CABBIES, DJ'S AND ALIENS RULE. THE EDUCATION OF FRAT SLOBS; AND THE DEATH OF DISCO.

[TMC]

http://boomerbust-scooter63.blogspot...bbies-djs.html

QUALITY FARE

ABC was in the midst of it's ratings bonanza leaving CBS with the few Norman Lear hits (already fading in quality) and "M*A*S*H" as it's "tiffany" bulwark. Fred Silverman would leave ABC to do his magic for NBC this season creating a mess of over-budgeted, over-hyped dreck but introducing through the network a certain Gary Coleman and company as it's sole comedy franchise. And as ABC's sitcom hits were mostly of the harmless family variety or the harmless titillation genre, it did have "Barney Miller" and "Soap" as critical darlings. MTM Enterprises on CBS was producing dramas now and it's final original hit "Rhoda" was in a painful decline. James L. Brooks, the creator of "Mary Tyler Moore Show" formed the aforementioned production group, John Charles Walters Company-- at Paramount with his co-conspirators in thoughtful, intelligent comedy: Stan Daniels, Ed Weinberger, and David Davis. Glen and Les Charles came in as writers and Jim Burrows would direct. The series they made was "Taxi."

Most of Marshall's output was derivative of the current New York-city based disco craze and had a strong Italian-American flavor. Travolta's "Saturday Night Fever", Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" and Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets"/"Taxi Driver" one-two punch featuring a up-and-coming Robert Deniro contributed to this as much as "The Godfather" films did in the earlier part of the decade. (Marshall would even produce a sitcom version of the Tony Manola's "Fever" saga this season). The more WASP-ish fare coming from the Midwestern settings of the MTM stable and Lear's highly urban programs featuring the lions-share of African American content were on the wane. The denizens of "Taxi" represented the new emphasis on the big-city gritty lifestyles of the Italian-Jewish melting pot that more accurately represented the backgrounds of a majority of the sitcom writers successfully working by this time.



Based on an article that Brooks read in The New Yorker about cab drivers and wanting to pursue characters that were all striving for a dream while toiling in dreary jobs, the Manhattan-based series was born. Divorced Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch) was the main "voice" in the crew. He had grown daughters and was resigned to be a cab driver and his sardonic humor reflected that surrender. Tony Banta (Tony Danza) pursued a boxing career and his slightly dim-witted persona revealed the blows to the head. Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner) was a struggling divorcee working two jobs as she pursued her talents pursuant to being a well-regarded artist. Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway) had the unenviable task of being a struggling actor in a city awash with thespians. Danny Devito would create one of the most celebrated characters in TV history with his vile and cruel dispatcher Louie Depalma. Christopher Lloyd, as the "Reverend" Jim Ignotowski was the well-heeled Harvard educated man of promise who ended up burned out on drugs. And the undetermined East European character of Latka Gravas (along with his many alter-egos) would simply be a plot device (albeit a very funny one) to showcase the bizarre comedy stylings of the mysterious Andy Kaufman. The three-camera setup was filmed in a gritty, dark manner with a mellow almost tranquilizing theme music and transition score. This look provided a contrast to the bright, colorful and stagy sitcoms of the day, despite it's zany characters and sometimes broad comedy. "Taxi" would win many Emmys in all categories and represent a second wave of Brooks-created sophistication in workplace-based situation comedy. Burrows and the Charles brothers would form their own company in the next decade and create an even bigger sitcom bonanza with "Cheers." As with Mary Tyler Moore's program, a single dramatic scene (punctuated by a gentle riff on the theme music) would lead to a score with a well-timed punchline. These series never left you with an audience applauding or gasping in response to a melodramatic ending. But "Taxi" was the perfect bridge to "Cheers" in the way the characters and their almost pathological "togetherness" led to a predictable and familiar pattern rather than a distinct level of excellence that allowed the actors and the script to remain authentic and not resort to cheap laughs no matter how well-written they may be.

Brooks would go on become an Academy-Award winning writer and director with more hits than misses. Devito would parlay his many Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Depalma into a very successful film comedy career in the eighties leading to his own career as director and collaborator with such luminaries as Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson. He would marry Rhea Perlman who he met playing Louie's shy love interest and she too would create Emmy gold as Carla on "Cheers" playing a character not too far off from... Louie Depalma. Lloyd would become a beloved character actor in films-- blending in with each of his personalities especially "Doc" Brown in "Back to the Future" franchise. And Kaufman's bizarre short life has been chronicled in many books and documentaries, his stint on "Taxi" reenacted in the film "Man on the Moon."