Thursday, October 10, 2013

Taxi: The Complete Fourth Season



The unkindest cuts, indeed
As another reviewer has written, there's a missing scene in one episode where Jim plays the piano. And yes, you can see a snippet of that scene in the closing credits. I suspect it's because there's music involved and the DVD producers didn't want to pay for the rights. I'm also almost 100 percent certain that another snippet is missing in the episode where Louie catches a mouse and releases it off-camera at the end of the episode. I could swear that episode ends with him singing just a few words from "Born Free." The most-notorious DVD butchery was the WKRP DVD set, which I never bought. This set is not nearly as bad because so little music is used apart from Bob James' wonderful score. I haven't finished watching Season Four yet. I'm hoping these two cheap cuts are the extent of the edits. Be warned.

Andy Kaufman begins his fall and hurts a great show
Others have commented about the edits in this 4th edition of the Taxi series, so I won't waste time with that. I will say that this is once one of my absolute favorite shows and I will be buying Season 5 without hesitation. However, thisi particular season is one of the weakest of the show's run. The ratings slid enough that it was cancelled and good fortune got it picked up by a rival network for the final season. The big difference, as fans learned in later years, was the effect that Andy Kaufman had on the show.

What made Taxi so endearing was the creation of brilliant characters that were definitely New York personalities. It launched long careers for most of the cast. Christopher Lloyd, Danny Devito, Tony Danza, and company first came to national prominence because of their work on this show and the ensemble was exceptional. Unfortunately, the sudden fame had a negative impact on Andy Kaufman. After years toiling on the New York comedy scene and several memorable...

JUST WHEN ALL HOPE WAS LOST........
Four years of frustration (and bitterness towards Paramount Home Video) were lifted when I learned Season 4 of Taxi is being released next September 22. My daily routine of checking for any sign of Taxi on [...] will finally have to come to an end.
At last we'll be able to watch such classic episodes as the one where Louie's mother marries the Japanese guy (Louie: "she'll never adjust !"); the one where Elaine pokes Louie's eye for spying her while changing (Elaine: "why are you crying only on that one eye ?" Louie: "It's not the end of the world "); the one where Louie takes revenge on Ted Danson for ruining Elaines hair (Alex: "you're better than that Elaine", Louie: "She may be better than that, I'm not"). And how about Latka's wedding, Jim forecasting the TV ratings, etc., etc., etc.?
I have to think Season 5 won't be that far off, at least not until 2013 or something like that. That's the season Taxi switched from ABC to NBC and for whatever reason I never got to see a...

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