James L. Brooks and his partners, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed Weinberger, created the hilarious 18-Emmy-winning sitcom, Taxi, which centered around, of all things, taxi drivers. An article by Mark Jacobs prompted the idea, and the men purchased the rights from Mary Tyler Moore’s husband, Grant Tinker, when they left MTM Productions and formed the John Charles Walters Company.

Although the show was campy for its time, and the characters were true characters in every sense of the word, the show never got the ratings that it deserved, despite having an unbelievable 31 Emmy nominations and 25 Golden Globe nominations attributed to it.

The four-time Golden-Globe-winning series began its original three-year run in 1978, on ABC, and sadly, only lasted another two seasons after being picked up by NBC.

The series was comprised of a great cast of comedians, many who went on to bigger and better things, due to their beloved character roles on the show. One of Judd Hirsch’s best-known roles was that of Alex Reiger, a divorced cab driver who allows his pessimism about life, to keep him chained to the taxi company, and under the thumb of his conniving abusive dispatcher, Louie De Palma, so aptly played by Danny DeVito. If the unredeemed Louie wasn’t humiliating his employees, he was figuring out ways to take advantage of them or embezzling money from his employer. His girlfriend on the show was none other than Cheers alum, and DeVito’s wife, Rhea Perlman, but he lusted after divorced mom, Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner).

The taxi drivers knew they were in a dead-end job, but needed the work in order to pursue other loves. “Tony” Banta, (Tony Danza) was a boxer who had been hit in the head one too many times, and had the smarts to prove it. Harvard student turned eccentric, Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd), was driven almost mad after eating a marijuana brownie. The hilarity can’t be stopped when foreigners are added to the mix. Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman) is a mechanic from an unknown land, with personalities too numerous to mention, and Simka Dahblitz-Gravas (Carol Kane) is coincidentally a fellow immigrant from the strange land, and they despise each other, that is until they fall in love and marry.

If you never had the chance to watch this crazy rag-tag group of taxi drivers, you are in luck. As of December 2009, all five seasons have been released on DVD and the series remains in syndication.