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NPR's "Car Talk" Glides To a Halt

Posted by timothy on from the not-actually-a-complete-stop-mind-you dept.

stevegee58 writes "After 25 years on the air, Tom and Ray Magliozzi (aka Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers) are calling it quits in September. With their nerdy humor, explosive laughter and geek cred (both MIT alums) Tom and Ray will be sorely missed by the average NPR-listening Slashdotter." How many garages have names as cool as "Hacker's Haven"? I've long thought that someone should assemble a compilation featuring nothing but hours of their laughter. (Which will be available for sampling, since they will continue to play archived material for a long time yet.)

9 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Shit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nooooooo! These guys were brilliant!

  2. Sad day by Igorod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sad day indeed.

    1. Re:Sad day by hal2814 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Indeed. Their forum helped me find a local mechanic I could trust. I didn't always catch their show, but I'll certainly miss them.

  3. Dodge Dart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think that when they saw the Dodge Dart was coming back on to the market, they decided to get out of the business.

  4. All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The mouth-breathers see "NPR" and have flooded every forum on the internet with their ass-hate "libtard yuck-yuck" comments. It's a great show, more for entertainment value than anything. Oh yeah, and NPR listeners are bar none the most well-informed news consumers in this country.

    My local station plays the show at 7 or 8 Wednesday nights which is when I usually catch it.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Can we stop using "mouth breathers" as a euphemism for low intelligence? There are plenty of people that actually do breathe through their mouth due to problems with their noses, but are otherwise quite intelligent.

      Thanks,
      An intelligent mouth breather

    2. Re:All the anti-NPR vitriol this story incites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Amen brother!

      And NPR is probably the closest thing to unbiased reporting we'll ever get in this country. The have stories that I never see anywhere else in US based media. And I don't know why it called "Liberal". On any hot topic, they make an effort to get both sides - and they don't have crackpots representing the other side either. When they cover an issue, by the time the segment is over, I very rarely have a definite opinion either way because when they've finished, I can understand both sides and either sides reasoning. They constantly have Conservatives on stating their views, opinions and their side. And on many occasions on some issues, I have taken the Conservative's side because of NPR's reporting; which I can't say that about any other US based news outlet.

      NPR - "Liberal" indeed.

  5. I was actually on the show! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's how it worked:

    - You call the 800 number, describe your problem, if it sounds interesting the producer (Doug Berman) called you back and scheduled you for the show. So the problem is already known.

    - About Thursday afternoon before the weekend broadcast you called in to essentially a conference call a few minutes before your slot and got to hear the end of the previous caller. I suppose this is to get you in the mood, all it did is make me come down with a bad case of flop sweat.

    - You're on, you talk to the guys for five or ten minutes. They (correctly) guessed the solution to my problem pretty fast, primarily I think because they saw it before in their garage. My time was edited down a bit, but it was mostly verbatim.

    - They do not send you a copy of the broadcast, the only way I have one is because I recorded it off my local NPR station when it hit the air.

    That's the scoop. This is Tom from Michigan with a mysterious oil leak in his Z28 Camaro signing off.

  6. Actually, that's entirely false by Theaetetus · · Score: 5, Informative

    I called in once to see about getting a diagnosis on a car issue. They took the info, and said they would get back if they found it interesting, but if they did, then the whole phone call would be essentially scripted. They would do (or have done) a diagnosis off air, then pretend to figure it out all in the span of a few hyena-larious moments on air.

    Experts my ass.

    Sorry, that's a lie. I was the assistant chief engineer for WBUR for 8 years, and I sat in on the recordings of many of their shows. I've also consulted for Car Talk, fixing their network and computers, and have stayed at one producer's house in New Hampshire.

    The producers screen the calls (they get hundreds each week), but Tom and Ray know nothing about each call. They're presented with the person's name, city, and car type, and that's it.

    Mind you, the recording of the show is over 2 hours, and then gets edited down, but no - the calls are not scripted, they haven't pre-diagnosed the problem, and yes, they figure it all out during the phone call. That call may be edited from 20 minutes down to 5, but it's still their first (and only) crack at the problem.

    I'm not sure why you'd lie about something like this, but it's probably some sort of mean joke like your sig, because of your own personal insecurity and desire for attention. Just as I hope others don't believe this, I hope your wife sees your posts.