The new tv show Click and Clack is pretty good, especially considering it's animated.
I know who Click and Clack are, but am I supposed to know who the other characters are, the girl, the black guy, the well-dressed guy, the old lady, the Slavic mechanic? Are they on the radio show at all, or what?
Sorry, no clue. Where is the show?
PBS, Wednesday at 8PM.
Cool. thanks!
The radio show doesn't really have regular characters other than C&C themselves. They do talk about their parents, their sister, and one of Ray's mechanics (Crusty) from time to time, and on occasion they mention other friends and relatives. But the vast majority of the time it's just Tom and Ray.
If you listen to the credits at the end of the radio show, you'll hear a long list of other characters that are associated with the show -
Corporate Spokesperson: Hugh Lyon Sack Communications Director: George Stayontopothis Staff Meteorologist: Gail Storm
There's a fairly extensive list here:
(I stumbled across the TV show once but never hung around to watch. I think I had to actually go fix my car or something like that.)
They should call it Clink and Clank, as the wrench drops. Or How to Laugh at nothing.
I watched the first epiosode of the TV show and can't say I was impressed enough to watch again.
However, I am on their email list for the weekly Car Talk "Puzzler" quiz, and one of my sons and I enjoy seeing which of us can come up with the correct answers to those questions first.
Click and Clack were the 1999 commencement speakers at my alma mater, quite an honor to bestow upon them:
Gale Storm, btw, was a real person (though her given name was Josephine Owaissa Cottle). I know her mostly from a sitcom in the
50's where she played a girl about 18 who was living at home, or the more I think about it, maybe she was in her 20's or 30's, lived on her own, and dropped by her uncle's office. My Little Margie. She did other stuff too. Wow, Wikipedia says she was on 8 years, counting the Gale Storm Show. How many of you remember ZaSu PitsMaybe. I don't even know their names yet.
In my case, the decent tv shortage has made an intellectual out of me. Finally I'm watching PBS!
My favorite is the director of repeat business-
Lucinda Boltz
Dave
Same exact impression here.
....
It's interesting how different this is from hearing it on the radio.
On the radio easier to figure out the joke meaning, and takes time to figure out the spelling or even how the words are actually names.
In writing, every easy to figure out the names involved, like Maya Certz or Odessa Goodwin, but without hearing them, harder to figure out the joke.
On 8/14/2008 5:14 PM mm spake thus:
I hate to admit it, but I'm not sure I even get one of them at all: the last one, "And of course, our chief counsel, from the firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, is Hugh Louis Dewey". I *guess* that translates to "You lose; do we?", but I'm not positive.
(By the way, I corrected the spelling of the law firm, which they had as "Cheetham". No self-respecting Englishmun would ever spell that name that way.)
re: By the way, I corrected the spelling of the law firm, which they had as "Cheetham".
No you didn't correct it, you changed it to an incorrect spelling. Follow this link, also offered by Mr. Wisnia earlier today.
re: Hugh Louis Dewey
Hugh Louis Dewey is known to his friends under the bar as Hughie Louie Dewey, of Donald Duck fame.
On 8/14/2008 9:24 PM DerbyDad03 spake thus:
But it's still wrong, no matter how many people misspell it.
Pretty sure Johnny Carson, whose use of the joke predates all these others by a long shot, spelled it "Cheatham". (They were the Tonight Show's lawyers, dontcha know.)
Ah, so.
NO, I think it's just the formal name for which Hughie Louie Dewey is the nickname
On 8/14/2008 10:20 PM mm spake thus:
Which tends to prove the point you were making.
You remind me of the teacher in one of Jack Sharkey's "Adams Family" novels who insisted on calling Wednesday "Winifred" because "Wednesday" wasn't an appropriate name.
"Cheetham" in this context is part of the name of a company, and the owners of the company may spell its name any damned way they please, the name doesn't even have to have dictionary words in it--"ITYRUJTFLKD, Inc." is a perfectly valid company name.
And the Three Stooges did it long before him.
David Nebenzahl wrote: ...
Do a google on "Cheetham" and you may find your eyes opened...
--
re: But it's still wrong, no matter how many people misspell it.
Now, there's always the chance that you are just trying to stir the pot here (read: "troll") but I'll respond anyway.
At the bottom of just about every page at the Car Talk web site, you will see the words:
"CAR TALK, DEWEY, CHEETHAM & HOWE, SHAMELESS COMMERCE, and WARPED DISCS are registered trademarks, and CLICK AND CLACK is a trademark, of Tom and Ray Magliozzi and/or Tappet Brothers Associates d/b/a Dewey, Cheetham & Howe."
Just in case you don't know, d/b/a stands for Doing Business As, thus making Dewey, Cheetham & Howe not only a trademark, but the name of a business. In the US, as in many other places around the world, you can spell the name of your business (just about) any way you like. It's perfectly legal and acceptable for Tom and Ray, along with their
*real* lawyers, to have decided to spell the second word in their business name C-H-E-E-T-H-A-M. In no way is it "wrong" or "misspelled", it's simply a fabricated word.The above info is fact, the following is opinion:
The fictional law firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe has been "around" for a long time - The Three Stooges, Johnny Carson, and hundreds of exams and hypothetical legal situations in classes around the world. My guess is that Tom and Ray would have had trouble trademarking a pharse that has had so much exposure as to almost be a part of our language. However, by choosing to spell the second word with "ee" instead of "ea" they were able to obtain the trademark.
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