Checker Taxi - Checker Taxicabs in The Media

Checker Taxicabs in The Media

• In the 1978 film Blue Collar the opening of the movie was set in Checker car plant.

• In the original Mission: Impossible television show, episodes that were supposedly set in Eastern Europe often used Checkers as vehicles, as was sometimes evident in closeups of the cars.

• Also used in the 1983 comedy film D.C. Cab as the main type of cab in the film.

• In the 1984 film Rhinestone the character of Nick Martinelli drives a checker taxi.

• In the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the taxis waiting at the taxi stand in downtown Chicago are all Checker cabs. Ferris Bueller and his friends escape Mr. Bueller by getting away in one of the waiting cars. In a later scene, two other Checkers are featured.

• In the late 1980s movie Major League, one of the baseball players arrives at the training camp in a Checker Taxi.

• In Martin Scorsese's 1976 film Taxi Driver, the main character Travis Bickle drives a Checker Taxi.

• In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Checker cabs were featured prominently in the television show Taxi. Set in the fictional "Sunshine Cab Company" headquarters in New York City, all or most of the cabs in the Sunshine fleet were Checkers. Nearly every episode began with footage of Checkers in action, and the background of the garage interior often showed several Checkers getting worked on or waiting to be dispatched.

• The scene of a traffic accident in the 1968 movie Bye Bye Braverman between a Volkswagen Beetle and a Checker Cab takes place at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn.

• A Checker Cab and its cigar-chomping driver made cameo appearances in various Blondie music videos between 1978 and 1980. Their music video for "Call Me" centered entirely on the Checker and driver, traveling through the traffic-filled streets of Manhattan.

• In the Rush series, A taxi resembling a Checker Taxi appears in the n64 version of San Francisco Rush and the arcade exclusive game San Francisco Rush The Rock: Alcatraz Edition, and the n64 exclusive Rush 2.

• Checker cabs continue to be featured in movies set in New York City long after they have become rare or even absent in the city itself.

• Friends TV character Phoebe Buffay often borrowed, and later inherited, her grandmother's Checker Cab to drive upstate and see family or take friends on ski weekends. One episode involves her driving back from Las Vegas to New York, after Joey Tribbiani had borrowed it to drive out to a film shoot.

• The "Cabbie", a taxicab resembling a Checker, can be seen and driven in the video games Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. In Vice City, the fictional Kaufman Cab company strictly runs on a fleet of Cabbies in Vice City, Florida.

• On the season 10 Simpsons episode "Simpsons Bible Stories", Homer (as King Solomon) acts as the judge in a court case between Jesus Christ and the Checker Chariot taxi company.

• A slightly modified version of the "Checker Cab" or "Marathon" can be seen in the 2000 movie Unbreakable. The car is pictured as the antagonist's vehicle, chosen for its tank-like appearance and protective structure.

• In the German TV series "Der Checker - viel Auto, wenig Geld" (engl. "The Checker - much car, little money") on DMAX a 1965 Checker Cab is used by host Alex Wesselsky aka "Der Checker".

• In Scrooged, a Checker Cab is used by the ghost of Christmas past to take Bill Murray's grouchy, media tycoon character, Francis Xavier Cross, back to his childhood.