MovieChat Forums > Taxi (1978) Discussion > Question about Elaine's Son

Question about Elaine's Son

posted a year ago by [email protected] (5501)
6 replies | jump to latest

In the first season the guys help Elaine's son Jason with a spelling bee contest. Later the actor is recast which isn't that unusual for sitcoms when a child is not a regular.

But in the first season, he's played by an eleven year old. In season five, Elaine's kids meet her new beau Arnie. Funny episode, but the actor is now played by David Mendenhall who was also about eleven at the time. Jason should've been a teen-ager by then!

Wonder why the show felt the need to keep him the same age. Did they think that it wouldn't have played as funny with a teen-age boy who wouldn't be so quick to like Arnie? Teen-ages can be moody and perhaps a fifteen year old boy would balk at his mom's newest boyfriend.

[–] Seperatrix (1089) a year ago

The only thing that comes to mind is that our time scale isn't meant to match what the characters on the show experienced. So that 5 years for us (e.g., by the time we get to the 5th season) hasn't equated to 5 years having passed for the characters.

I don't know if you're familiar with the show LOST, but season 1 had a young actor that was a key figure in the show. But by the time season 2 was filmed the actor had grown so much it didn't fit -- he was obviously much older in real time, but the time that the character would have experienced in the story wouldn't have allowed him to age nearly as much. Rather than replace him, he was phased out of the show altogether, and his last few scenes were filmed in such a way as to hide the fact that he had grown so much.

I don't know that Taxi had such a strict narrative as LOST, but it could be as you suggested -- that they just felt the show played better with the kids at that age.

[–] [email protected] (5501) a year ago

Yes, I've had that discussion with fans of other sitcoms. They point out that the timeline on the show could be different than real life.
I suppose we can't be sure of the real timeline for the show. But often the characters experience the change of seasons and holidays which mark the year like Christmas. So it seems to me that a few years passed on Taxi. I just found it odd that after five seasons, Jason was still ten!

Oh I remember LOST quite well. Never missed it. They cast a young actor to play Walt who had an overnight growth spurt. I used to think that they needed to cast a kid who was more like me at that age. I never HAD a growth spurt. LOL Most of my clothes fit me from the age of eleven right on into high school.

[–] Seperatrix (1089) a year ago

"But often the characters experience the change of seasons and holidays which mark the year like Christmas."

Well that's true. I'd forgotten about that. If they only had one Christmas episode (focusing on Christmas only for the moment), then I could maybe stretch my hypothesis to account for Elaine's son refusing to age. But even two Christmas episodes would wreck that idea. And I think there were at least two Christmas episodes? So much for that idea I guess.

So . . . TV magic it is then!

[–] [email protected] (5501) a year ago

Yeah, TV magic. They managed to do it on MASH. The Korean Conflict lasted three years but on the TV show they celebrated Christmas about ten times!

[–] stevewyzard (1251) a year ago

When Marilu Henner started portraying Elaine on Taxi, she was 26. Five years later, she would have been 31. I mention this because I always felt that the character of Elaine was supposed to be somewhat older than Henner's actual age. If a 26-year old woman has an 11-year old son, that would mean he was born when his mother was 15. And while that's certainly within the realm of possibility, I don't think that's the backstory the writers imagined for Elaine.

After all these years, I don't remember all the details of Elaine's background, but I somehow think the character married in her early-to-mid 20s, and divorced a few years later. Was her son born before she married? Perhaps, but I'm not sure if we were ever told. My thinking is that they didn't want to show Elaine's son being a teenager because that would make her character seem so much older, rather than the early-to-mid 30s they wanted her character to appear.

[–] [email protected] (5501) a year ago

Yes, that makes sense too. I have read that Elaine was supposed to be older than the actress who played her. I think she was supposed to be about 30 when the show began.

I used to watch several soaps and those shows had NO problem with making actors seem older. The babies on the show would be subjected to SORAS (Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome it was called). A toddler would become ten overnight and two years later be in high school. College came next year. The character would have a baby and THAT baby would be a teen-ager in a few years.
The result was that sometimes there would be 35 year old actresses playing the grandmothers of teen-agers!

Many night time shows play fast and loose with character ages. When we got to meet Reverend Jim's dad, he was played by an actor the same age as Christopher Lloyd. The late Victor Buono made a career out of playing characters who were much older.