.[1] The article was a profile of several drivers who worked the night shift for a New York cab company.
Contents |
The show focuses on the employees of the Sunshine Cab Company. Of all the taxi drivers, only Alex, who is disillusioned with life, considers it his profession. The others view driving as a temporary job until they can succeed in their outside careers and leave it behind. Elaine O'Connor Nardo is a receptionist at an art gallery, Tony Banta is a boxer with a losing record, and Bobby Wheeler is a struggling actor. John Burns, who was written out of the show after the first season, is working his way through college. The rest of the drivers take pity on "Reverend Jim" Ignatowski, an aging hippie minister burnt out from drugs, and help him become a cabbie. Some episodes involve one of the characters having an opportunity to realize his or her dream and move up in the world, only to see it yanked away. Others deal with the workers coping with their unsatisfying lives and their amoral dispatcher Louis De Palma.
Despite the zany humor regularly featured on the show, Taxi often tackled such dramatic issues as drug addiction, single parenthood, blindness, bisexuality, teenage runaways, failed marriages, sexual harassment, pre-menstrual mood disorders, gambling addiction, and the loss of a loved one.
Taxi is one of television's most lauded shows. During its run, the sitcom was nominated for 31 Emmy Awards and won 18, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. It was also nominated for 25 Golden Globes, with four wins (three for Best TV Series - Musical/Comedy). In 1979, it received the Humanitas Prize in the 30 minute category. It was also ranked 48th in TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Emmy Awards:
Golden Globe Awards:
Emmy Awards:
Golden Globe Awards:
The show was acclaimed by critics and was a ratings success during its first two seasons, placing in the Top Ten in its first season behind the ABC powerhouse line-up of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Three's Company, but numbers plummeted when it was moved from that secure time-slot into more competitive positions. The show was cancelled in 1982 by ABC. The show was then picked up for its fifth and final season by NBC, being paired at first on Thursday night with Cheers.
The show's seasonal ratings were as follows:
The series was produced on Stage 23, at Paramount Television, in Los Angeles, California, from July 5, 1978, to February 18, 1983.
The opening titles show a cab driving east across the Queensboro Bridge. The footage originally was intended as a "bridge" between scenes and is only about fifteen seconds long; parts of it are subtly repeated a few times to fill the opening. Tony Danza drove the cab in the sequence; he was in New York to shoot a scene that would air in the first season finale. It ended up being the whole series' only scene filmed in New York.
The external shot of the Sunshine Cab Company was of a garage in New York's West Village. The building has since been demolished, the site now containing an apartment building and a Rite Aid.
Bob James wrote the theme music for Taxi throughout its entire run, including the main theme, "Angela", which was written for a sequence in episode 3 of the first season ("Blind Date", see below). The producers liked the slower, more melancholy tune better than the original, more up-tempo original opening theme chosen, which was the title cut of James's 1978 album, Touchdown, on which "Angela" also appears.
# | Episode Title | Airdate/Summary |
---|---|---|
01 | "Like Father, Like Daughter" |
September 12, 1978 John finds that the money case on the pay-phone is missing the door; thus, any call can be made using the same quarter over and over again. Alex calls his ex-wife. He finds out that his daughter, whom he has not spoken to in fifteen years, is taking a flight out of Miami to study in Portugal. Alex's friends volunteer to take turns driving a company cab all the way there so Alex can get acquainted with her before she leaves. |
02 | "One-Punch Banta" |
September 19, 1978 Tony knocks out champion Carlos Navarone (played by real-life world champion Carlos Palomino) with one punch during a sparring session, and as a result, gets a match at Madison Square Garden. Tony is confident that he can win, but finds out minutes before the fight that the knockout was staged. |
03 | "Blind Date" |
September 26, 1978 Alex, after having a conversation with the operator on Bobby's answering service, decides to ask her out, only to find that she is overweight and so defensive about it that she is obnoxious. Meanwhile, Latka finds $2,000 in the back of one of the taxis and is pressured by Louie to hand it over. |
04 | "Bobby's Acting Career" |
October 5, 1978 After giving himself three years to succeed as an actor, Bobby finds his deadline approaching and goes on a mad audition spree. Meanwhile, Alex rescues an abused dog from its owner and refuses to return it. |
05 | "Come As You Aren't" |
October 10, 1978 Elaine throws a party at her apartment for the art dealers she works with, and invited Alex. Fearing that her guests would look down on her if they found out she is a taxi driver, she tells Alex to lie about his occupation. |
06 | "The Great Line" |
October 17, 1978 John uses a pick-up line ("Let's skip the preliminaries...you want to get married?") to ask out a girl named Suzanne Caruthers (Ellen Regan), only to find it works all too well when he finds himself a married man only one hour later. |
07 | "High School Reunion" |
October 24, 1978 Louie does not want to show up for his twenty-year high school reunion, fearing that being a taxi-dispatcher (and still the same height) would not impress those who tormented him back then. Bobby is intrigued by the acting challenge and offers to impersonate Louie, an offer which Louie accepts. Bobby convinces everyone he is Louie (telling them he had a growth spurt in college) and proceeds to charm them all, including the class beauty Louie lusted after (Arlene Golonka). He tells Stanley Tarses, Louie's former chief nemesis, that he now works for the Internal Revenue Service, and that, based on their conversation, Tarses can expect an audit. |
08 | "Paper Marriage" |
October 31, 1978 Latka finds out he is going to be deported, so the cabbies arrange a marriage between Latka and a prostitute to keep Latka in America. Reverend Jim, in his first appearance, performs the ceremony. (He does not reappear until the second season, when he becomes a regular character.) |
09 | "Money Troubles" |
November 14, 1978 John and Suzanne find themselves in financial trouble, so Alex offers them a loan. Louie attempts to talk Elaine into inviting him to John's house for dinner. |
10 | "Men Are Such Beasts" |
November 21, 1978 Tony starts to get annoyed with his clingy, pill-popping girlfriend Denise, and tries to break up with her. But Denise refuses let him go, and starts following him around. Finally, he is forced to take desperate measures to drive her away. Meanwhile, Alex gets into an accident when, swerving to avoid a dog, he hits a parked car instead. |
11 | "A Full House For Christmas" |
December 12, 1978 Louie's brother Nicky, a professional gambler, comes to visit from Las Vegas for Christmas. Louie's mother, upset over not having heard from Nicky for six years, wants him to take her back to Vegas with him for a while, but Nicky refuses. Louie, frustrated over his brother's indifference for their mother (though he himself treats her no better), gets Alex to play poker with Nicky. When Nicky loses all his money, Louie pays him to show Mrs. De Palma a good time in Las Vegas. |
12 | "Sugar Mama" |
January 16, 1979 Alex is hired by wealthy older widow Dee Wilcox (Ruth Gordon) to drive her around town, but Alex starts to feel uncomfortable with the nature of their relationship. |
13 | "Friends" |
January 30, 1979 While Tony is away, Bobby neglects to feed Tony's long-lived goldfish. When Tony returns to find "Tony" and "Wanda" dead, Tony vows never to talk to Bobby again. |
14 | "Louie Sees The Light" |
February 6, 1979 Louie is about to undergo a major medical operation, and is worried that he might not live through it. In a desperate attempt to save himself, Louie promises God (with Alex as his witness) that he will be "the best man he can be." Louie returns to the garage a changed man. Bobby makes a bet with Alex over how long Louie will be able to go without reverting to his old self. |
15 | "Elaine And The Lame Duck" |
February 13, 1979 Congressman Walter Griswold (Jeffrey Tambor) breaks up with his girlfriend in the back of Alex's cab. Feeling sorry for the pathetic politician, Alex introduces Walter to Elaine. Elaine soon gets annoyed by Walter's childish behavior and sexual suggestions, but does not have the heart to dump him. |
16 | "Bobby's Big Break" |
February 15, 1979 Bobby lands a role as a new character on a popular soap opera. Thinking he has gotten his big break, he rips up his cab driver license in Louie's face. He later finds out that his character is being killed off, and is too embarrassed to ask for his job back. |
17 | "Mama Gravas" |
February 27, 1979 Latka's attractive widowed mother visits. She and Alex end up spending the night together. But Latka thinks the relationship is much more serious than it is. |
18 | "Alex Tastes Death And Finds A Nice Restaurant" |
March 6, 1979 Alex is shot in the ear by one of his passengers, and turns into a nervous wreck (he is unwilling to pick up a priest). Eventually, Alex quits his job and becomes a waiter at a stuffy French restaurant. |
19 | "Hollywood Calling" |
May 8, 1979 A Hollywood bigwig is writing a film about New York City cab drivers, and comes to the Sunshine Cab Company looking for inspiration. He takes a liking to Alex, but Louie is annoyed about the commotion in the garage disrupting business. |
20 | "Substitute Father" |
May 15, 1979 Elaine is going away for a week, but doesn't want to take her son Jason because he has a spelling bee the day before Elaine's return. Alex, Bobby, Tony, John and Louie take turns taking the kid on outings, but they have such a good time with the boy, he does not have time to study. |
21 | "Memories of Cab 804, Part 1" |
May 22, 1979 John crashes Cab 804, the most beloved cab in the garage. Alex, Bobby, Tony and Louie reminisce about their greatest moments in the cab:
|
22 | "Memories of Cab 804, Part 2" |
May 29, 1979 As Latka tries to save Cab 804 (which is now a heap of scrap metal), Elaine and Alex recount their memories of the beloved cab. Elaine picks up the man of her dreams and has a wonderful night with him, only to find she will never see him again. Alex delivers a baby in the backseat. Latka manages to repair the cab, although several defects remain (such as not being able to go over 20 miles per hour), and Alex gets to take it out first. However, the engine catches on fire after Alex starts it up. In subsequent episodes, the cab appears to work fine.) |
Danny DeVito hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live soon after Taxi was canceled after the fourth season. A filmed bit had him driving around New York looking morose until inspiration strikes and he blows up the ABC building. In addition, the Taxi cast members were given an opportunity for closure, which up to that point had been denied them due to the abrupt cancellation. The actors took their "final" bows during DeVito's opening monologue, only to have NBC pick up the show. HBO was also interested in renewing the series for a fifth season after ABC's cancellation.
Decades later, most of the cast returned to play their younger selves and briefly re-enact scenes for the Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon. Judd Hirsch, Marilu Henner, Jeff Conaway, Carol Kane, Randall Carver, J. Alan Thomas, and Christopher Lloyd all reprised their roles. The only three who did not were Danny DeVito, who produced and co-starred in the film as Kaufman's manager George Shapiro; Tony Danza, who declined to participate; and Kaufman himself.
Kaufman wanted his stage character Tony Clifton to appear on the show. "Clifton" was hired for a guest role, but after throwing a tantrum on stage, had to be escorted off of the Paramount studio lot by security guards. The incident was recreated in Man on the Moon.
CBS Home Entertainment has released the first three seasons of Taxi on DVD in Region 1. It is unknown if the remaining 2 seasons will be also be released.
DVD Name | US Release Date | UK Release Date | Ep # | Additional Information |
---|---|---|---|---|
Season 1 | October 12 2004 | April 28 2008 | 22 | No Bonus Features |
Season 2 | February 1 2005 | TBA | 24 | No Bonus Features |
Season 3 | September 13 2005 | TBA | 20 | No Bonus Features |
Season 4 | TBA | TBA | 24 | |
Season 5 | TBA | TBA | 24 |
|