Radio / Car Talk

"Well, it's happened again—you've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk".

Ray: Don't drive like my brother.
Tom: And don't drive like my brother!
(laughter ensues)

The single most popular show produced by NPR, Car Talk (pronounced "Caah Tawk") was a long-running weekly radio broadcast about automotive repair hosted by the wisecracking brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi (also known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers"), proprietors of the Good News Garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Listeners would call in^note actually, listeners called in and reached a 24-hour answering service where they were pre-screened, but the brothers wouldn't hear the problems beforehand; the reason for it is that NPR stations wouldn't all broadcast the show at the same time and describe the problems with their vehicles. The brothers would crack wise, make fun of themselves, each other, and the listener—especially when the caller tries to reproduce the weird sound the car has been making—and oftentimes come up with plausible answers and solutions for the caller to investigate.

The show also featured funny or interesting letters from listeners, and a weekly brainteaser. Like Top Gear, it had a following that went beyond car nerds, people in need of car advice, or people who even owned cars.

The brothers made cameos in the Pixar films Cars and Cars 3^note Since the movie came out in 2017, Tom's lines were taken from clips from the first film and segments on Car Talk as Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze. They also made an appearance on Arthur as Furry versions of themselves.

In June of 2012, the brothers announced that they would be retiring from Car Talk in September, ending a thirty-five year run. NPR has continued airing the show via reruns, as well as calls that weren't used in the show before, however. The Powers That Be said they won't run out of never-aired material for years, and they were right. It wasn't until 2021 that they started airing reruns from The '90s ("When Yugos roamed the Earth" according to Ray).

Tom Magliozzi died of complications from Alzheimer's disease ("He really couldn't remember last week's Puzzler after all" —Ray) in November 2014. As a result, the show is run as The Best of Car Talk; Ray still records a few new sponsor messages in retirement (e.g. getting up for a spot for Serial Season 2 in 2015), but otherwise, the format remains as before. Syndication of The Best of Car Talk ended in 2021, but podcasts continue to be posted on the Car Talk website.

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Tropes:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Many of Tommy's answers are delivered "unencumbered by the thought process."
• The Alleged Car: Both brothers have had their share of these, especially Tom's infamous Dodge Dart and his MG TD Roadster.
  • Many of the people call in with ancient Alleged Cars; it wasn't unusual to hear a caller on a show in 2010 with a car from 1990. This makes the reruns less noticeable.
  • One caller sounded like he had a really bad one ("It goes really rough for two and a half minutes, then goes smooth, then after six and a half minutes the engine dies" and that his odometer had millions of miles on it.). Turned out the caller was their fellow MIT alumnus, astronaut John Grunsfeld, who was calling from onboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis and was docked at the Mir space station.
• Alter Kocker: One of the many Punny Names in the credits is "Al Takaka", Director of Elder Affairs.
• Amoral Attorney: The show's "law firm" of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. Note that they actually have a sign for this in Harvard Square, much to the amusement of the residents. Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe does in fact exist and is in fact related to Car Talk—as the Magliozzi Brothers' production company.
• Animated Adaptation: Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns, the celebrity toon in which the brothers played their own animated counterparts.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: According to Ray, Tom and their sister didn't even know he existed until he was about 5 years old.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: In The Stinger to each episode, and before every station break, the boys mention how much NPR staff members wince whenever they identify with the network. Though frankly, this might be an Inversion (after all, given their jokes about their low opinion of themselves, they're basically complimenting the rest of the network).
  • A few of the Punny Names on the staff list are inspired by NPR employees:
    • Sylvia Pottholi, the "Director of Roadway Resurfacing," is a takeoff on reporter Sylvia Poggioli.
    • "Anger Management Consultant" Joanne Slowburner is a spoof on reporter Joanne Silberner.
    • "Inventory Manager" Mandalit Del Bar-Code is a goof on arts & culture reporter Mandalit del Barco.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Crazy as loons, but they're MIT graduates and experienced mechanics, and actually do know what they're talking about. Most of the time. To avoid harmful lawsuits, they advise their callers to consult professional licensed car mechanics before taking any of their (car-related) advice.
• Continuity Nod: Doug Berman's production company for public radio show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is named Urgent Haircut Productions, derived from a Puzzler segment in which that phrase was an Unusual Euphemism for needing to go to the bathroom.

• Embarrassing Nickname: Producer Doug Berman has many, and we get to hear them during the credits.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Older versions of the show feature more calls from DIY-ers than in later episodes. The guys speculated that this was due in part to the fact that cars have become much more complicated than in the past, deterring people from working on their cars by themselves.
• Expert Consultant: Tom and Ray served as this for anyone with a car issue, but it was invoked with "Stump the Chumps". In that segment, the guys would call someone who had previously been on the show with a car problem to see if Tom and Ray were right. A fanfare and applause played if the Tappet Brothers' diagnosis was correct, or a wah-wah-wah music piece mixed with a car starter operated by a weak battery (an engine which wouldn't start) if the diagnosis was wrong.
• Hahvahd Yahd In My Cah: The boys have very strong Cambridge accents.
• The Hyena: The brother's laughs are especially distinct.
  • Says Tom of his laughter: "My wife insists that if I had had a normal (i.e., abusive) childhood, I wouldn't be plagued with those continual bouts of raucous laughter."
  • One caller claimed his flock of sheep were drawn to the sound of the boys' distinctive laughter.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown", a bluegrass-style piece by mandolinist David Grisman.
• The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay: The law firm of "Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe" is among the many Punny Names listed at the end of the show.
• Long-Runners: The show began on Boston's WBUR-FM in 1977, with NPR picking it up nationally a decade later; the final new episode was produced in 2012, making a 35-year original run.
• Mad Libs Catch Phrase: "...and even though [somebody has an unpleasant reaction] whenever they hear us say it, this is NPR."
  • "If you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or on [some expensive item that's on their wish list] and send it to..."
  • "And your answer here on 'Stump the Chumps' has not been influenced by our staff, the staff of NPR, or by the [extravagant bribe item] we sent you, correct?"
  • From the credits:
    • "Our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor, just back from the [extraordinarily long string of rhyming or alliterative phrases, many of which are food-related] is John 'Bugsy' Lawler."
    • "Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe is Hugh Louis Dewey, known to [group of people] in Harvard Square as Huey Louie Dewey."
• Malicious Misnaming: When Martha Stewart was on the show (she's been on twice) they called her "Margaret."
• The Musical: A musical version is currently running in Boston (well, Cambridge) and there's talk of it going to Broadway. (No, seriously.)
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Exemplified in the punny credits
  Ray: our Mother-in-Law liaison is Stella Payne-Diaz, who is married to our Father-in-Law liaison, Royal Payne-Diaz.
• Once per Episode: Tom never remembers what last week's Puzzler was about, and Ray never knows when it's time for "Stump the Chumps". Also most of the Running Gags below.
• Overly Long Gag: Producer Doug Berman's string of nicknames, which doubles as an Overly Long Name, and the food-themed, rhyming-named event John "Bugsy" Lawler just got back from this week.
  Tom: Our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor, just back from the West LA fish filet, cheese soufflé, chardonnay, Milky Way, Nescafé, curds and whey, straw and hey, cookie tray, and vitamin A preholiday lunch buffet... is John "Bugsy" Lawler.
• Our Product Sucks: Part of the ongoing Self-Deprecation. Among other examples, at the end of the show they announce, "Well, it's happened again: you've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk." And if you listen via podcast, you also get interstitials letting you know you can download and listen to classic ("and by 'classic,' we mean..." "...old.") episodes via their website. They then mention one of a number of reasons why you might want to do such a thing. ("For example, if you're a dentist and you want to remind your patients that there are worse things than a root canal.")
• Pain to the Ass: From the credits; "Latin American Bullfighting Specialist" Gordon Diaz.
• Pretentious Pronunciation:
  • Inverted by Tom, who for a while pronounced Chevrolet Chev-ro-let (the last syllable rhyming with "bet"). He did however call his Dodge Dart the "Dartre".
  • They also refer to the city of Detroit as "Day-twah" (though that is the actual French pronunciation).
• Punny Name: The show credits. A subset of those is read at the end of the show every week, after the actual credits.
• Running Gag: Many, most occurring Once per Episode. Most memorably:
  • A new joke about how embarrassed the staff of NPR, the listeners, and everybody else on earth supposedly are about the show being on NPR, delivered at the very end and before each station break.
  • The "real" reason for those station breaks.
  • Telling stories about Doug Berman in the show proper, sometimes explaining one of the nicknames.
  • Ray occasionally reading off the call-in number in some weird way, like "eighty-eight, eighty-two, twenty-seven, eighty-two, fifty-five".
  • Tom not remembering last week's Puzzler... again.
  • The expensive item they recommend writing the Puzzler answer on, and the expensive item they pretend to have bribed their "Stump the Chumps" caller with.
  • Ray not knowing it's time for "Stump the Chumps", and guessing it's time for some other, ridiculous thing instead.
  • The credits, in which Ray reminds listeners that they've wasted another perfectly good hour listing to the show, rattles off most-to-all of Doug Berman's nicknames and the culinary adventures of John Lawler, then throws in a bunch of fake credits with Punny Names.
    • The penultimate fake credit is almost always for the head of the Working Mothers' Support Group, Erasmus B. Dragon.
    • The final fake credit is always for the chief counsel from Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe—Hugh Louis Dewey, known to [group of people] in Harvard Square as Huey Louie Dewey.
    • And of course: "Don't drive like my brother!" "And don't drive like MY brother!"
• Self-Deprecation: Half the humor on the show is of this variety. See above.
  • From the "credits"; the directors of quality control are Les Thomas and Nomar Raymond.
• Shout-Out: The show's studio in Cambridge is labeled on the outside as "Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe"
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: The brothers (particularly Tommy) had one in the form of Melissa Peterson, an eleven-year-old who sent them some of the most creatively vitriolic hate mail they'd ever read.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: With Tom and Ray as the "Scroogiozzi brothers," who took over NPR and turned it into a commercial outfit, to the chargrin of its veteran reporters and the fatally sincere Tiny Ira. Not to mention the supreme aggravation of the spirits, who quickly lock them in a belfry as punishment for their wisecracking. The stations air this special as part of their December fund drives.
• You Wanna Get Sued?: "As rantings about GM, Ford and Chrysler fill his headphones, Doug envisions yet more lawsuits arriving at the Car Talk Plaza fax machine."

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- And even though it makes Garrison Keillor sing like Justin Bieber every time he hears us sayin' it, this is TV Tropes.

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