Characters: The Cab Driver

[Quokka]

This maybe belongs in the Playroom but I'll start it here and see if it gets moved .

Basically Steve Jordan mentioned in the Phantom thread about the use of a typcial 'wise-cracking cabbie' as a side character and it got me thinking that I could name 5 or 6 right off the top of my head.

So how many are there? We'll be pretty lenient with rickshaw drivers, chaffeurs etc all includable. They just have to have been a side character that does more than just quietly transports their passanger/s and in some way buys into their adventure. All mediums accepted.

So Steve Jordan started us off with The Phantom and I'll add the Mutant cab driver from Total Recall... any others?

[JDP]

Parker from Thunderbirds.

[Culhwch]

Not really a side character as such but still a wise-cracking cabbie - Corbin Dallas (sp?) from The Fifth Element.

[Ragnar]

Ernest Borgnine in Escape from New York

[that old guy]

Hmm...

Harry Canyon from the movie Heavy Metal, though he's not a sidekick, either.

I vaguely remember reading some book with Judas Iscariot as a cabbie, I think Parke Godwin's Waiting for the Galactic Bus...though my memory might be failing me here.

I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank beyond that.

[Joel007]

Mel Gibson - Conspiracy Theory? Well, the main character but I can't think of any others

[Winters_Sorrow]

Does Short Round in the Temple of Doom count? ("No time for love, Dr Jones!")
Although I think this could be expanded into sci-fi quite easily as well. Wash in Firefly is essentially a humorous cabbie, shuttling our crew of misfits into yet another zany adventure

[Quokka]

Short Round was one of the ones I was thinking of but when I looked him up it seems he was a street kid that helped Indi. I just remember him pulling up in the open roof white car?

Its been ages since I saw it though.

There are two cabbies that join the hunt in its a mad mad mad mad world

I thought it might be fun to try listing as many of the stereotypes as we could and those yellow cabs always seem to turn up in a movie . But this was probably not an easy one to start with. Should really have started with 'the street urchin with a heart of gold' worth another thread?

[lin robinson]

Short Round isn't a cabbie. He is the type of character I would call Cheeta. There is a great demand for a comical mascot who provides comic relief, but often cracks the case or detonates the deciding action. Very frequently the Cheeta character causes a last laugh at the end of the film, as in the old Tarzans.
Examples include Short Round, R2D2, CP3PO, the guy carrying the muskets in the Chamberlain/York/Reed "Three Musketeers", and a myrida of other films.


An interesting variation on the cabbie would be the Jamie Foxx role in "Collateral" with Tom Cruise as the Fare From Hell.

[Joel007]

ooh, collateral, good choice.

[jackokent]

There was one in Total Recall but I don't remember his name.

[manephelien]

^ Mentioned at the top of the thread. Can't think of any others at the moment.