Plan B Forum

This is the last weekend for The Best of Car Talk on NPR. If you want your Click and Clack yuck fix, you'll have to go to the podcasts. The long live show followed by the long re-broadcast "Best Of" was an amazingly good run. Love that they called last week's show the 30 Years of Listener Retaliation. Saturday mornings will be less fun without them around to keep me company while I do house chores!

Well, it's about time. Yes, I still listen weekly but it was getting to a point where I could recite their advice almost word for word.

The "Andy Letter" was C&C's all time best: Do two people who know nothing know more, or less, than one person who knows nothing?

The life support switch has finally been thrown.

I haven't listened in a long while - I was finding it a bit too heartbreaking to listen. Some of the happiest hours of my life were Saturday mornings puttering to the background music of Tom & Ray.

I still remember the first time a friend of mine told me about Cartalk - we were driving from Ithaca to DC in the late 80s and he asked me "do you like cars at all?" I said "yes" and that was the beginning of a long and happy relationship with the guys. Not to mention some life-long friendships that continue here, at this place, today.

While the re-made "new" shows have definitely lost a step or two, I would love to hear what they have to say about Cheato-man and his grifter family, as well as some other events of the day. All in the context of car repairs, of course.

Bye guys, you are already missed.

Missed indeed; when I first heard about Car Talk many years ago I didn't listen--I thought it was a pretty stupid idea for a radio show. Eventually I heard one show when I was in a friend's car and I was hooked--the talents of Tom and Ray reeled me in and I became a regular listener for years, not to mention becoming a participant at their forum which eventually led to here. It's funny how things work out.

Ironically, I picked up a rental car this morning while some work gets done on my Jeep, and they gave me a (2016- I had no idea they were still being made) Dodge Dart!

I didn't know they were being made either.

Guinevere wrote:Ironically, I picked up a rental car this morning while some work gets done on my Jeep, and they gave me a (2016- I had no idea they were still being made) Dodge Dart!

Resurrected model names.  Chevy has already recycled both 'Impala' and 'Malibu' — in an attempt, I believe, to try to recreate in the mind of today's car buyer the impression that their vehicles possess a personality, a style, an image, and have a direct link back to the days when cars were still something fun to drive, something to take on a road trip, something in which to explore unseen areas and have an adventure, as opposed to something that carries a seemingly random and meaningless series of numbers and letters and is seen as merely a functional tool good only for the daily commute back and forth to work.  I fully expect to see other classic model names (well, maybe not 'Edsel', 'Gremlin', or 'Pinto') retrieved from the dusty shelves of history and appearing soon in a dealer's showroom near you.

-"BB"-

The qualities of cars, for the most part, are superior today to when I was young. I remember when I used to adjust the distributor spark gap and value lifters. I think all cars now have stainless steel cylinder sleeves.

I would listen to Car Talk thinking I might learn something I could use. I never did maybe that was because there wasn’t a test at the end of the show; I am good at taking multiple choice tests, but I did enjoy it. I didn’t realize they are as old as they are and I was disappointed to hear that one of the brothers had died.

I discovered the Cartalk website when I was searching to see which radio station I could hear Click & Clack on. I never did hear the show. I think I found it once but it was on early in the morning on a weekend on a station that had a weak signal.

What I found on the website was much more interesting. A place where people could argue with each other all day and read what jay had to say about infinity and how to merge into traffic...

Ah the traffic merge--that discussion went on for inifinity.

I listened a couple times...they got stale in a hurry. Honestly, they frequently came across as a pair of braying jackasses.

That's thier charm.

Big RR wrote:Ah the traffic merge--that discussion went on for inifinity.

Yes, let's resurrect that one -- it'll chase away the most annoying topic of all time!

The last CarTalk: #1738: 30 Years of Listener Retaliation

https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208

Donald Trump. To get some more covfefe.
Barack Obama. The chicken didn't build that road.
Mike Pence. I don't know any chickens and I certainly won't have dinner alone with one.
Mike Pence. Unless of course she was on the menu. No that sounds bad. Please delete that.
Sean Spicer. There was never any chicken or any road.

It takes this many people to produce such a lousy show?  Who knew!

(link 1)
The Conclusive, Definitive, Official Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe Staff List (link 2)

I hope someone somewhere will compile and preserve — on the 'net — a list of all the 'staff' who received on-air credits over the years.
Like the Chicken Thread, these painful puns should not be lost to posterity!

-"BB"-

Not much has happened - not sure why not. But my local NPR is still playing Tom and Ray (listening now) but of course they are old recycled programs.

"Hello you're on Car Talk."
"I have a 1992 Bonneville SSE in great condition except that . . . . "

I'm guessing 1993, then. I call this Car-Bon dating and I am never wrong.