Taxi (TV Series) - Premise and Themes

Premise and Themes

The show focuses on the employees of the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, and its principal setting is the company's fleet garage in Manhattan. Among the drivers, only Alex Rieger, who is disillusioned with life, considers cab-driving his profession. The others view it as a temporary job that they can leave behind after they succeed in their chosen careers.

Elaine Nardo is a receptionist at an art gallery. Tony Banta is a boxer with a losing record. Bobby Wheeler is a struggling actor. John Burns (written out of the show after the first season) was working his way through college. All take pity on "Reverend Jim" Ignatowski, an aging hippie minister, who is burnt out from drugs, so they help him become a cabbie. The characters also included Latka Gravas, their innocently wide-eyed mechanic from an unnamed foreign country, and Louie De Palma, the despotic dispatcher.

A number of episodes involve a character having an opportunity to realize his or her dream to move up in the world, only to see it yanked away. Otherwise, the cabbies deal on a daily basis with their unsatisfying lives and with Louie DePalma, their amoral dispatcher. Louie's laid-back assistant, Jeff Bennett, is rarely heard from at first, but his role increases in later seasons.

Sunshine Cab goes through a change of owners. They work on the floor above the garage and are referred to but seldom seen: Ed McKenzie (who appears in one episode, played by Stephen Elliott), and, later, Ben Ratlidge (who is also only seen in one episode, played by Allen Garfield).

Despite the zany humor of the show, Taxi often tackled such dramatic issues as drug addiction, single parenthood, blindness, obesity, animal abuse, bisexuality, teenage runaways, failed marriage, sexual harassment, pre-menstrual mood disorders, gambling addiction, and the loss of a loved one.