NPR and public radio more generally in the U.S. is such a national treasure, and these guys were one of the brightest gems. I loved seeing their personalities and infectious laugh enshrined with a cameo in Pixar's Cars, which itself captured a sort of best-of or hall-of-fame for American car culture.
Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
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Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#52Fantastic show! I especially loved the Puzzlers [1]. They had some really interesting ones over the years.
Tom will be sorely missed! :(
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#53My dad called into car talk once and told them on-air about how I would listen to every episode while driving around in my little tikes car. I didn't understand what they were talking about, but I loved their laughing. Also, I still can't take the new Fiats on the road seriously.
The new Fiats are pretty sweet, you should try driving one. (Also the new Dodge Dart is a Fiat with an Alfa engine and suspension.)
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#54[deleted]
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#55Really a special presence on the radio for so many years. So intelligent, so humane, so humorous, so useful! I feel I learned much about the art of troubleshooting in general from Car Talk.
This is a point that I think a lot of people are missing: Click and Clack, while being funny, were primarily master troubleshooters. They could digest incomplete descriptions of a problem over the phone from a neophite user and in the span of a phone conversation, usually with no ability to run tests, could work out a plausible root cause and a corrective course of action. The "Stump the Chumps" segment would occasionally follow up with some previous victims/callers, and more often than not they had largely gotten it right.
I'm not sure how much you'll actually learn about cars from listening, but if you pay attention you should be able to learn a whole lot about effective troubleshooting.
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#56I hope Melissa "the Twerp" Peterson ( http://www.wnyc.org/story/1421-my-dog-hates-you-too/ ) does a eulogy for him. (Girl who wrote a letter complaining that the show sucked and that she had to listen because her parents did in the car... they had her on and she'd periodically call in for years) My all-time favorite was the episode where someone called in and said that their vehicle would run pretty well but with lot…
Another classic: "every single bolt on the thing is sticking, and I'm afraid I'll break the bolt, this thing is 19 years old." [referring to HST repairs] http://www.cartalk.com/player5/player.php?a=longclip&id=Grun...
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The show's been off the air for a while, so his death shouldn't bother you". That's how this comes off. By the way, many people are completely aware that they've been off the air, and still find this saddening. In your attempt to be clever or somehow revealing a secret, you've come off as arrogant and insensitive.
(Please don’t invent quotes and write them as a separate paragraph – it looks as though I wrote the inflammatory text, when in fact I meant nothing of the kind.) I thought that this news meant the show was ending and was surprised to read that actually the show would not change. So I thought I’d highlight this fact.
As the target of misunderstandings at times, I get it, and your meta-point is taken. My previous statement about the perceived insensitivity to the actual story, Tom's death, stands.
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#58I can report that Tom and Ray did in fact have the occasional cappuccino at Caffe Paradiso in Harvard Square. I had no idea who they were until Tom laughed :-)
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#59NPR and public radio more generally in the U.S. is such a national treasure, and these guys were one of the brightest gems. I loved seeing their personalities and infectious laugh enshrined with a cameo in Pixar's Cars, which itself captured a sort of best-of or hall-of-fame for American car culture.
Too many of the great voices they had in that movie are now gone - George Carlin, Paul Newman, and now Magliozzi.
Re: Tom Magliozzi, Co-Host of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies at 77
#60Someone find a cure for Alzheimer's please :(
At least it seems it was mercifully quick in this case... Just two years since they recorded their last episode.