The Cast:

Alex Rieger:   Judd Hirsch
Bobby Wheeler:   Jeff Conway
Louie De Palma:   Danny DeVito
Elaine Nardo:   Marilu Henner
Tony Banta:   Tony Danza
John Burns:   Randall Carver
Latka Gravas:   Andy Kaufman
Reverend Jim Ignatowski:   Christopher Lloyd
Simka Gravas:   Carol Kane
Jeff Bennett:   J. Alan Thomas



Who Is John Burns and Whatever Happened to Him??

The character John Burns, was a regular during the first season playing another Sunshine Cab Company driver. Played by: Randall Carver. You'll notice him in early publicity photos of Taxi, like the one on my main page.

Last we saw, Burns, a sweetly dense regular in the show's first season, was hanging with the other hack drivers and adding his dry, strange take on things to the show's unique wit. Just as suddenly, he was gone and the writers never bothered to explain his absence. He apparently drove off into the Sunshine, er... sunset. But Carver said in interviews that his character was eliminated because the show's producers felt he was too much like fellow naive-but-funny cabbie Tony Banta (Tony Danza). Their lines were often interchangable, so why pay two salaries?