THIS HALF-HOUR installment of this now classic series moves along as if it were the best episode of TAXI's run. I very well may be just that too. Of course we all have our other favourites and it is indeed difficult to find fault with any.
A VERY WELL paced opening starts the fun. The ensemble cast all pitch in to introduce the basic premise. That the audience already knows the characters' foibles and overall personality types. Hence they perform like the repository company that they are.
OUTRAGEOUS SITUATIOONS ARE rendered plausible and even logical by the use of the proper far-out character; none being more spacey than Andy Kauffman's characterization of foreign born garage mechanic, Latka Gravas.* His combination of broken English malapropism and a truly childlike, wide-eyed innocence guarantees that the story will have more than its share of nyuks.
AS A COUNTERBALANCE to Latka's babe-in-the-woods helplessness, we always seem to rely on the veteran (and only one to actually call himself a "cabbie", we have Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch). Always the Good Samaritan, offering his services to aid his friends, he finds himself right in the middle of the problem.
AND BEST OF all, Alex is just as susceptible to human frailties as the rest of us.
NOTE: ^ We've discovered that a "latka" is a word common in Eastern European languages that means "a potato pancake." Now if someone out there in Cyberspace would tell us what is a "gravas!"
A VERY WELL paced opening starts the fun. The ensemble cast all pitch in to introduce the basic premise. That the audience already knows the characters' foibles and overall personality types. Hence they perform like the repository company that they are.
OUTRAGEOUS SITUATIOONS ARE rendered plausible and even logical by the use of the proper far-out character; none being more spacey than Andy Kauffman's characterization of foreign born garage mechanic, Latka Gravas.* His combination of broken English malapropism and a truly childlike, wide-eyed innocence guarantees that the story will have more than its share of nyuks.
AS A COUNTERBALANCE to Latka's babe-in-the-woods helplessness, we always seem to rely on the veteran (and only one to actually call himself a "cabbie", we have Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch). Always the Good Samaritan, offering his services to aid his friends, he finds himself right in the middle of the problem.
AND BEST OF all, Alex is just as susceptible to human frailties as the rest of us.
NOTE: ^ We've discovered that a "latka" is a word common in Eastern European languages that means "a potato pancake." Now if someone out there in Cyberspace would tell us what is a "gravas!"