Car Talk is a radio talk show broadcast weekly on National Public Radio stations throughout the United States and elsewhere. Its subjects are cars and car repair, and it often takes humorous turns. Car Talk logo This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... A talk show (U.S.) or chat show (Brit. ... NPR redirects here. ...

As a call-in radio show, listeners call in with car-related questions. The majority of callers are seeking advice of a diagnostic nature. The hosts, Tom and Ray Magliozzi (aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers) listen to the caller describe the symptoms of his or her malfunctioning car, often asking them to replicate strange sounds, then attempt to identify the cause of the malfunction. While the hosts pepper their call-in sessions with jokes directed at both the caller and at themselves, their knowledge of automobiles is extensive and they are usually able to arrive at a diagnosis and give helpful advice. But when stumped, they will sometimes stall for time by asking for the color of the vehicle in question. Karl Benzs Velo model (1894) - entered into the first automobile race An automobile (or motor car) is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. ... Tom Magliozzi during a session of Car Talk Doctor Tom Louis Magliozzi is the older brother (to Ray) of Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers (Tom is Click), the hosts of National Public Radios Car Talk. ... Ray Magliozzi, younger brother to Tom Magliozzi, is a co-host of NPRs weekly radio show, Car Talk. ... In mechanical engineering, a tappet is a projection which imparts a linear motion to some other component within an assembly. ...

While Ray continually gives out the toll-free number (1-888-CAR-TALK, or 1-888-227-8255) encouraging listeners to call in with their car troubles, which gives the impression that questions are taken on the fly, the number in fact connects to a 24-hour voice mail system. The Car Talk staff reviews the approximately 2,000 messages it receives each week and selects a variety that includes callers from different parts of the country with different kinds of cars and different kind of problems. However, according to the Car Talk FAQ, Tom and Ray don't know the questions in advance: "That would entail researching the right answer, which is what? Work ..."

Car Talk was first broadcast on WBUR in Boston, Massachusetts in 1977. It was picked up nationally by NPR ten years later. For most of its national run, Car Talk has been the highest-rated and most financially successful program on public radio in the US. NPR reports that it is heard on more than 370 stations by an audience of more than 2 million people each week. Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub of the Universe (The State House, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, is the hub of the Solar System), Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ...

Car Talk's theme song is "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown" by David Grisman. The theme music of a radio or television program is a melody closely associated with the show, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits. ... David Grisman David Grisman (born 1945 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is a noted bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. ...

Features

A recurring feature is "Stump the Chumps", in which Tom and Ray revisit a caller from a previous show and find out what effect, if any, their advice has had (assuming the caller followed it at all).

A similar feature was started in May 2001 and entitled "Where Are They Now, Tommy?" Like "Stump the Chumps", they revisited a previous caller; but the difference with "Where Are They Now...?" was best described by Tom as "an excuse to talk to some of the previous wack jobs we've had on the show". The feature was short-lived, lasting only a few months.

Celebrities have been callers as well. Examples include Geena Davis, Morley Safer, Ashley Judd, Gordon Elliott, and astronaut John Grunsfeld from the Space Shuttle. There have been numerous appearances from NPR personalities, including Bob Edwards, Susan Stamberg, Scott Simon, Ray Suarez, Will Shortz, Sylvia Poggioli and commentator/author Daniel Pinkwater. On one occasion, the show featured an in-studio guest: Martha Stewart, whom Click and Clack called "Margaret" twice. Virginia Elizabeth Geena Davis is a Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning American actress. ... Morley Safer (born November 8, 1931 in Toronto, Canada) is a reporter and correspondent for CBS News. ... Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968) is an American actress. ... Gordon Elliott (Born September 30, 1956) is a reporter and actor. ... NASA Chief Scientist/Astronaut Personal Data Born in Chicago, Illinois. ... This article is about the NASA Space Shuttle vehicle. ... Bob Edwards Robert Alan Edwards (born May 16, 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American radio broadcaster. ... Susan Stamberg (born 7 September 1938 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American radio journalist, currently a Special Correspondent for National Public Radio and guest host for Weekend Edition Saturday. ... Scott Simon is the host of National Public Radios Weekend Edition Saturday. ... Rafael Suarez, Jr. ... Will Shortz (b. ... Sylvia Poggioli is an American radio reporter for National Public Radio. ... Daniel Manus Pinkwater (b. ... Martha Stewart (born August 3, 1941) is an American business magnate, convicted felon, entrepreneur, and homemaking advocate. ...

Hosts

Car Talk's hosts are brothers Ray and Tom Magliozzi (aka, "Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers"), two long-time car mechanics. Ray Magliozzi has a degree in general science from MIT, while Tom has an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from MIT, an MBA, and a DBA from the Boston University Graduate School of Management. Ray Magliozzi, younger brother to Tom Magliozzi, is a co-host of NPRs weekly radio show, Car Talk. ... Tom Magliozzi during a session of Car Talk Doctor Tom Louis Magliozzi is the older brother (to Ray) of Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers (Tom is Click), the hosts of National Public Radios Car Talk. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is organized into five schools and one college, containing 34 academic departments and 53 interdisciplinary laboratories, centers and programs. ... Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a tertiary degree in business management. ... The degree of Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) is a professional research doctorate. ... Founded in 1925, the Boston University School of Management offers a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and a Doctorate of Business Adiminstration (DBA) degree. ...

The duo, usually led by Ray, are known for rants on the evils of the internal combustion engine, people who talk on cell phones while driving, Peugeots, women named Donna (who always seem to drive Camaros), the use (or misuse) of the English language, and just about anything else, including themselves. They have a laid-back humorous approach to cars, car repair, cup holders, pets, lawyers, car repair mechanics, SUVs, and most everything else. They often cast a critical insider's eye (jaundiced, mostly) towards the auto industry. Tom and Ray are committed to the values of defensive driving and environmentalism. In the late 1990s they pioneered an effort to rid the world of French pronunciations of words, intentionally pronouncing many words phonetically such as "Chev-ro-let" for Chevrolet." A colorized automobile engine The internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the burning of a fuel occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. ... Cellular redirects here. ... Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën. ... Modified 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A cup holder, as the name implies, is a device to hold a cup or other drinking container including an aluminum can. ... This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers, and should be edited to rectify this. ... See also 1990s, the band The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, sometimes informally including popular culture from the late 1980s and shortly after the year 2000. ... Chevrolet (Shev-ro-LAY — French origin), (colloquially Chev or Chevy) , is a brand of automobile, produced by General Motors. ...

Click and Clack operate the "Good News Garage" in Cambridge, Massachusetts just a few blocks north of the MIT campus. Their offices are located nearby at the corner of JFK St. and Brattle St. in Harvard Square, marked as "Dewey, Cheetham and Howe", the imaginary law firm they reference on-air. Cambridge City Hall Settled: 1630 â€“ Incorporated: 1636 Zip Code(s): 02139 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... Chess players in Harvard Square in August of 2005 Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. ...

The two were commencement speakers at MIT in 1999.

In 2006, Tom and Ray Magliozzi voiced Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze (previous names were Clink and Clunk), a 1963 Dodge Dart V1.0 and a 1963 Dodge A100 van respectively, in the film Cars[1]. (Tommy notoriously once owned a green Dodge Dart, known as the "Dartre"^{[citation needed]}.) 1967 Dodge Dart Custom 2-door hardtop The Dodge Dart was an automobile built by the Dodge division of the Chrysler Corporation from 1960 to 1976. ... The A100 (or Forward Control) line was a family of small trucks produced by Chrysler and sold under the Dodge marque in the 1960s. ... Cars is an animated feature film presented by Walt Disney Pictures, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. ...

Humor and other quirks

For years (perhaps since the beginning), Tom and Ray would take a break at approximately the half-hour mark of the show. More recently, two breaks divide the show into approximately twenty-minute segments referred to as the "three halves" (so termed to provide a sense of extra material to the listener) of the show. The show opens with a comedic monologue, followed by eight call-in sessions. During the winter shows, a contest called the "Puzzler" takes place, in which a puzzle (sometimes car-related, often not) is presented. The answer to the previous week's Puzzler is given during the second half of the show, and a new puzzler is given during the third half. Oftentimes the hosts tell listeners to write answers to the Puzzler (which is to be addressed to "Puzzler Tower") on non-existent or expensive objects, such as a 26-dollar bill or an advanced SLR digital camera ("Write it on the back of a $20 bill" in past years). In reality, they have received answers on objects as unlikely as a dead fish. SLR is an initialism that can stand for: Self-Loading Rifle Simple LR (Left-to-right Rightmost-derivation) parser Single Lens Reflex camera Satellite Laser Ranging This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

The humor of Car Talk also extends into the end credits. The show is produced under the Magliozzis' corporate banner, Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe, a common lawyer joke. After listing (and lampooning) the actual staff of Car Talk (including their producer, Doug "The Subway Fugitive," "Not a Slave to Fashion," "Bongo Boy" Berman), the brothers list a long series of unusual names. "Paul Murky of Murky Research", assisted by statistician "Marge Innovera" (margin of error), and their Russian chauffeur Pikop Andropov (pick up and drop off) are only a few of a long series of perennial "staffers" in the Car Talk credits. The DC&H corporate offices above the corner of Brattle and JFK Streets, in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Lawyer jokes are a species of professional humor and reflect the exasperation of the general public with the cost, uncertainty and delay of the legal system, at least in the U.S., where there are estimated to be about 2 million law school graduates (not all of whom are practicing...

At the end of almost every show, Ray warns the audience not to drive like his brother, who in turn warns them not to drive like his brother. There have been variations - such as "Don't drive like my sister"..."and don't drive like my sister." Click and Clack used this signature phrase in a cameo for the Pixar film Cars, in which Tom and Ray voiced anthropomorphized trucks with personalities similar to their own on-air personae. Pixar Animation Studios is an award-winning American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California (USA). ... Cars is an animated feature film presented by Walt Disney Pictures, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. ...

External links

• Car Talk website
• The complete listing of all Car Talk gag credits
• Car Talk History
• Car Talk on Audible.com

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