Why Car Talk Meant so Much to Me (And why I'm sad it had to go + Tom's death)

Until I was in high school, my dad and I didn’t bond over much. I knew he was a caring father and loved me, but we just didn’t have much to share except for one thing: Car Talk. My dad was never one to suffer fools, so when he drove me to school in the mornings we listened to NPR, not the music stations with their endless morning show prattle. Every time I hear the horn intro to Morning Edition it reminds me of my childhood.

One Saturday while my dad drove me to the library he tuned to Car Talk. After I’d checked out my books, the show was still on and we sat in the parking lot so we wouldn’t get home before the show was over. After that it was a Saturday morning fixture for my dad to put it on and listen with us. Or if we were doing errands we made sure to tune to NPR for Car Talk. We both have the same sense of humor so we both loved the groan-worthy puns for the end credits. Here are some of my favorites:

Assistant to our Make Up Artist - Gladys Radio Car Talk Bouncer - Euripedes Ibreakayourface Clothing Designer - Hugh Jass Director of Catering - Russell Upsumgrub and my absolute favorite Russian Chauffeur - Picov Andropov

I love that Tom would be laughing at how ridiculous these were. And of course, their representation at the Law Firm of Dewey, Cheetham & Howe.

I would still listen in College and it helped relieve my homesick-ness.

There was an awesome Fresh Air show this week in which T erry spoke with Doug Berman and played parts of her 2001 interview with the brothers. I’ll archive it here because I don’t trust websites to always exist.

My favorite Berman section was when Microsoft tried to get them to show up for a promo event. Also awesome to learn why they had the Puzzler. Never understood why that was on a car repair show.

I hope Tom’s enjoying the “third half of the show” in Heaven.

• Car-Talk
• Npr