Taxi

1978 - 1983

Follows the daily grind of the quirky staff of the Sunshine Cab Company in New York City.

Stars: Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Andy Kaufman, J. Alan Thomas, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Conaway, Carol Kane, Randall Carver, Rhea Perlman
Created by: James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis
Tags: workplace

Where to Watch :

Episode Tropes

Season 1

Raging Bull*&@!: Episode 2, "One-Punch Banta" (1978). Tony gets his first big boxing match, and the whole gang shows up to support him.
Found Money: Episode 3, "Blind Date" (1978). Latka finds $2,000 under the back seat of a cab he's repairing, and the gang can't decide what to do with it. Alex suggests they let Latka have it, and the others agree when they see how angry the idea makes Louie.
Dog Gone Blues: Episode 4, "Bobby's Acting Career" (1978). When Alex witnesses a man hitting a dog in his cab, he kicks the man out and drives off with the dog. The owner shows up at the garage with a police officer to retrieve his dog, and it attacks him.
School Reunion: Episode 7, "High School Reunion" (1978). Louie doesn't want to attend his high school reunion and face his old classmates who used to pick on him, so Bobby comes up with the idea to attend the reunion in Louie's place and pretend to be him to impress everyone.
Green Card: Episode 8, "Paper Marriage" (1978). Latka's visa expired, and IRS agents come to the garage looking for him. To avoid being deported, he wants to marry an American citizen, so Alex hires a prostitute to marry him.
Weird Wedding Venue: Episode 8, "Paper Marriage" (1978). The gang throws a wedding for Latka and Vivian in the garage.
Homemade Wedding Vows: Episode 8, "Paper Marriage" (1978). Latka composes his own wedding vows for his green card marriage to Vivian, the prostitute.
Obsession: Episode 10, "Men are Such Beasts" (1978). Tony dates a new cab driver who becomes a little too clingy, so he breaks up with her, but she still refuses to leave him alone.
Pretend We're a Couple: Episode 10, "Men are Such Beasts" (1978). Tony tries to break up with his girlfriend, but she refuses to accept it and won't stop harassing him, so Elain tells her that Tony is in love with Louie, and Louie begrudgingly goes along with it.
Surprise Delivery: Episode 12, "Memories of Cab 804: Part 2" (1978). Alex recalls a time a pregnant woman went into labor in his cab, and he had to delivery the baby because the father lost his nerve.
Poker Night: Episode 13, "A Full House for Christmas" (1978). To get back at his brother for upsetting their mother, Louie plots with Alex to clean him out in a poker game.
American Gigolo: Episode 14, "Sugar Mama" (1979). Alex befriends an elderly woman who likes to pay him to ride around the city in his cab, and soon she promotes him from her driver to her paid escort at society functions.
Replacement Pet: Episode 15, "Friends" (1979). While Tony is out of town, he asks Bobby to feed his fish, but Bobby forgets to feed them, and they both die, so Bobby buys two new fish and tries to pass them off as Tony's fish, but Tony sees through the ruse right away.

Season 2

Long Lost Parent: Episode 2, "Honor Thy Father" (1979). Alex's sister comes to the garage to tell him that their father had a heart attack and is in the hospital. To the gang's surprise, Alex doesn't want to see his father because he cheated on Alex's mother and then abandoned his family.
Inappropriate Violins: Episode 10, "Alex's Romance" (1979). Alex proposes to his girlfriend of only two weeks in an attempt to keep her from moving to California. When she says no, they get into an argument, and she rings a bell that was sitting on his coffee table, which, unbeknownst to her, is the signal for a trio of violinists to enter the room, playing "As Time Goes By."
Catfish: Episode 12, "Elaine's Secret Admirer" (1979). Elaine is getting romantic poems from a secret admirer, and she's anxious to find out who it is. She thinks she has it figured out, but then Jim confesses to Alex that he wrote the letters because he noticed she's been feeling down lately, and he wanted to cheer her up.
Painting Party: Episode 12, "Elaine's Secret Admirer" (1979). Elaine throws a painting party to get the guys from the garage to help her re-paint her apartment after her latest relationship breaks up, which is apparently a tradition for her.
Horsing Around: Episode 14, "Jim Gets a Pet" (1979). When the guys introduce Jim to betting, he wins a bundle at the track, then uses his winnings to buy the horse he bet on. He takes the horse back to his apartment and names him Gary.
Who Brings a Dog to a Leg Funeral?: Episode 14, "Jim Gets a Pet" (1979). To help Jim process his grief over the death of his horse, Gary, the gang holds a funeral service, and Jim delivers a moving eulogy.
Raging Bull*&@!: Episode 15, "The Reluctant Fighter" (1979). Tony gets the chance to fight a former champion boxer. He's convinced he can win, but when the champ announces at a press conference that he's dedicating the fight to a sick little boy who uses a wheelchair, Tony wants to back out of the fight to avoid looking like a jerk.
Adopt-me-not: Episode 16, "Tony and Brian" (1980). Tony wants to adopt an orphan he's befriended named Brian, but he has to compete with a rich couple. At first, Brian chooses the rich people, but then he changes his mind and decides to stay with Tony. However, Brian is never seen or spoken of again after that, so it must not have worked out.
Sugar Mama: Episode 18, "What Price Bobby?" (1980). Bobby gives a cab ride to a famous Hollywood talent manager, and he convinces her to represent him, but she expects him to sleep with her in exchange for getting him acting roles.
On Strike: Episode 19, "Shut It Down: Part 1" (1980). The cabs at the Sunshine Cab Company are falling apart, leading to dangerous accidents. When the boss refuses to do anything about it, the drivers go on strike.
Jump: Episode 21, "Alex Jumps Out of an Airplane" (1980). After ski-jumping to impress a woman while on a ski trip, Alex has a new zest for life and wants to take risks and face his fears, so he decides to jump out of a plane.
Auction Mishap: Episode 22, "Art Work" (1980). The gang goes to an auction to bid on some pieces by an artist Elaine thinks is about to croak, which means the value of his work will go up soon, but they get outbid on every piece.
Dying Artist: Episode 22, "Art Work" (1980). Elaine tells the gang about an artist who is dying, so they all go to an auction to buy some of his art in anticipation of its value going up after he dies. Unfortunately, the artist dies partway through the auction, and the prices go up before they can bid.

Season 3

Stranded: Episode 7, "The Call of the Mild" (1981). After shooting a commercial in the mountains, Bobby wants to rough it in the wilderness, and Tony, Alex, and Jim decide to join him in a cabin in the woods for a week, but the cabin has no electricity and no food, it's the middle of winter, and the nearest phone is 150 miles away.
To Kill a Turkey: Episode 7, "The Call of the Mild" (1981). The guys get stranded in the woods with no food, and Jim spots a wild turkey, but no one wants to kill it. Alex finally gets the guts to shoot it, but then nobody wants to eat it.
Magic Brownies: Episode 8, "Latka's Cookies" (1981). Latka's grandmother dies and leaves him her recipe for her famous cookies, and he's determined to market and sell them. The gang at the garage doesn't care for the taste or texture of the cookies, but for some reason, they can't stop eating them. The mystery is solved when Jim examines one of the cookies and immediately identifies the secret ingredient: cocaine.
Sneaking Around: Episode 9, "Thy Boss's Wife" (1981). Mr. Mackenzie's wife invites Louie to her apartment for some hanky-panky, and as much as he tries to resist, he can't help jumping into bed with her; however, Mr. Mackenzie comes home early, and Louie has to hide in their massive bed.
Going Co-op: Episode 15, "Bobby's Roommate" (1981). Elaine's apartment building is going co-op, and she can't afford to buy her place, so she needs a place to stay while she looks for a new apartment.
What a Dummy: Episode 19, "On the Job: Part 2" (1981). Alex recalls his time as a night watchman, where he pretended to host his own TV show to pass the time. When the shifts changed, his replacement did the same thing but with a ventriloquist dummy.
Man-child Metamorphosis: Episode 20, "Latka the Playboy" (1981). Latka is tired of being condescended to and treated like a child, so he studies a stack of Playboy magazines and develops a new personality named Vic Ferrari, who's a real sleazeball.

Season 4

Don't Speak: Episode 1, "Jim the Psychic" (1981). Tony and Latka get into an argument, and to solve it, they each pick a card from a deck, and whoever gets the lowest card has to stop talking for a whole week; Latka draws the low card.
Happy Death Day: Episode 1, "Jim the Psychic" (1981). Jim has a premonition that Alex is going to die on Thursday (he doesn't).
Home Sweet Office: Episode 7, "Louie's Mom Remarries" (1981). When Louie's mom tells him she's getting married, Louie is so opposed to it that he moves out of the house and sleeps in his office.
The Recluse: Episode 8, "Fledgling" (1981). Elaine helps a reclusive artist face his fear and leave his apartment. When she brings him to the garage, he gets into a cab and refuses to come out.
Raging Bull*&@!: Episode 9, "Of Mice and Tony" (1981). Now that he lost his boxing license, Tony decides to manage another boxer, but a so-called "syndicate" is also courting him.
Bad Hair Day: Episode 18, "The Unkindest Cut" (1982). Elaine drops a bundle on a haircut from a famous stylist and gets butchered, but she's afraid to go back and get him to fix it or demand a refund, so the guys go with her to back her up, and Louie dumps a bucket of hair dye on the stylist's head.
Raging Bull*&@!: Episode 19, "Tony's Comeback" (1982). A new driver at the garage, Lucius, who is a former professional football player, helps Tony get in shape and get his boxing license back. During his return match, tony is ready to throw in the towel, but Lucius encourages him to keep going, and he wins the fight.
Weird Wedding Venue: Episode 21, "The Wedding of Latka and Simka (1982). Latka's second wedding (the real one) to Simka takes place in the garage.

Character Tropes

Mild Mannered Man-child: Latka Gravas - Played by Andy Kaufman.
Hyper Honey: Nina Chambers - Played by Charlayne Woodard in season 4, episode 13, "Nina Loves Alex" (1982).