NPR's "Car Talk" Glides To a Halt 148
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)
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.
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I often was amazed at how they could diagnose something based on a caller's illogical blabberings. It added to their mystique.
I agree that they are hilarious and amazingly knowledgeable, but I think their process helps to make them look their "best". My understanding is not complete, but I was interested in phoning in once, so I gave them a call. At least when I called I was not put directly on the show, or even put it a queue but rather was asked by automation to give a detailed description of the issue, along with attempts at making noises like the problem and stuff like that. They then said that they would call me back for furt
Re:Sad day (Score:5, Interesting)
About bloody time (Score:1, Flamebait)
Goodbye and good riddance to radio's most irritating show. What people saw in it I do not know. Two guys laughing like hyenas at everything each other says whether it's funny or not. Gimme a break!
Re:About bloody time (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess you can tag the parent Flamebait, but I think it serves a valid purpose. Not everyone loves the show. Some people are sickened by the thousands of hours of perfectly good broadcast time that are wasted on the hyenas in question each week.
To quote Harry Shearer, whose Le Show followed Car Talk at the time, "Memo to the Car Talk guys: Stop Laughing."
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I guess you can tag the parent Flamebait, but I think it serves a valid purpose. Not everyone loves the show. Some people are sickened by the thousands of hours of perfectly good broadcast time that are wasted on the hyenas in question each week.
To quote Harry Shearer, whose Le Show followed Car Talk at the time, "Memo to the Car Talk guys: Stop Laughing."
Preach it brother!
I get that it's a popular show, and I actually liked it the first time I heard it. But once I noticed the incessant hyena laughing it just got old very quickly. It's like a loudly ticking clock. You might not notice it, but once you do it can be as irritating as all hell.
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.
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I'd disagree about Le Show, but that's beside the point.
I understand that people like CT, but my local NPR (opb.org) pays to play them twice a weekend. I know from listening to other NPR affiliates across the country over the 'net that there are some seriously good programs available for broadcast - programs that I suspect would even cost *less*.
My NPR affiliates love to brag on the diversity and alternative voices that they provide to the community, but on weekends they spam me with nothing but Wait Wait,
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Another argument - this show effectively became The Peanuts years ago. They could have been playing nothing but reruns for the last five years and few would have even notice.
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Someone else can provide the specific details, but on a show in the past few years, there was a caller who I seem to remember had a delivery truck but somehow often ended up where there were lots of sheep or goats.. and the said animals would always freak out when he was playing Car Talk and the guys laughed.
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Hmm... "Magliozzi", is that a Sephardic name or an Ashkenazi one?
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
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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
I don't have a problem with people laughing. I have a problem with dialog like the following (from an appearance they made on TV):
"Do you feel anything coming out of that exhaust?"
"Yeah."
"HWAHWAHWAHWAHWA!!!"
"HWAHWAHWAHWAHWA!!!"
You think that shit from those jackasses is funny? I think you're the one who needs to see someone.
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Well here's a little pointer for you. Having a sense of humor is as much about knowing when not to laugh as knowing when to laugh. Anybody who laughs with these guys has a serious sense of humor deficit. They are not funny. The stuff they laugh at is not funny. The act of laughing at stuff that is not funny is not funny. Clear?
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And there I was back then listening to KCRW and enjoying both. I do have to admit that I preferred Joe Frank or Cafe LA as following programs. But then, I could hear Car Talk on KPCC.
Fast forward and I listen to Le Show and Car Talk on podcast. Incidentally, one Shearer's best recurring bits these days is Karzai Talk, which is more a satire on US involvement in Afghanistan than one on Click and Clack.
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Some people are sickened by the thousands of hours of perfectly good broadcast time that are wasted on the hyenas in question each week.
To quote Harry Shearer, whose Le Show followed Car Talk at the time, "Memo to the Car Talk guys: Stop Laughing."
I recently went over some Burns and Allen Show scripts, and discovered something very interesting: most of the jokes aren't that funny on the page, even though the shows are hilarious when you watch them. The strongest material is at the start and end of the routine, the stuff in the middle is usually just mildly amusing at best. It's all about timing. Not only could they do mediocre material in a way that made it funnier than it really was, but they made shrewd use of it, using it to keep the ball rolling
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.
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I'll jump to one: you belittle others to make yourself feel better because you have low self-esteem. Maybe you'd have better self-esteem if you didn't undermine others'.
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I'll jump to one: you belittle others to make yourself feel better because you have low self-esteem. Maybe you'd have better self-esteem if you didn't undermine others'.
Incorrect. Car Talk is an unfunny, overrated, irritating radio show hosted by two jackasses who laugh like hyenas at everything they say to each other and somehow get away with passing it off as entertainment. Fact.
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I rest my case. You need to lighten up and not take yourself so seriously. Those guys may be old but they're young at heart. Having a low threshold of humor is healthy. I think I feel sorry for you if you feel so much hatred toward harmless, friendly, helpful guys like them.
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Maybe not the most irritating but close. What they did was kill every other serious automotive radio talk show. There used to be several other radio shows that covered automotive technical subjects in depth. These bozos may known their stuff, but their show is about informative as Funnest Home Videos and their great ratings knocked all other automotive shows off the air.
Good riddance.
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Laughing like a hyena at everything that comes out of your brother's mouth is not "humour". It's annoying idiocy.
Hey, well... (Score:1)
At least we still have Crazy Ira and The Douche [wikia.com], right?
Right?
Sadness. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sadness. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cartalk.com/content/time-get-even-lazier [cartalk.com]
And the real reason they're leaving us? (Score:2)
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More like getting retreads.
Thanks for all the laughs (Score:4, Informative)
I first listened to them on WBUR, before they were picked up by NPR. "Cartalk Plaza" was located on Commonwealth Avenue, not in "Hahvuhd Squayah", and "our fair city" was Boston, not Cambridge. Been a long time since I wandered those haunts. Click and Clack weren't going to last forever, guess it's that time to move on.
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Not entirely positive, but while I was at the 'Tute in the late '70's, there was a do-it-yourself car repair garage near where the Media Lab is today. I seem to recall hearing that our fair radio hosts may have been involved with that venture.
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Why is this downmodded?
It's true. They actually did run a do-it-yourself car repair garage, and it turned out to be a disaster for them.
Crikes.
--
BMO
Hacker's Haven??? (Score:1)
I'm amazed they didn't get arrested by the TSA or FCC or DHS. Or at least get hatemail from the same people who spammed a magazine that said "How to Hack your Computer" on the cover.
Re:Hacker's Haven??? (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the 70s when they had said garage, a "hack" was someone who was unskilled or at least an amateur at whatever it was they were trying to accomplish. Hackers were just dedicated hobbyists. Their Hacker's Haven was a shop for DIY shade-tree mechanics to rent space at to work on their project cars. It wasn't until sometime into the 80s that "hacker" started taking on a different meaning.
In any case, TSA and DHS didn't exist yet, they weren't yet on the air so the FCC wouldn't give two shakes. The most they might have to worry about is ending up in a Bufile at the FBI, which seems unlikely.
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Keep reading: "...or at least an amateur." You're right, though, I chose my words poorly. There were (and are) some very skilled, talented hackers at MIT. (Look no further than HAKMEM!) Hacks are still hacks, though, clever as they may be. The TMRC [mit.edu] hackers (perhaps the largest MIT hacker contingent I'm aware of outside the famed MIT AI lab) describe themselves thusly:
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Maybe yo should step away from /. and similar sights and change your perspective. It's not nearly as bad out there as some people seem to think.
Seriously, take a year off.
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Watch the youtube videos of a mother being held in glass jails (her crime: carrying milk for her baby), or thrown to the ground by TSA, or other disgusting events, and you'll see how bad things truly are.
Dodge Dart (Score:5, Funny)
I think that when they saw the Dodge Dart was coming back on to the market, they decided to get out of the business.
Terrible News (Score:2)
I'll really miss Tom and Ray. I even thought they were great in their Nova special on the car of the future [pbs.org]
SIGH!!!! (Score:2)
All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:5, Interesting)
The mouth-breathers see "NPR" and have flooded every forum on the internet with their ass-hate "libtard yuck-yuck" comments. It's a great show, more for entertainment value than anything. Oh yeah, and NPR listeners are bar none the most well-informed news consumers in this country.
My local station plays the show at 7 or 8 Wednesday nights which is when I usually catch it.
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oops supposed to be "ass hat"; not even sure what ass-hate would be!
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: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.
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I have had a few problems with some stories that had gross errors, but the bias is pretty level. With that being said I'm OK with the government giving NPR airwaves license free and even a mandate from congress, however I'm not OK with a dime of taxpayer money going to any broadcaster or news agency public or private.
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...if you can say that Eric Cantor isn't a crackpot, anyhow. That's disputed.
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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.
The second sentence answers the implied question in the first. To the right-wing nutballs, accurate reporting always has a "liberal bias."
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But this article is about Car Talk, a self-proclaimed "bad car show"... Not sure how that falls under accurate reporting. I personally couldn't get through the laugh track.
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But the point is Slashdotters whining about how "liberal" supposedly is.
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And I don't know why it called "Liberal".
If you can't recognize the liberal bias, then you're too steeped in it to even recognize it.
On any hot topic, they make an effort to get both sides - and they don't have crackpots representing the other side either.
Yes, in general they do a good job about that. However, whether it's the topics they cover, or the general disposition of their hosts, it's obvious a bias exists. I say this as somebody who likes NPR and has been leaning Democrat for several years now.
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>>NPR - "Liberal" indeed.
It's not especially liberal. I'd say it was more right-wing than CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, or CBS, and certainly left-wing of Fox.
That said, their choice of topics show a bit of a liberal bias. Looking at today's stories:
1. Air Pollution in America
2. "An NPR and ProPublica investigation has uncovered the military's failure to treat thousands."
3. Native American foster care
4. "Two-thirds of the people stopped at the Mall of America were minorities, activity reports show."
5. Mine sa
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They are topics that interest liberals more than conservatives. Air pollution should be a very obvious example of this, that you should be able to agree with me on. Certainly I think you should be able to concur with the statement that liberals worry about air pollution more than conservatives.
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They themselves acknowledged that they host a lousy show.
I mean im a fan. But what made the show listenable is that yeah. They don't have a lot of, on air at least, ego into their show.
Think they host a lousy show? They do too.
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:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:5, Interesting)
I've caught snippets of Car Talk on the occasional Saturday morning where I'm out driving early, and it's always been entertaining. I'm no expert in cars, but I've replaced my own brake pads, changed my own oil, and recently even worked through a do-it-yourself oxygen sensor replacement. The show is both entertaining and informative; the hosts are witty and the subject matter is at the right level for someone who realizes that you don't have to get screwed over by a repair shop for a burnt-out headlamp.
On a recent road trip, I found myself in a weird no-man's land somewhere in North Carolina where I could only pick up talk radio and country music. I ended up actually listening to Rush Limbaugh for a short stretch. I was absolutely amazed at the complete lack of substance in his show. It was nothing but taking a random fact and then spewing heavily slanted personal opinion about it.
For those who choose to listen to that kind of crap over something like Diane Rhem or All Things Considered or Kojo Nnamdi, all I can do is just beg: Give it one hour. Any of those three shows. You will get twenty times the information and one twentieth the spoon-fed opinion from it than you will get from Rush.
Listening to conservative talk radio is for those who can't be bothered to learn the truth or think for themselves. If you won't listen to NPR because you think it's "liberal" then you are doing yourself and your species a huge disservice, and you are worth nothing but contempt.
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Then you're already in the 99% percentile of car knowledge in this country. You must be aware that they make cars now with no dipsticks, because people can't be bothered to even do that (or TPMS replacing the "arduous" task of checking tire pressure).
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The tire pressure monitors (my vehicle has them) are an interesting thing, though, because they don't tell you anything you can't see just by walking around your car and giving it a quick inspection before jumping in and driving it in the morning. If you're paying even the slightest attention, you can see that a tire is losing pressure well before it's dangerously flat...
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Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites (Score:4, Informative)
Very little of NPR funding comes from the government. /., I think I can fairly say that I find NPR to be among the most balanced and honest media organizations.
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/publicradiofinances.html [npr.org]
As you can see, it's actually supported by individuals donations and corporate sponsorship. And as someone who often takes issue with many ideas presented by self-ascribed progressives and liberals on
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"because I don't think the government should not" double negative! You lose!!!
Hey, leave him alone, he's being consistent. He thinks government shouldn't be involved in education and has thus far in life avoided it like the plague.
My current fav Cartalk advice (Score:5, Funny)
After recommending muriatic acid to remove concrete overspray from a cars paint they added the advice to "test it out on a neighbors car first". I will really miss these guys.
Re:My current fav Cartalk advice (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that was funny.
And they capped it off by bringing the guy back on last week for Stump the Chumps.
Ya know what - it worked! Muriatic acid removed the concrete and didn't hurt the finish!!!
Well done Ray! =-)
F*ck (Score:1)
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Bias alert.
Many, many Radio shows are annoying as hell.
Many TV shows are good viewing and not about the glitz.
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Last Spin in the Fiat! (Score:1)
Makes Me Sad - I'll Really Miss Them!
I've been listening to them since 1994 and loved every show they've done.
They haven't lost a step, being just as funny, witty, and informative now as they were in '94.
They deserve a long, fruitful, and fun retirement, cruising around in Tom's Triumph.
Oh, wait, there is no such thing....
Well, best of luck fellas and thanks for all the tips and laughs over the years!!!!
I was actually on the show! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's how it worked:
- You call the 800 number, describe your problem, if it sounds interesting the producer (Doug Berman) called you back and scheduled you for the show. So the problem is already known.
- About Thursday afternoon before the weekend broadcast you called in to essentially a conference call a few minutes before your slot and got to hear the end of the previous caller. I suppose this is to get you in the mood, all it did is make me come down with a bad case of flop sweat.
- You're on, you talk to the guys for five or ten minutes. They (correctly) guessed the solution to my problem pretty fast, primarily I think because they saw it before in their garage. My time was edited down a bit, but it was mostly verbatim.
- They do not send you a copy of the broadcast, the only way I have one is because I recorded it off my local NPR station when it hit the air.
That's the scoop. This is Tom from Michigan with a mysterious oil leak in his Z28 Camaro signing off.
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"They (correctly) guessed the solution to my problem pretty fast, primarily I think because they saw it before in their garage."
True long ago I used to sling mean wrench. For amusement I used to ask customers what their cars symptom was then try to diagnose it before lifting the hood. My track record was probably at least 90% or better. We constantly seen the same common failures every single day.
NPR Just Became 20% Less Cool (Score:1)
mars rover and car talk (Score:3, Funny)
From wikipedia, but I remember when this happened:
"In addition to at least one on-orbit call, the Brothers once received a call asking advice on winterizing a couple of "kit cars." After much beating around the bush and increasing evasiveness by the caller, they asked him just how much these kit cars were worth. The answer: about $800 million. It was a joke call from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory concerning the preparation of the Mars Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) for the oncoming Martian winter."
Analogy, please (Score:2)
I just don't get this decision at all. Can someone please explain it using a software engineering analogy?
Yes, this sucks, but... (Score:2)
The show will continue on NPR, drawing from the past 25 years of national syndication. They have actually been inserting a few older calls into "new" shows for quite some time, so little is going to change for the average listener. No, you won't be able to call them anymore, but it wasn't a live call-in show anyway...you called the 1-800 number and got a scheduled time through the week, and then your call aired on Saturday's episode.
So no biggie for me; my Saturdays will still be all about Car Talk, Wait
Timothy, Timothy, Timothy... (Score:2)
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.)
The problem there is that it's almost definitely still legally copywritten material and therefore it would be a violation of copyright to sample their laughter and distribute it in any way, shape, or form without the express consent of the content owners, most likely being NPR... (standard slashdot disclaimer, IANAL, check with a lawyer, yadda yadda yadda.)
Oh, and apologies for fueling a copyright flamewar/trolling in advance...
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You would violate copyright, only if you distribute the compilation. IANAL either.
Selling America on the status quo (Score:1)
Click and clack have done 25 years of persuading Americans that the American suburban culture built around the gasoline burning passenger car is OK.
As the years of the program went by, the program went from saying something serious and important every now and then to never saying anything of a serious, important or critical nature. They never had any guest of any status ever: No Ralph Nader, no critics, no real mechanic.
That is the nature of mass media. Car Talk has been facilitating the acceptance of Ameri
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Click and clack have done 25 years of persuading Americans that the American suburban culture built around the gasoline burning passenger car is OK. ...
That is the nature of mass media. Car Talk has been facilitating the acceptance of American automobile based culture for 25 years.
Look, America has an automobile-based culture. Click and Clack aren't going to change that on their own. "The Hey People, You Shouldn't Be Driving a Car Show" wouldn't have lasted two weeks on the radio. On the other hand, a lot of people drive cars, their cars break down in various ways, and they can use advice on how to fix them. Click and Clack provided that advice in an entertaining way that helped to relieve what can otherwise be a very stressful situation for people who rely on their cars.
But to claim
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Or... maybe smart people just need to move-on to other interesting work...
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Why now? Because they are 74 and 63 years old.
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".
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you forgot the relationship advice.
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To be honest, I find listening to them banter about people's husband/wife problems and "the puzzler" to be intolerable. When someone calls in with an old (usually foreign) car that the guys know back-and-forward it still can be entertaining, but they really don't have much to say about someone's 1999 Civic.
Re:Now where will millions of uninformed liberals (Score:4, Funny)
Haywood Jabuzoff
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Wow... I would'a thought you'd be too busy running your Presidential campaign... thanks for giving a little of your time Governor Romney.
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I always suspected that. It was still a funny show.
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I grew up with Car Talk and it never occurred to me to question the reality of the show, so when I found out how it's produced (not a secret: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Talk [wikipedia.org]), it felt like learning the hard truth about Santa Claus all over again. Hurts, right?
Suspension of disbelief is your friend, and it's still a great show. My weekends will miss them.
Re:They Were Actually Frauds (Score:5, Informative)
You sir have no idea how tv or radio production works. Sorry to ruin your world.
A real diagnosis would be everybit as horrible as helping a relative on the phone with a computer problem-- most the call is trying to communicate and often does not properly describe what is going on then you look like some git when it doesn't work and it was actually THEIR fault. If they really did know their stuff it would be a typical production to have them do the work upfront and NOT on the air where it could easily take most of the show to properly handle problem besides being BORING to listeners/viewers. It is not a "speak with a sex therapist" show where the topic is the only thing holding it together.
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Automotive problems are often complex and may have multiple causes.
Reciting a checklist over the air would bore listeners.
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Reboot and call me back.
Update Reboot and call me back.
Run your antivirus Reboot and call me back.
Did you read the manual? Follow the procedure in there (which contains a Reboot) and feel guilty for not reading it before contacting me.
Do you have a child? Ask them to help you.
Actually, call screening is an important part as well - even little known LIVE shows have somebody queuing up the callers trying to filter out nutcases. It would not surprise me if some shows have the true talented expert screening th
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.
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Has Rush ever denied being a child molester? His partner in crime, Glenn Beck, has never denied murdering a girl in 1980 either.
Think about it.
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Really. I called in and my experience was the same as yours up to "if they found it interesting they would call me back". They didn't tell me the call would be scripted or researched. Why the heck would they tell the caller if they did that? I really don't think that they have an obligation to disclose and would have nothing to gain by it. You sure you're talking about Cartalk here?
Actually, that's entirely false (Score:5, Informative)
I called in once to see about getting a diagnosis on a car issue. They took the info, and said they would get back if they found it interesting, but if they did, then the whole phone call would be essentially scripted. They would do (or have done) a diagnosis off air, then pretend to figure it out all in the span of a few hyena-larious moments on air.
Experts my ass.
Sorry, that's a lie. I was the assistant chief engineer for WBUR for 8 years, and I sat in on the recordings of many of their shows. I've also consulted for Car Talk, fixing their network and computers, and have stayed at one producer's house in New Hampshire.
The producers screen the calls (they get hundreds each week), but Tom and Ray know nothing about each call. They're presented with the person's name, city, and car type, and that's it.
Mind you, the recording of the show is over 2 hours, and then gets edited down, but no - the calls are not scripted, they haven't pre-diagnosed the problem, and yes, they figure it all out during the phone call. That call may be edited from 20 minutes down to 5, but it's still their first (and only) crack at the problem.
I'm not sure why you'd lie about something like this, but it's probably some sort of mean joke like your sig, because of your own personal insecurity and desire for attention. Just as I hope others don't believe this, I hope your wife sees your posts.
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No lie. This was my actual experience. The fraud is in the misrepresentation that their on air process was in fact the real process. Why you would lie in their defense is the real question.
And my wife comes up with my occasionally varying sigs - I just use what I am told to use.
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Re: (Score:3)
NPR-listening republican checking in.
What were you saying?