Episode 28 - Wherefore Art Thou, Bobby? - podcast episode cover

Episode 28 - Wherefore Art Thou, Bobby?

Jun 19, 202439 minSeason 2Ep. 6
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Episode description

Bobby is still clawing and fighting to maintain his acting career.  He finds his faith in acting shaken when a newcomer lands a prime acting gig, soon after arriving in New York.  Will Bobby maintain his motivation for acting?  Will the cabbies do all they can to support Wheeler?  And what do a suntan lotion commercial and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind have in common?  HP and Father Malone break it down as they discuss season 2, episode 6, "Wherefore Art Thou, Bobby?"

Father Malone: FatherMalone.com
HP: hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com
email: hpmusicplace@gmail.com

Transcript

Weird way media. Nie that guy with it now he's an actor phone and the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters a taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host, and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone, Father m Alone. How are you this evening? I'm okay if you like revivals. It's like my favorite line in this whole episode, which we'll get to. We are talking Taxi

season two, episode six, where for art Thal Bobby. This was written by Barry Kemp and it was directed, of course by the director in residence or the resident director, James Burrows. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. We start this episode with the typical b roll as cabs roll in to the garage on a nice sunny day. Inside, Bobby brings his bookings to Louie and asks if there's any messages, and he gets one message and to his dismay, he got booked for

a commercial. Alex sort of counters to him that generally, when you're an actor or a struggling actor, getting a job is a good thing, but Bobby's complaining that it's a commercial. It's a local commercial for a suntan lotion, and it's not the kind of work that he wants to do, and Bobby resolves to call his agent to stop doing this kind of stuff immediately.

I'm already kind of annoyed because in season one we saw him breaking his back to get a job, any job before the midnight of the anniversary of the pact he made with himself that he was going to be an actor or give it all up. I think it's very superficial of him all of a sudden to start grousing that, oh, this part is beneath me. Why am I taking the Did you have the same impression, father Malone? Well, this is a remake of that episode, so of course I was thinking about

it. That's exactly. Yeah, I wrote that down by the way that I totally agree. Go on. Was it not his participation as just a drone in a commercial that prompted him to want to quit in the last episode? No, that him being in that Ef Hutton commercial. Yeah, that's what brings him back to acting. That was going to be his lifeline that he wouldn't have to quit acting. He was trying to book any job anywhere

just so he could make that deadline and not have to quit acting. Well, obviously the movie Fame hadn't come out yet, so he couldn't have seen that inspirational speech. But you know, the the the born professor saying like, look, only one percent of you are actually going to be working. The rest of you and to be waiters and delivery people. And you know, and of that one percent, like ninety percent of it is just going to be commercial work. So he's in the one percent and he's bitching about

it. And I get it, if your career is in skyrocketing, you kind of resent the lower shit that you just have to do to pay the bills. But he should realize it's nineteen seventy nine and he's getting his face. It's a local ad, right, Okay, I see his point now, even more if it was a national ad, I would be if Hutton is a national ad. This is for some New York tanning salon. But it's work, it's paid work, even something as inconsequential as a local ad.

I'm not suggesting he should be doing backflips and thanking his good fortune, but I'm just saying, why respond so disdainfully at the prospect of doing what you want to do, which is be a paid I don't know. It just rubbed immediately, it rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah. To lighten things up, we get a lack of sighting. Lacka is back everyone. Louis tells Laca he has a Mesjenny summons him to his cage, and this is total vaudeville. Instead of the customary dollar that Louis gets for a message,

he gives Louis a coin. Then do you remember this bit? Oh? Of course, how could I forget that, this brilliant bit of comedy. We've seen them do this with currency before. Louis asks what the coin is and Loca says that it's a kebble. And immediately, like I said, I could call with this was headed. But since Kaufman's involved on game, because he can liven it up, so Louis asks what a kebble is and Loka replies that it takes two hundred and seventy kebble to make a liftniche.

And this keeps going and then Louis says, what's a lift niche? Back and forth, and finally Loca tells him the last denomination fifty liftnich equals a matter, and then Louis says, well, what's the matter, And of course what does Kaufman say, follow the bait? I don't even want to you know, the joke everybody the bazooka Joe comic and Laka then cops to it. He's like, I read it in the bubblegum rapper. He says, what's the matter, And Laka says, I don't know, what's

the matter with you? Vaudeville and he smiles. The thing that got me he's delight, his delight. Yeah, yeah, through sheer force of charm, Kaufman made it work for me because he's so happy and so pleased at having given this joke that he read in a bubblegum wrapper. It totally made it worth it. I thought it was great, right, but it was a slog to get there, and it needn't have been, because it could have just been what's that or that's the matter, what's the matter, what's

the matter of you? Right? The bang bang bang not shifty kebble go into a lift Nitz and Fisco sent to that and oh yeah, yeah it's inelegant. But again, at the end of it, I was I was chuckling. I thought it was kind of funny. So then Tony enters the garage and he looks like he just came in from a softball game. They're putting Tony in these baseball jerseys with the short sleeves. It's not a good look. You're talking about his ringer, his yellow and white ringer T shirt.

Yeah, I loved that. This whole episode is about yellows and blues. Sincerely, Bobby has a yellow shirt, Dance has a yellow shirt. Elaine and Alex are both garbed in blue. Tony comes in and he's got with him a Burns lookalike named Steve Jensen. Steve is played by an actor named Michael Horton. Did you recognize him, father Malone? I didn't recognize him, but I know he's a prodigious actor. I know he does a

lot of voiceover work. He's been in an a ton of a ton a ton of stuff, a lot of television, like you said, a lot of voiceover work. But I saw him in this, But I didn't make the connection between Taxi and in this movie. He was in two Star Trek movies. He was in Star Trek First Contact, and he was in Insurrection both times as Lieutenant Daniels, which he wasn't heavily featured, but he's there.

He looks like he looks like he does here. I mean, it's it's the character, you know, and he's instantly more likable than Burns. Tony just picked him up from the bus station. Evidently he's come in to New York to become an actor, and Tony, in his very simple mind, had the bright idea to introduce him to Bobby because that's what a child would do. Hey, what he says, what are the odds that you know a guy comes to New York to be an actor and I know an

act. Alex's great response is fifty to fifty. Rieger's performance in this one is somehow better than I've seen him in a long time. And he's been really good the whole time. But I don't know, for some reason, he's really natural here in this episode. I agree he seems looser somehow. Yeah, well, I think this particular episode calls on him to offer counsel in a lot of ways. He does that in every episode. For some

reason, jud Hersh is free and easy in this episode. So Bobby is introduced to Steve Jensen, and he gives Steve the classic advice when someone says they want to become an actor, Bobby says, don't. It's just he runs down this whole litany of why it's soul crushing to be an actor. You're getting doors slammed in your face. It's a heartbreak after heartbreak, on and on, and then Rieger steps in to explain why Bobby is so upset

because he got booked for this terrible sounding local commercial. But what this does. This actually excites Steve. He says, that's great. You know, you're doing it. You're being an actor. That's what you do. And something about his youthful enthusiasm and reaction kind of softens Bobby a little bit, and it inspires Bobby to take Steve out for breakfast or whatever and introduce him to his agent. So he's going to take him out and show him the

city a little bit. I thought that was kind of nice, you know, absolutely so far, it's okay, you know, set up is kind of blame, but they're they're muddling through it and everyone's given good performances here. At this point, I was already having flashbacks to that Season one episode where he's got to get a job or he's going to give up acting forever. It's starting to feel a little bit like that, but we're not there yet. See. You know what this is like a sideways aspirational episode.

You know, it's the not I'm getting the brass ring getting out here, It's the I'm gonna quit everything and just be a cabby. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of whining. We cut back to the garage and we can see Elaine, Tony, and Alex are they're back to playing cards. The last episode they took up chess, but that didn't stick evidently, so Tony bops in and asks if anyone's seen Steve today, and Alex says to him that they thought that Steve was staying with Bobby until he got his own apartment,

which is nice. Bobby had actually taken this guy under his wing. He's letting him stay in his sweet basement apartment until he gets on his feet and finds his own apartment. So that's cool. I took this as a very ominous sign. Bobby expositions that he introduced Steve to his agent and he's wondering how it went. Bobby keeps saying this was probably a terrible day for Steve, getting doors slammed in your face or always miserable. So he heads

out to do his local commercial. Two of my favorite bits in this episode have nothing to do with anything, and they both involve Andy Kaufman Locko. So as he's on his way out to his commercial shoot, Locke presents him with this wrapped box and Bobby says, well, what's this, and Lockett replies, goat droppings. Bobby makes the obvious leap, and he says, oh, is this because it's good luck in your country? And Locke said no, and Bobby naturally says, why are you giving this to me?

And Laca says, I don't want it just away? So obvious. Of course, it raises so many questions in one's mind. Number one, why does he have goat droppings? And why has he wrapped it so ornately in a box to present to Bobby. It's great. I love the mystery of it. I love the weirdness of it. Absolutely, all that effort for something that he just didn't want, like let's the oh, this is a rabbit hole. I don't want to go down the goat dropping. Soon Steve

comes ambling into the garage. He seems like he's in this daze, he doesn't know where he is. He has this look on his face, this glazed look, and the Cabby's press him out of concern, like what's going on? How is your day? You know? Everything okay? And he says, yeah, I'm feeling great. I got a job. So the first audition that Steve went on was for an off Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet, and wouldn't you know it, he scored the lead. He's Romeo

and Romeo and Juliet off Broadway. They start in eight weeks. Of course, they have to throw in a little bit to show how lunkheaded Tony is, because Alex says, what's the part? And Steve replies, Romeo, what plague Baudville? Oh I heard of that. Tony says, well, you must be some great kind of actor, because Bob he's been trying for a break like this for years. And at that point, the penny sort of drops for Alex and he realizes with everybody else that this news that Steve

first audition out of the gate, he gets this amazing job. This is going to shatter Bobby, This is going to wreck him because he's been toiling away for years with little or nothing the show for it. When Tony wonders who's gonna break the news, naturally, Louie is the one who offers. This is a parallel, not to the one where he's set a deadline for himself. This is a remake of the episode where he goes to work for the soap opera. Yeah, and then then he gets written out of the

show. He gets killed off, but not before he's already made a production to Louie of saying like, I'm never coming back to the garage. You're never gonna see my face again. So he's gonna come with his tail between his legs. And remember, Louie is so gleeful that it actually moves Alex to violence against Louie. They chase each other around, so this is exactly the same. So Louie is just rubbing his hands together, like, please let me tell Bobby the bad news, because he lives for this stuff.

He's begging them let me give the bad news to Bobby, but Alex is refusing. He says, all right, I'm not gonna tell him the news, but you didn't say I couldn't call him, And then this chase ensues where he's trying to get into the kge right. Yeah, it's good. It's a really good bit of physical comedy. And you know what they got. Here's the thing that reminded me again. I mean, how can we

not be reminded of that previous episode we were just talking about. But whenever jed Hurst sort of springs up in a sort of offensive way, like to tangle with Louis, I think of everyone in that garage, he's the one I would want to fight the least. Jued Hurst seems like he could lay anybody out. Man. I think we've all had that teacher in school who

never raised their voice, never really got into it with the kids. But the second they raised their voice even a little bit, because it was such a stark contrast to their normal mode of behavior, you snapped to it. To me, that's the brilliance of Alex Rieger here, because he's usually such a very level headed and easygoing fellow. But when he's pushed, when he flips that switch, man, I would I'm Ali, I'm with you.

I wouldn't want to tangle with him. He'll kill you, yeah, man, And certainly, well it's not so much him here as Nardo, and more to the point, Tony lifting louis parallel to the floor, which is a great site gag. Just them standing there and him clutching the cage trying to get inside. It's almost like a painting. It doesn't excuse the fact that we've already seen this when Judhurst ripped the grates off of the cage, which is way more effective. This scene is funny, but there's such an

overwhelming sense of dejure vous for that first season episode. It really is like a rewrite of that. We go to commercial, we cut back, we see the familiar outside of Bobby's sweet basement apartment. Man looking for some cozy fun. So the Cabby's plus Steve Jensen are all gathered in there. They all have beers. They're waiting for Bobby to come in there. You get the sense that they're trying to preemptively put him at ease before they have to

give him the news that Steve got this job. And Bobby bounces in smiling. He's hugging all the Cabby's, But it becomes slowly apparent there's something in the way that it's both the way it's shot, this tight shot of his face, but the way that Bobby is going from person to person. Yeah, Conway's great here because the gag is it's the fucking commercial that he did tanned half his face so he looks like Batman villain Harvey two face dent,

but they don't feature it immediately. Like you said, it's this little game they're playing with the lighting and everything, but Conoway's full frame turning from left to right, so you can't really make you know something's wrong. You just don't know what until Banta speaks up. He reminded me of Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters when half of his face is sunburned from the lights. Half of Wheeler's face, like you said, has this it's tanned and the other half

is not. He's moving his head shaking it left to right, so you see tan no tan tan, and you can hear the audience sort of start to catch onto this and laugh. It's a great visual gag that they do. I thought it was really good, and Conaway is a big part of what sells this. As much as the cabbys are trying to ignore the fact that half of his face is dark. Tony, ever uncouth keeps asking what happened to you have face, and Bobby explains they had to put this lotion

on the side of his face and it won't come off. He's tried washing it off and it's there for a while. Bobby expresses his gratitude to everybody because he thinks they're ostensibly there to celebrate that he did this commercial, but really they're all there to soften the blow for when he finds out that this

kid got a major part right out of the gate. He gives his special thanks to Steve because he keeps reiterating this point that, boy, after the bad day that you had, Steve, I know you didn't want to The last thing you want to do is be in this party. And da da da. Bobby keeps trying to ask Steve about what happened today. Well, you know, but all the rest of the Cabins Preese company shit right here. Oh, let me get to Bobby, did you do you want to

be here or something? Wait? Rite Bobby, Hey, let's let's do a toast. They keep finding ways to distract him from finding out how Steve's day went. Steve sheepishly finally admits that he had a great day that he's playing Romeo off Broadway, and this is actually another great little visual bit.

I think it was just serendipitous. Bobby hears about this and he freezes for a minute and he takes this big swig out of his beer, and when he puts the beer down because it had been shaken, the beer just goes everywhere. It just starts coming out like fizzing right out of the can. I thought it was a great match to his attitude in that moment. What

did you think the frothing of the can is great? But if you're watching, he's drinking when he's told that the kid got the gig, and he lowers the can and then remembers he's supposed to shake it, so he takes that quick drink to make the can do that. So it looks really unnatural, because here's the thing. If his character, if his reaction after hearing it was to start drinking, then he would have drunk the whole thing. And he doesn't do it. He just does this quick like and it's just

to shake the can up enough. I watched the scene twice because I watched the episode twice, and the first time I was like, what was wrong with that? And then it second time, did it? He missed his cue HB But the gag still works. Yeah, it still works. Bobby then tries to give Steve some encouragement and say, oh, this is great, and he tries to rally the Cabby's, and the Cabby's again are all feigning indifference to this news. And that's when Elaine gives that great line reading

where he says, is this great? He's on Romeo, He's doing Romeo and Juliet, And Elaine says, well, yeah, I guess if you like revivals. It's like an Altman thing because like everyone's speaking at once, you know, so this is cacaphony of voices, but hers just sings right out, you know. According to the Lovies book The Official Taxi Fan Guide, Mary Leeuhanner takes full credit for that particular line. She came up with that line during rehearsals and she insisted she's going to be the one to deliver

that line. It works wonderfully. It's a great moment in the episode. It is Bobby goes back over to Steve and he says, oh, it's great, you made it, and he starts hugging him by the shoulders. You made it, you made it, you made it, And he goes for being nervously happy to choking him and saying you made it, you made it, and starts throttling him by the neck. I thought it was a

fun little transition for Conaway. His face twists into this rictus of anger, and I thought it was a funny little two faces taken over here, Harvey. Then just soon the coin will merge. So you're carrying the Batman analogy to its final conclusion there. You couldn't pay me enough to have my face look like that. That's Tony Well, what a sensitive guy. We cut

back to the garage and Wheelers coming in. He's still got half of his face is still tanned, and he asks Louis for a cab, and Louis he can't help just laughing right in Wheeler's face when he sees this half tan going on the rest of the cab. He's all try to buck Bobby up, but he proclaims that he's not an actor anymore. It's all, he

says, it's all a bunch of luck. He's fishing for sympathy, and I find it annoying that he's doing this because he knows that they're all going to try to cheer him up or convince him not to do it, but he does it anyway. It's dumb. The modern equivalent is I'm leaving this Facebook group. Okay, yeah bye. By the way, I was going to use that example, but Facebook is not in anymore. We're very old. We're reviewing taxi we're talking about that's as modern as we get. It's

like my Space. When you're gonna leave a MySpace page and you say I'm leaving. Bobby says that he's already left a message for his agent, saying as much that he's quitting acting and he's done. Steve comes in to ostensibly to apologize to Bobby for what happened, but then he asks Alex if he'll run some lines with them, and then Alex sagely suggests that he run lines with Bobby instead. This is it's dumb, like reverse psychology. A kid

wouldn't fall for this. It's dumb. Yeah. And also he should be rehearsing for the play that starts in two weeks with the cast, and not here at the garage. What is Steve doing here? Go find an apartment. It's insulting the way that it's written. It's so obvious what Alex is trying to do that even Tony the lunkhead knows what he's driving at. I

think he even says, oh, I know what you're getting at. Steve and Bobby get ready to run this scene from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo fights with Paris and kills him, and after initially Bobby makes a big show of seeming so bored he's not giving anything to his performance, Steve actually says, hey, can you give me a little more, Let's really make this work. Yeah, it's so again this dramatic petulant thing that Wheeler sometimes does that

I really do not like. Where he's got a Snickers bar half in half out of his mouth. He's not even chewing it. He's just mumbling around it like I'm a dickhead. He's holding it like a cigar, he's not eating it. The whole point of it is to rouse his acting passion so that he won't quit. Bobby finally gets into the spirit of the performance. I think he even goes off book. He doesn't even need the book anymore,

he could just recite it from memory. Their impassion performance compels the rest of the garage to applaud loudly, which leads to my third favorite Laca moment, and I think this was also done in season one, if I'm not mistaken, at some point where they're applauding this performance and Loaca happens to be walking in and he thinks that they're applauding for him. He says nothing, but he just nods and receives the applause and walks across the garage. That

joke is evergreen. I don't care how many times I see it in how many different shows or how many different situations. Somebody mistaking applause for their own adulation is always hilarious. Every favorite moment I've had is about Laka, And you could take those out of the episode entirely and it would not change the episode one bit except make it less funny. So you could just watch some

special featuring Andy Kaufman instead of this episode. Oh and I would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than this, not to spoil my review, we wouldn't have gotten to see Bobby Wheeler do his death thing for the fucking thousandth time in two seasons, not even five episodes. Into the season six. Yeah, I could do without his hammy, you know. Oh, As he gets stabbed with an imaginary sword and he falls to the ground, I am slain. I expected in my life that people would proclaim that

a little bit more. It seemed to me that in every Shakespearean play, when you die, you yell you are slain, whether stabbed or not. So I thought that was just a thing we all did. I don't know, I guess I never gave it much thought. But try to yell I am slain right before I die. If I have the last breath in me,

I am slain, or maybe put that on my tombstone. So we've seen him do dying better than this in previous episodes, and here's where it actually counts, because this is supposed to be reinvigorating him in some way. I guess it doesn't actually though, does it. It doesn't really, because what happens is he falls to the floor, everybody applauds, and he says to Steve, hey, you know a kid, you're great. Steve's response

is, you can't give up acting. We're led to believe that this performance has affected Steve to the point where now even he thinks that Bobby can't quit acting because it's such an amazing performance that it's an actor is complimenting him on his performance. But in reality, it's not that good of a performance. But then again, neither is Steve Jensen's performance as Romeo. But that's neither here nor there. That's because I've stuck in that seventies kind of leftover from

the sixties Romeo and Juliet performance of Shakespeare. Everyone's still doing Shakespeare acting instead of acting in Shakespeare. I think we probably have Kenneth Branna to thank for bringing Shakespeare back to the masses, making it more approachable and making the dialogue more sensical to modern audiences. He didn't change the dialogue, but it's the way he's performed was the key there, right, But I think you're right,

it's still very Shakespearean. That's what we all suffered through in high school. As I said, he says to Bobby, you can't quit acting. The real truth of it, he says, is that look, if he can be that good, If Bobby can be that good and he still can't get a job, then this just proves that acting is nothing. But luck He's actually right, it's one hundred percent right. He could have gotten off

a bus and walked into an audition and gotten a lead. The stars did not align for him for whatever reason, and they did for Steve Jensen. It could be his look. It could just have been that day they were ready for that actor for that part. Bobby is speaking the truth here. It's a crapshoot. No matter how you slice it. We can't control himself any longer. This is the same fit of glee and laughter that he couldn't

stifle back in that season one episode. He bursts out laughing from his cage, and he really calls Riager on Riager's transparent scheme to get Bobby to do this scene. He says, what's on our mind, which is that was a really lame thing for him to try to do. It was so obvious that it was reverse psychology at work. Here. Bobby's the one who confronts Louie, which normally we would have expected Alex to be the one to say

that's enough, I've had enough. But Bobby gets up and explains to a chuckling Louis, like Louis can't even keep a straight face during this exchange between the two of them, and he says to Louis, look, acting is nothing but a bunch of heartbreak. Does Louis know how it feels to have your dream slip away time and time and time again. But then Bobby admits to Louis that he came into the garage that day is it really is a beaten man. But he's found something that's going to get him through all of

the hard times chasing his dream to become an actor. He's found a light. You know what that light is? It? To you, Louis, I'm gonna make it just to fuck you. Conway's great here. He could have been histrionic, He's not. He could have been underplaying it. He isn't. He's right in the sweet spot there where he's just telling it like it is. There's all the menace in the world in it, with it none of it being presented as that. It's fucking good man. It almost

redeems the episode. But it can't. Possibly Jeff Conaway has to do this while Danny DeVito is right across from him. He's laughing his ass off through the whole thing. He can't. It's supposed to be this idea that Louie can't stop chuckling, so Conaway has to get deep down and serious and break it down for Louie. I would have been cracking up because Daniel Vito's right there cracking up. You're right. It almost redeems the previous twenty six minutes

of the episode. But it doesn't it. We don't quite get there to your point. He basically says to Louis, Look, you're the reason that I'm gonna keep going. Every time I get beaten down, I'm gonna tell myself that someday I'm gonna come back and shove everything you've said to me, write down your fucking throat. And then he says, excuse me, I got to call my agent, So you're gonna call the agent back and tell

him I'm not quitting. I'm back then, but then he does this move where he raises the forearm and kicks out the legs simultaneously like a piston, Like I'll kick you in the fucking face, Louis to Palmer, Miss stump on you crunch. I thought that was Loui's move, though, that's Louis does that. Oh even, yeah, you're right, I guess he has done that in the past. I think that was his the echo of Louise doing that move like a second, I like it even more. Yeah,

the last two minutes of this episode is really really good. Then we have another what really passes for a bumper where and this is a very odd bumper. I gotta say, a stupid bumper. It makes no sense at all. Suddenly the coffee machine has gone and it's replaced by the candy machine again. Why because we needed to be there? And yeah, okay, so Louis pissed off, like you know, an animal has to act out and

smash something. So he's like, y'all like candy, Well take this, and he dumps the candy machine over and then half heartedly stomps on maybe two pieces of candy before walking off, all triumphant and angry and dismissive of them. But he just gave everybody free candy. It's not much of a take that to the rest of the cabbes. It's just like, I just overturned this candy machine. I stepped on two or three candy bars, but the rest are fine, have at it. Hey, I'm gonna have to pay

for this candy machine. The boss is going to freak the fuck out on me. I might lose my job. Now have some free candy I win the other thing that redeemed this bumper for me. And this is so niche and I forgive you if you didn't notice this, But I don't know if you remember. In the season one episode Hollywood Calling You and I had a spirited discussion about an extra that was in the back. I dubbed him something like Captain Marvel. I thought he was part of the film crew. You

thought he was part of the camp company. And I believe you were right in that case. Well, not only that, but this confirms it because as Louie is walking off triumphantly after stepping on two or three candy bars, who's in the background watching all of this take place. Captain Marvel's there. He's got the same shirt, he's got the same pants, he's got the same hat. It's the same fucking guy. He's still a cavey. So

you're just sort of reveling in that right now. I got what it tells me is he must have been a co producer or somebody on the staff, because why would an extra still be there after one season's already gone? Are you crazy? Have you watched like an entire run of cheers. Look around that bar. All of those patrons are pretty much the same in most of these background cabbys we've been seeing forever now, Blonde, leggy pants suit,

blonde is there. I've seen Appleman in the background. We've seen a bunch of these people. Man, Lumberjack, Apple. Yeah. There was something thrilling in seeing this extra looking exactly like he did the previous season for no good reason. He's just there. I found it delightful. That's the episode that is where for Art Thau Bobby. Now we're going to talk yellow lights as we do. What does a yellow light mean? A reminder we grave

this episode on a scale from one yellow light to five yellow lights. One yellow light is a terrible taxi episode. Five yellow lights is the perfect taxi episode, and as is our custom Fallow Malone, I'll throw it to you. What do you give where for Art Thou Bobby? A poor remake of a previously annoying episode. I'd like to say that there are good things in it, and I think I already have, but I don't need to JUSTI find it any more than that. This one was better paced than the previous

Banta episode. It moved along at a steady clip. It's just that we've seen all of this before, We've seen it done better, and if they're going to do aspirational episodes, they got to come up with something new other than I'm going to quit and I'm going to quit. Well, let me ask you a question. You gave the Banta episode two yellow lights. You think this episode is worse than the Banta episode. Yeah, I hadn't seen

the Banta episode before. I've seen this one before. I'm kind of surprised, but I will tell you that I gave this episode two yellow lights because you're frequently wrong, but so my rationale on this and again I say this often, but I don't have to explain myself to you, but I will, and the interest of our viewers. There's I think there's some funny stuff with the Cabbys and Louis. It's you know, I chuckled a few times. I love this stuff with Laka, despite the fact that it has nothing

to do with the episode itself proper. I agree with you that it's far too similar to some of the episodes we saw in season one. In particular, the episode called Bobby's Big Break featured Wheeler pushed to the brink of quitting acting by circumstances out of his control. So yes, there are such similarities between those two episodes, But all in all, I still think this is slightly below average, if not enjoyable, on some of its own merits.

So I gave it two yellow lights. We're not worlds away like I always say, but you know it's worth noting. Yeah, don't be poor poor, don't be poorly written, and an echo of an earlier episode. That's my ultimate takeaway here. I liked all the lot of stuff too, and I like that last moment with Conaway, but the rest of its kind of bad. Yeah, but you also said you liked Alex in this episode better too. This doesn't right. I might have to go to two yellow lights.

Don't let me convince you you gave the score. You gave it, Okay, listen, I gave it the one because I'm so mad that they wasted our time with the Wheeler episode doing this with Wheeler when we've already seen this with Wheeler. But you know what, the Harvey two face makeup and his performance, you know what, not even Riger, not even Riger's performance here. I'm gonna go with Conaway's performance gets it an extra hollo light. I'm going up to two two yellow light. We're in agreement perfect, So

that will do it for this episode of night Mister Walters follow Malone. Where can people find you when you're not clocked into the garage. You can hear me over on weirdingwaymedia dot com, where I have shows like Dark Destinations it's a radio drama and Midnight Viewing, a horror anthology podcast where we review tales from the dark side, and midnight viewing anthologies Attack, where we review all

kinds of anthologies. You're covering Batman on the anthology series right, Yeah, We've already covered Almost Got Them from season one, and the next up is Legends of the Dark Knight from season three. Those are both anthologies within the series where a group of characters get around and tell stories about Batman. Very cool, very cool. So for myself, I can also be found on the weirding Way network. I have been proud to appear in some capacity on

several episodes of Dark Destinations, which you have to catch it. If you like good radio drama, good storytelling, please check it out. You will not be disappointed. I've also been an occasional contributor to things like the Culture Cast. I've also got a band campsite called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Look for some new material there, hopefully soon. Anyway, thanks again for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review,

or rate us. We'd love to hear from you in any manner that you see fit so for myself and father alone, thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next time. Hie, mister Walders

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