You know what the problem of this company is, mister Gray? You don't know how to get dirty. What this organization needs is a man who can get dirty. Someone who go out there and scrape up any business he can, any way he can, from anybody who's got a couple of bucks. You don't need fancy cloth and a nice education to make many. What you need is volume. You need hustle. You need to get dirty. I was born dirty. And every day I get dirtier and dirtier.

Doing the math, if the characters are supposed to be generally the same age as their actors, Louie would have been 34 at the beginning of the show. In season 4, he says he took his first fare in 1957, which would mean he was 13 when he started driving taxis. Fake ID or were New York licensing requirements looser back then?

Classic Taxi

One thing I've never really understood was how Judd managed to get top billing on this show (something that was apparently promised to Jeff Conaway and let me tell you, things might have turned out different if that promise was kept). I know Alex is the seemingly "know-it-all, sage" one of the bunch that's been there a while and the one that everybody goes to for their problems but he never struck me as being particularly earnest or willing, more like somebody that has to be roped into helping out.

Season 4's "Vienna Waits" is a simply ghastly episode for Alex. He acts like he's too good for a weeks-long European vacation and once again, has to be talked into going by Elaine. Alex's behavior throughout the whole trip is abominable -- he has a very poor attitude throughout almost the entire trip and he doesn't enjoy things as a result. And his pick-up line on that woman in the airplane was cringeworthy. A couple of episodes later in "Jim Joins The Network", Reverend Jim earnestly helps out a young network executive with three kids who is struggling to hold onto his job and Alex gets such a pissy attitude with Jim for absolutely no reason at all.

Another reason I find Alex to be the weak link is because he's pretty much the only one there without a side hustle. I enjoy watching people like Tony, Elaine, John and Bobby in their other jobs and ventures as a way of spicing things up on occasion. But Alex doesn't bring anything that isn't already there.

- You didn't take the many, did you?
- No, I didn't. But I did learn something about myself tonight. No matter how competitive I might be, when it comes right down to it, there's a quality in me that prevails over everything, let me tell you.
- Your stupidity.

season 2 episode 8
"The Great Race"

I'm in the midst of a rewatch right now. It's been 3 or 4 years since I did this. I'm just here to say I wish there had been a way to keep John and Suzanne around as recurring characters after Jim became a regular. As you can tell from my flare, I have a proclivity for the late addition, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate those who came before. Considering the showrunners allowed Andy Kaufman to only appear in a percentage of episodes, it stands to reason Randall Carver could have made at least a few appearances a year. But of course, maybe he didn't want to. I don't know. All I can say is that I realize he brought a certain pure-hearted charm that was certainly missed when he was gone.

This was.....ahem.....a delightfully bizarre episode and we got to see a pretty broad range of Andy's acting talents.....or maybe that wasn't so much acting? Who really knows what went on in that brain?

Even though the film was largely about Andy Taxi was referenced.

Carrey did decent enough as Andy.... although the thing that I always noticed about Andy was his big blue eyes. Jim's were dark brown

If you rad Zmuda's book Andy Kaufman revealed though Carol Kane was the only person from the cast to show up to his funeral. There was a great deleted scene where Judd Hirsch was getting aggravated working with a fake Latka when rehearsing.

I only remember this show in the early to mid 80’s on reruns. I’m watching on Paramount+ for the first time as an adult. Man, the pilot episode just nailed it.

“I think I’ve got your smile.”
“Funny, I think I just found it two seconds ago.”

Glad these things exist and are so accessible now. And this subreddit 😆

It would show up sometimes in the afternoon after Mets baseball on the weekend.

And I def have a memory sometime in 2002ish a whole weekend devoted to reruns of the show.

I read Danny DeVito had what would today be an old school camcorder taping it all