Taxi: The Lost Episode

When I was a kid, I loved Nick at Nite, but there was one show I didn't care for, Taxi. 

There was one episode I recall, concerning the fate of John Burns, a character who appears in the first season, but then was never seen or heard from again, this episode was either the first season finale or the second season premiere, but the producers and the network decided it would be best not to air it.

The episode starts off as normal, but the tone changes as we see John Burns crashing the taxi he is driving. The cab explodes and he catches on fire. We see closes up of him catching on fire and screaming in pain as everyone in the garage hears him and runs out.

Alex, Tony, Elaine, Bobby, Louie, and Latka are all standing there, they have all witnessed the crash and looking on with blank stares as we watch John Burns' body be burned alive, they all begin to laugh at the site of this. This lasts about 5 minutes. The rest of the episode involves the cabbies debating what they should do with John Burns' charred remains, but than they realize that have to tell John Burns' now-widowed wife Suzanne and his family back in the Midwest what has happened to John Burns. They agree not to tell anyone and bury his body in the woods. The cabbies than run off to Mario's and "celebrate". While at Mario's they talk about how much they hated John Burns and are glad he's gone, which is why it is a celebration.

Nick at Nite accidentally showed this episode back in the mid-90s. I cried for a week even though I never cared about John Burns. I never realized that Taxi was such and dark and disturbing show.

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