Taxi: The Final Season
from Paramount
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 12/22/2009 Run time: 571 minutes Rating: Nr
ABC unceremoniously canceled Taxi after four Emmy Award-winning seasons, but NBC flagged it down for one last joy ride around the block. This final season, though ratings challenged, is no clunker. Judd Hirsch as salt-of-the-earth cabbie Alex Reiger, Christopher Lloyd as burnout Jim, and Carol Kane, joining the cast as Latka's not-quite-assimilated wife, Simka, each won an Emmy. The season's first episode is a wonderful reintroduction to the dream team ensemble as Latka (Andy Kaufman) and Simka stage a matchmaking "schloogel" for the Sunshine Cab Company. A two-part "Taxi Celebration" is an enjoyable ride down memory lane with noteworthy scenes from some benchmark episodes, including "Blind Date," "Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey," and "Elaine's Strange Triangle." By its fifth season, Taxi had lost some of its edge. In earlier seasons, the writers deftly combined comedy and pathos. This season, they drive it into the ground as Alex cares for his beloved but aged dog in "Alex's Old Buddy," Elaine (Marilu Henner) falls in love with a monk who must return to his order in "Elaine and the Monk," Tony (Tony Danza) is reunited with his absentee father in "Travels with My Dad," Jim fights to keep his inheritance in "Jim's Inheritance," and Louie's lost love (guest star Rhea Pearlman) gets married in "Zena's Honeymoon." But most of the episodes have priceless, play-it-again moments, among them Louie "charming" his literally blind date ("Before you know it, she'll be taking me home to meet the dog") in "Love Un-American Style"; Simka attempting to seduce Alex in the two-part "Sceneskees from a Marriage"; and guest star Penny Marshall's disastrous interview with a snooty condo board in "Louie Moves Uptown." Long overdue is an episode devoted to Louie's loyal assistant Jeff (J. Alan Thomas), who takes the fall when one of Louie's scams is discovered. DeVito says it best in his introduction to "A Taxi Celebration": "If you watched Taxi for five years, you're in for some great memories. If you haven't… you dirty, miserable…." --Donald Liebenson
Taxi: The Complete Fourth Season
from Paramount
No description available for this title.
Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: NR
Street Date: 09/22/09
Wide Screen: no
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
Language: ENGLISH
Foreign Film: noSubtitles: no
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: yes
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve
Taxi - The Complete Second Season
by Ed. Weinberger
from Paramount
The comedic lives and adventures of a group of New York City taxi drivers.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 1-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD
Taxi - The Complete First Season
by James Burrows
from Paramount
No Description Available.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 8-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD
Hail, Taxi. It's great to finally have one of the defining sitcoms of the 1970s available on DVD to take out for a spin. This character-driven humane comedy from the creators of The Mary Tyler Moore Show rolled out of the garage with a full tank of gas: a lightning-in-a-bottle ensemble, smart, witty, and compassionate writing, and extraordinary characters. The Sunshine Cab Company was a much grittier workplace than the sunny WJM newsroom. Its down, but never out employees--single mother Elaine (Marilu Henner), aspiring actor Bobby (Jeff Conaway), hapless boxer Tony (Tony Danza), reptilian dispatcher Louis (Danny DeVito), naive rube John (Randall Carver), and indeterminately foreign mechanic Latka (comic iconoclast Andy Kaufman)--struggled to keep rolling along. Judd Hirsch's salt-of-the-earth cabbie Alex Rieger solved everyone's problems but his own. Half hours don't get more moving than the Humanitas Prize-winning episode, "Blind Date," in which Alex tries to befriend an embittered overweight woman, or funnier than "High School Reunion," in which Bobby impersonates Louie at Louie's reunion to impress his mean former classmates.
Along for the ride in this Emmy-winning first season are a pre-MagnumTom Selleck and Mandy Patinkin ("Memories of Cab 804") and life force Ruth Gordon, who was honored with an Emmy for her performance as one of Alex's most memorable fares ("Sugar Mama"). The poignant episode "Paper Marriage" features Christopher Lloyd as burn-out Reverend Jim, who would join the ensemble in season 2. Regrettably, this three-disc set is a stripped down model, with no commentary or interviews. But there is nothing hack about Taxi itself. This is "must-own" television fare. --Donald Liebenson
Taxi - The Complete Third Season
by James Burrows
from Paramount
The comedic lives and adventures of a group of New York City taxi drivers.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 13-SEP-2005
Media Type: DVD
From the melancholy opening notes of the theme song, Taxi promised to be a different kind of sitcom, epitomized by the show's central character, Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch, Ordinary People): down to earth and compassionate, with neuroses that smacked of real life and not the forced zaniness of too many television shows. Alex was the conscience and emotional caretaker of a makeshift family of cab drivers working out of a grungy garage in New York City, run by the domineering Louis De Palma (Danny DeVito, who would go on to be a bigger star than the rest of the cast in movies like Get Shorty and Batman Returns). Taxi didn't always maintain a degree of realism--if you haven't seen it in a long time, you may be surprised by some of the cornier jokes and bits of slapstick--but at its best, the show managed to merge sadness and humor into rich and satisfying stories.
The third season has many standout episodes. Alex learns that his daughter is getting married but hasn't invited him to the wedding, which leads to a surprisingly sparky confrontation with his ex-wife (guest start Louise Lasser, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman). When single mom Elaine (Marilu Henner) is embarrassed by meeting a more successful high-school friend in her cab, she lies to save face and Alex steps in to back her up. Aspiring boxer Tony (Tony Danza, Who's the Boss?) can't decide how to tell Elaine that her new boyfriend made a pass at him. Tony's sister (guest star Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge on The Simpsons) falls in love with the addled but affable Jim (Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), much to Tony's dismay. Also crucial to the show's success was the oddball presence of Andy Kaufman, whose quirky, unspecifically-Eastern-European mechanic Latka Gravas sometimes made an awkward fit with the rest of the ensemble. But even at his most eccentric, Kaufman was always weirdly watchable, especially in his bizarre, season-closing transformation into the loungy Vic Ferrari. All in all, the third season is an excellent sampling of this sterling sitcom. Sadly, there are no commentaries or other extras. --Bret Fetzer
Taxi - Seasons 1-3
by Ed. Weinberger
from Paramount
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 03/24/2009
$100 Taxi Ride: Season One
by Joel Stewart;Tom Sheahan;Mike Jones;Luc Vrydaghs;Chuck Scott
from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Genre: Television: Series
Rating: NR
Release Date: 30-DEC-2008
Media Type: DVD
+++
