Taxi

Taxi - The Complete First Season

Louie (Danny DeVito) the tyranical dispatcher and Reverend Jim (Christopher Lloyd) a spacey ex-hippie. The classic ensemble sitcom was hailed by critics and audiences alike after premiering on ABC Sept. 12 1978. It's a vehicle with heart as well as humor and won three straight Emmys as Outstanding Comedy Series.DVD Features:Full screen formatDobly DigitalEnglish Mono Other Information: Running Time 30 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE

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 Second Season

Set in New York City, TAXI follows a group of cab drivers of the Sunshine Cab Company through the daily but far from ordinary routine as cabbies. The sitcom features a multitude of extroverted persons such as a frustrated actor, strained boxer, ex-hippie and cynical dispatcher.

Taxi - The Complete Third Season

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

Set in New York City, TAXI follows a group of cab drivers of the Sunshine Cab Company through the daily but far from ordinary routine as cabbies. The sitcom features a multitude of extroverted persons such as a frustrated actor, strained boxer, ex-hippie and cynical dispatcher.

Taxi - Seasons 1-3

Season 1Buckle up and hang on - you're about to enter a garage filled with laughs in Taxi: The Complete First Season. Here's the premiere season of the popular TV sitcom that zeroes in on a ragtag collection of New York City cab drivers who ply the streets of The Big Apple - while waiting for the day when they will find a better way to make a living. And lording over Alex (Judd Hirsch) Bobby (Jeff Conaway) Elaine (Marilu Henner) Tony (Tony Danza) John (Randall Carver) and Latka (Andy Kaufman) is the one-and-only Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) the snide and surly taxi dispatcher who from the safety of his dispatcher's cage barks orders hurls insults and mercilessly bullies the diverse and eccentric characters who drive for him. Enjoy all 22 first season episodes of the Emmy Award-winning comedy series Taxi in this dazzling three-disc collection.Season 2In its second Emmy-winning season as Outstanding Comedy Series Taxi cruised to new heights of comic invention. In addition to the brilliant ensemble from the first season. Taxi welcomed three breakout actors as regular contributors in the second season. Perhaps the most memorable is the fried philosopher Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd) whose hilarious "Slow Down" episode is featured here. Also joining the cast are Carol Kane as Latka's love interest and Rhea Perlman as the unlikely girlfriend of the despised Louie De Palma. (Danny DeVito).Highlights of the second season include Louie's first romance with a "non-professional" the infamous race between Alex and Louie and one of the most outrageous goodnight kisses ever seen on TV. From farce to fantasy to human comedy these 24 episodes garnered three Emmys including one for Outstanding Comedy Series.Season 3The Emmy Award-winning sitcom Taxi accelerates into the fast lane with an awesome new volume of laugh-provoking episodes in Taxi: The Complete Third Season. The Sunshine Cab Company gang is back with a third season of laughs tears and roll