NPR's "Car Talk" Glides To a Halt 148
Posted
by
timothy
from the not-actually-a-complete-stop-mind-you dept.
from the not-actually-a-complete-stop-mind-you dept.
stevegee58 writes "After 25 years on the air, Tom and Ray Magliozzi (aka Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers) are calling it quits in September. With their nerdy humor, explosive laughter and geek cred (both MIT alums) Tom and Ray will be sorely missed by the average NPR-listening Slashdotter." How many garages have names as cool as "Hacker's Haven"? I've long thought that someone should assemble a compilation featuring nothing but hours of their laughter. (Which will be available for sampling, since they will continue to play archived material for a long time yet.)
Shit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nooooooo! These guys were brilliant!
Sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadness. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad.
I'm often seen walking down the street listening to their podcast grinning like a total idiot.
I have several years worth to catch up on. Maybe I better order something from their Shameless Products division before those disappear as well.
Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we stop using "mouth breathers" as a euphemism for low intelligence? There are plenty of people that actually do breathe through their mouth due to problems with their noses, but are otherwise quite intelligent.
Thanks,
An intelligent mouth breather
Re:About bloody time (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a show about a couple of guys having a good time while talking about cars.
It hits the nail on the head. I'm sorry people laughing cut's you so sharply. really, you should see some one.
HAHahhahahahahahaha hahaha
Re:About bloody time (Score:5, Insightful)
He's just bitter because he has forgotten how to make people laugh.
Shearer hasn't been really funny for a long time.
Re:New [EV] technologies... require new commentato (Score:4, Insightful)
Why stop now...? Were they unready to embrace Electric Vehicles? "Too" ready...?
Technologies change... perhaps a new generation must take over the helm, when they do...
There's definitely something to that. The show was really great back when people had bizarre problems with something like a 1982 Suburu, and it turned out to be a vacuum hose leak. Now it's all "should I buy this used car?" and "take it to a dealership and have them read the codes".
Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen brother!
And NPR is probably the closest thing to unbiased reporting we'll ever get in this country. The have stories that I never see anywhere else in US based media. And I don't know why it called "Liberal". On any hot topic, they make an effort to get both sides - and they don't have crackpots representing the other side either. When they cover an issue, by the time the segment is over, I very rarely have a definite opinion either way because when they've finished, I can understand both sides and either sides reasoning. They constantly have Conservatives on stating their views, opinions and their side. And on many occasions on some issues, I have taken the Conservative's side because of NPR's reporting; which I can't say that about any other US based news outlet.
NPR - "Liberal" indeed.
Re:About bloody time (Score:4, Insightful)
I saw, or rather heard, two very knowledgeable guys helping people and having a good time doing it. Car Talk is/was a gem and will be sorely missed by the thousands of people that they have helped and millions of people that they have entertained over the last 25 years.
It is too bad that the parent poster didn't call them to learn how to change the channel on that radio thing in the dashboard of their car.
Re:They Were Actually Frauds (Score:4, Insightful)
Gasp! Next you're going to tell me that the Stig actually knows more than two facts about ducks!
Re:They Were Actually Frauds (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure this is done like every other show. People are screened, a number of recordings are made, and the best are broadcast. The show is edited to fit the hour timeline, and of course the calls that don't work are not broadcast. They probably use old calls as fillers. Those who listen to the show also know they have had callers call back to see if the diagnosis is correct, and at this time they include situations where diagnosis was wrong.
This is pretty typical. I watched a taping of Wait Wait, and it is also heavily edited. Not all the answers are given at the time of the question, and it is edited for time. There seems to a general attempt to show that NPR and PRI are not fact based using minor incidents of non disclosure. For instance, there is a great brouhaha over the work of humorist David Sedaris. Now, I understand that are some sad people who believe that every word in the biography of Ronald Reagan is true, but reasonable people among us know that any story, not matter how based on fact, is to some degree apocryphal. Recollections are based on reconstructing memory, which is highly unreliable. We get a realistic point of view by listening the recollection of many people.
What we have here is the proposition that a live unedited show based on personal opinion is more valid that a semi-scripted researched show based on fact.
Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you can tell that the folks who complain about it haven't actually listened to it. But, you might guess they listen to rather more inflammatory material on the radio dial, judging by the critical thinking skills and general decorum they exhibit.
Re:Shit! (Score:0, Insightful)
It has been fairly obvious that they've just been going through the motions for many years now. Twenty-five years is a hell of a long time to maintain something like that and eventually you're just re-doing your bits about car noises and pulling people's legs. I'm surprised they pushed on with it for so much longer after the spark clearly left them.