Dammit. I hate when I get tricked into posting to a zombie.
Anyway, I think I’ve seen a transcription of that interview, or read an article where Brooks tells the same story. Alex has a line in the pilot where he says “Me? I’m a cab driver. I’m the only cab driver in the place.”
Kaufman was so unknown at the time that Foreign Man once went on the Dating Game (and never broke character).
“Whhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt…”
That’s pretty ironic since, as I recall it, Conaway bailed out of the show midway through its run. The way I remember it played out, he got a small part in “Grease” and after that movie hit it big, he imagined he was destined to be as big a star as John Travolta – too big for a rinky-dink sitcom like “Taxi.”
Judd Hirsch was in very much the same as Jerry Seinfeld was on his own show. While Jerry was the central character, and everything ostensibly revolved around him, he very quickly was out-shined by his co-stars.
But that’s the whole point. Judd Hirsch wasn’t an underdog at the time, it was the other cast members who were underdogs. When trying to understand past shows it’s best to look at them from the viewpoint of the time they were made. I watched the show when it first aired and I can assure you the order of the credits seemed perfectly natural back then.
He actually played danny Zuko (the lead) on Broadway for over two years, prior to Taxi and before playing Kenickie in the movie.
Conaway did have a fairly successful career after Taxi, most notably in Babylon 5. He also was in the delightful Wizards and Warriors.
I can understand him leaving – he was the least interesting of the characters and he didn’t have much to do.
Great story!
And both played Red Lectroids in Buckaroo Banzai!: ERRP | Expired Registration Recovery Policy
Actually, he got started by eating a Marijuana brownie, as depicted in an elaborate flashback scene of his time as a super-serious undergrad (with a sports letter) at Harvard.
A young Tom Hanks was one of his classmates.
I think that came later. There was an early scene in which someone asked him how he got so (weird? spacy? insightful? something…) and he replied (long pause) “Marijuana!”
“Jeez, how many times did you (smoke/try) it?”
(longer pause) “Once!”
That may have evolved into the flashback.
That may not be the whole back story, though. There was a different episode where Jim’s father tracked him down, and the gang all went to visit him at the Caldwell family mansion (Ignatowski was a nom de guerre of sorts). His father remarks to Jim that his room was just as he left it, “with the exception of the airplane glue.”
It’s “starchild”, backward.
That probably has more to do with the fact that the entire series was only released a year or 2 ago, compounded with the pent up demand for a version that used the real music, as God intended.
Booger.
A lot of series have never made it past a stripped season one or two release.
And?
I know exactly the laugh you mean. I always thought it was a segment of a laugh track (electro-mechanical box) and that was why it was heard so often. Everything on a laff box is repeated many times, but that was the only one that stood out.
You mean, “As God is my witness!” 
(typing very slowly) …so any series from that era that has solid and sustained video sales is a standout for many reasons. Quite a few popular series with some evidence of viewer demand sold so poorly later seasons were never released. Hill Street Blues was an enormously popular show with a huge following and a lot of demand for its release on home video. The original release stopped with season 2 because of poor sales. It took the usual white knight, Shout Factory, to finally release the whole thing years later.
Are you misinterpreting my reply to RivkahChaya? Because I listed some of the many reasons it is a standout, and your reply is to tell me there are many reasons it is a standout, so… where are you going with this?
