Taxi (TV Series) Hollywood Calling (1979) User Reviews

Louie, you have the final say so if we make our movie in your garage.

[TxMike · 27 July 2008]

I have been a fan of the "Taxi" TV series for a long time, and am currently re-watching all the old episodes on DVD.

This one plays on the well-established greed of Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito). Martin Mull guest stars as Roger Chapman, a Hollywood man in NYC to scope out stories and location for a movie about a cab driver.

Early on Judd Hirsch as Alex Reiger, the quiet man who wants to keep his life private, "I'm a cab driver, tell me where you want me to take you", seems to be the perfect role model for the fictional character in the new movie.

After a week, "disrupting" operations and bringing them a breakfast spread every morning, Chapman announces that his boss has give the OK to have Louie's garage as the location for the 4-week shoot, but only if it is OK with Louie. This brings out the worst in Louie, knowing he now has the power over the production. He pulls Chapman aside and asks, "What's in it for me." Chapman tells him "I can make you location coordinator and ... pay you $15,000." Louie pauses and says, "That's not exactly the figure I had in mind, but OK, I'll do it." Rieger pulls his aside and asks what figure he had in mind, and Louie answers, "Twenty-fine dollars", then jumps with glee into Alex's arms.

SPOILERS: The night before Chapman and his staff were to leave, he invited Louie and all the cabbies up to his hotel suite to celebrate. He received a phone call, all the studio bosses had changed jobs, and the new guy doesn't like the idea. There will be no movie, and Louie is crushed. "But I already told ma that we are moving to Queens."

When art immitates life, then immitates its own art immitating life

[brtndr · 10/10 · 14 November 2021]

Episode-21 of Season-1 is one of my absolutely favorite episodes of the many great episodes of the "Taxi" series. What makes this episode so special though is that not only is it hilarious from beginning to end, but it so closely mirrors how the show "Taxi" was created in the first place.

You see, the show "Taxi" all began with an article that appeared in a magazine about a young college student who was driving a cab in NY to pay the bills why he pursues his college degree. The eventual producers of "Taxi" read the article, then shortly afterwards found a NY cab company to occupy in order to do a little research and interview the cabbies. This became the basis for the TV series "Taxi".

The plot to this episode of "Taxi: Hollywood Calling" is essentially a comedic retelling of how the show "Taxi" was created, but with a little bit of a fictional twist.

The show begins with big time Directer/Writer Roger Chapman(played by Martin Mull) arriving at the Sunshine Cab Company with his Hollywood movie crew planning to make a slice of life movie about a bunch of cabbies working at a cab company.

Most of the employees at the cab company are excited and star struck by the opportunity to be the focus of a Hollywood movie, except for Louie and Alex Reiger. Louie's upset with the Hollywood production at the garage because he wants some big time kickback money that he hasn't had the opportunity to get his greedy little hands on, yet.

While Alex is just apathetic to the film crew being there because, he just wants to be left alone so he can continue being that anonymous working class cab driver quietly going about his life and job. However, director Roger Chapman has other plans for Alex and thinks he should be the basis for the main character of his movie, and wants to spend a lot of time with Alex to get to know him better and put his story on screen.

However, Alex strenuously refuses Roger's repeated attempts to befriend him to the point that Alex demands to speak to the Cab Drivers Union representative at the Sunshine Cab Company to force Roger to leave him alone. The problem is nobody knows who their union representative for the company is. So, after some quick checking of the records the cabbies soon discover that their union representative is some guy who died a few years ago.

In light of this realization, the cabbies decide to elect a new union representative, but nobody wants the job. So, they decide to re-elect the dead guy because he seems to be doing a pretty good job so-far. Out of options, Alex decides to quit resisting Roger's requests and get on board with the creative process of making a Hollywood movie.

Then, after Roger offers Louie the big kickback money he's been looking for, Louie is now 100% on board with the Hollywood train that has invaded his garage.

So, with everybody at the garage now happy and anxious to be apart of a Hollywood movie where Bobby is promised an acting role, while Tony is receiving a lot of special perks from Roger and his company, Louie getting a big paycheck that he doesn't deserve, and even Alex is now enjoying being apart of the Hollywood production.

In light of all this, you wold be left to believe that things are finally going to work out for the cabbies this time. But, wait.... not so fast, this is "Taxi" the TV show after all, where nothing ever seems to work out for the employees at Sunshine Cab Company at the end of the show.

The show seems to almost always end in some tragic disappointing way for the cabbies. With the magic of getting a lot of comedy out of those tragic resolutions, and this episode ends in one of the most tragic and hilarious conclusions of the series.

I highly recommend this episode of "Taxi" whether you're a fan of the series or not. 10 out of 10 stars from me.