Taxi (TV series)
Taxi is an American sitcom that originally aired on ABC from September 12, 1978, to May 6, 1982, and on NBC from September 30, 1982, to June 15, 1983. The series won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. It focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher. "Taxi" was produced by the John Charles Walters Company, in association with Paramount Network Television, and was created by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed Weinberger. For most of the run of the show , the ensemble cast consisted of taxi drivers Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch), Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway), Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner), Tony Banta (Tony Danza), and "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd), along with their dispatcher Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) and mechanic Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman). The show was a critical and commercial success, having been nominated for 31 Emmy Awards and winning 13, including three straight years winning Outstanding Comedy. It has remained in syndicated reruns ever since the series ended. Premise and themes. The show focuses on the employees of the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, and its principal setting is  the company's fleet garage in Manhattan. Among the drivers, only Alex Reiger, who is disillusioned with life, considers cab driving his profession. The others view it as a temporary job. Elaine Nardo is a single mother working as a receptionist at an art gallery. Tony Banta is a boxer with a losing record. Bobby Wheeler is a struggling actor. John Burns (written out of the show after the first season) is working his way through college. All take pity on "Reverend Jim" Ignatowski, an aging hippie minister, who is burnt out from drugs, so they help him become a  cabbie. The characters also include Latka Gravas, their innocent, wide-eyed mechanic from an unnamed foreign country, and Louie De Palma, the despotic dispatcher. A number of episodes involve a character having an opportunity to realize his dream to move up in the world, only to see it yanked away. Otherwise, the cabbies deal on a daily basis with their unsatisfying lives and with Louie's abusive behavior and contempt (despite being a former cab driver himself). Louie's assistant, Jeff Bennett, is rarely heard from at first, but his role increases in later seasons. Despite the humor of the  show, "Taxi" often tackles such dramatic life issues as drug addiction, single parenthood, blindness, obesity, dissociative identity disorder, animal abuse, homosexuality, racism, teenage runaways, divorce, nuclear war, sexual harassment, premenstrual mood disorders, gambling addiction, and grief. Cast and characters. Guests. Among the many guest stars, Ruth Gordon won an Emmy Award for her guest portrayal of Dee Wilcox in "Sugar Mama" (1979), and Eileen Brennan was nominated for an Emmy for her guest portrayal of Mrs. McKenzie in "Thy Boss's Wife" (1981). Actresses Marcia Wallace and Penny Marshall, psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, cookie entrepreneur Wally "Famous" Amos, newscaster Edwin  Newman, and ring announcer Jimmy Lennon portrayed themselves in separate episodes. George Wendt and Ted Danson, who appeared in separate episodes, went on to star in primary "Taxi" director Jim Burrows' next series, "Cheers", as did recurring "Taxi" performer Rhea Perlman. Tom Selleck also had a memorable guest appearance, constituting one of the memorable fares of Cab 804, while Tom Hanks portrayed Reverend Jim's college roommate in the flashback episode "The Road Not Taken, Part 1". WBC world welterweight champion Carlos Palomino appeared in the episode "One-Punch Banta" as himself (season 1, episode 2, original air date September  19, 1978). In that scene Palomino accidentally punches Tony in the face when he failed to pull his punch. Allan Arbus, who portrayed US Army psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman in "M*A*S*H", played his manager in the episode. Football player-turned-actor Bubba Smith appeared in one episode. Martial artist and professional wrestler Gene LeBell played himself in multiple episodes as the referee for Tony Banta's boxing matches. Awards and nominations. "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. In 1997, two of the show's episodes, "Latka the Playboy" and "Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey" were respectively ranked #19 and #63 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2013, the series was ranked #35 on TV Guide's 60 Best Series of All Time. Awards. Emmy Awards: Golden  Globe Awards: Additional nominations. Emmy Awards: Golden Globe Awards: Production. "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 the article was used directly. The article was a profile of several drivers who worked the night shift for a New York cab company. The series was produced on Stage 23 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California, from July 5, 1978 , to February 18, 1983. When the series was cancelled by ABC, it seemed for a time that the premium cable television network HBO would pick up the series. When it did not, the series was picked up by NBC, which at first kept it on at its ABC time slot of Thursday 9:30 p.m following the first season of "Cheers". An NBC promo for "Taxi"s move to the network featured Danny DeVito in character as Louie saying "Same time, better station!" Opening and closing sequence. 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 repeated to fill the opening. Driving the vehicle is cast-member Tony Danza. The closing version consisted of a cab driving into the night. Theme music. Bob James wrote the opening theme, "Angela", which had been intended for a sequence in episode #3 ("Blind Date"). The producers liked this slower, more melancholic tune better than the up-tempo opening theme they had originally chosen ("Touchdown"), and were able to make the switch before the first episode aired. Both songs are on James ' 1978 album, "Touchdown". In 1983, James released "The Genie", an LP containing much of the incidental music he had written for "Taxi" during its run. Syndication. Reruns of "Taxi" began airing in syndication in 1983 on 64 television stations immediately after NBC cancelled the program. It has been airing in syndication every year since. The program also aired on Nick at Nite from 1994 to 2001. "Taxi" currently reruns Sunday nights on MeTV as part of the "Last Laughs" block. Antenna TV began airing in December 2017. Hulu, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access have all the seasons, but not  all the episodes. In the UK, Taxi aired on BBC1 with repeats airing on Paramount Comedy 2 and CBS Drama Cast reunions. Danny DeVito hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" soon after "Taxi" was canceled after the fourth season. During the opening monologue, DeVito read a letter supposedly from his mother asking God to forgive ABC for cancelling the show, adding that "but I'll understand if you don't." 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 for them due to the abrupt cancellation. The actors took their "final" bows during DeVito's opening monologue, only to have NBC (which aired "SNL") pick up the show. 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 two living members of the principal cast who did not were Danny  DeVito, who produced and co-starred in the film as Kaufman's manager George Shapiro, and Tony Danza, who at the time of filming was performing in "A View from the Bridge" on Broadway. Several of the cast members (along with cast members from other Judd Hirsch and Bob Newhart vehicles) reunited in different roles for an episode of the Judd Hirsch/Bob Newhart series "George & Leo". In January 2009, Danny DeVito mentioned wanting to make a "Taxi" reunion movie. Home media. All five seasons of "Taxi" have been released from Paramount Home Entertainment. The first three seasons of "Taxi  were released on DVD in Region 1 between 2004 and 2005. It took almost four years until Paramount released The Fourth Season" on September 22, 2009, and "The (Fifth &) Final Season" on December 22, 2009 (the last two seasons were released through CBS Home Entertainment). As of October 2014, all seasons have been released in Germany (Region 2). On November 11, 2014, CBS Home Entertainment released "Taxi- The Complete Series" on DVD in Region 1. All 114 episodes are featured on a 17-disc collection.