Monday, January 28, 2008

Car Talk the TV show

From PBS:
PBS confirmed today the title of its first-ever animated primetime series, a spin-off of Tom and Ray Magliozzi’s hit NPR show “Car Talk.” Tom and Ray announced the title on their Saturday, January 26 program, saying they had lured submissions with the misleading promise of everlasting fame.

CLICK & CLACK’S AS THE WRENCH TURNS will premiere in summer 2008 on PBS. The program takes off from the hit NPR show and follows the “on- and off-air” escapades of Tom and Ray Magliozzi (known to their listeners as “Click and Clack,” the Tappet brothers) as they try to fix cars, fend off disgruntled customers and seek out increasingly creative ways to goof off.

The title, CLICK & CLACK’S AS THE WRENCH TURNS, was submitted by Lancaster, Pennsylvania, “Car Talk” fan Geoff Groff, a retired police detective and former assistant service manager of — for real! — a Buick dealership. In addition to the envy of the other contenders, who suggested such titles as ”Transmission Impossible,” “20 Minutes and Still Not Canceled,” “Ken Burns Presents Car Talk” and “Click-and-Clack-sterpiece Theater,” Groff has earned himself a cameo on an episode of the new show.

RESPONSE to comment: OK, this is the wrong item to have commented on my knock of Waterbury. But no problem and for the record, there are nice things about Waterbury, too, including its blue-collar roots, the old Holy Land, c0ntributions to World War II in lives and manufacturing. But politics isn't one of its assets in the past 25 years. Awful, terrible and disgusting are some adjectives that come to mind. As for Derby, I don't recall what I said about it. I may have called it homey or homely (as I would describe myself and my roots) but I know great folks from Derby and go there and through there fairly often. Yes, New Haven has a mix of ugly and splendid, too. As for the Catholic reference, I don't understand that at all. I'm a practicing Catholic and I am unaware of Waterbury being the seat of Catholicism, unless you're confusing the word "gubernatorial" with a religious term.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not certain where it would be more prudent to post this rebuttal. But it's in response to your article Sunday, where you write:

"Ah, right-wing Waterbury, where Rowland is still a saint and the mayor has chosen him for an economic development job. Ah, brassy Waterbury, the city that put the goober in gubernatorial."

Politics, right-wing, left-wing, what-have-you, I don't even want to get into that. But let's hope you're not trying to suggest any kind of connection between Catholics and the right-wing. As a person of faith, I'd be highly offended if that were true, and so would many others from the community if they knew.

Regarding goobers, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones! I don't know where you get off always ridiculing places in the Naugatuck Valley like Derby (several weeks ago), Waterbury (this weekend), etc. If you've been stuck down your way for too long, I'll fill you in on something: Greater New Haven's not one of the prettiest places in the world. I was prepared to advise you to start writing similar articles degrading the lowly towns of the New Haven area, but your bad behavior shouldn't justify mine. All I can say is that I'll no longer waste my money to read your newspaper. And no one in the Valley even reads the Register anymore. Most people were tired of reading about Milford, Hamden, Guilford, and Durham, for example. The Connecticut Post and the Waterbury Republican-American are light-years ahead anyway.