Taxi Driver (1999)

I have to admit an unlikely fondness and nostalgia for this Ghanaian sitcom, which thanks to the wonders of Satellite television we were able to pick up in the UK on Friday nights in the early 2000s. The world of Taxi Driver is one of bizarre plots, terrible yet enthusiastic acting, broken English, and the worst back projection you're likely to see outside of a 1960s ITC show, all taking place in unenviable dirt poor Ghanaian locations. The show has the ability to look like a trashy early 1980s SOV movie even though it was actually made in 1999. Week after week though, I found myself tuning in to the adventures of taxi driver T.T (pronounced 'Titty') as he cruises the mean streets of Ghana, picking up bickering passengers and getting drawn into their problems. As played by Psalm Adjetefio, Titty is like a mixture of Barry Evans and Idi Amin, forever yelling, threatening to slap people and occasionally breaking the fourth wall to share some philosophical nuggets with the audience. Memorable passengers include the far out Jamaican, the flash DJ who gives Titty a taste of the high life, the cash strapped prostitute who throws herself at Titty "are you a hen for you to be having sex with every cock?". Best of all is the guy who claims to have murdered his wife and ends up stripping down to his underwear and running around with a pick axe.

It's all very moral and usually ends with Titty giving his customers a dressing down over their transgressions with each episode having a heavy handed message about adultery, greed, prostitution or stealing other people's goats (a subject so important that it warrants a two parter). Judging by a search of the Internet, the show's good vibes and positivity hasn't rubbed off on its star Psalm Adjetefio in recent years. His marriage collapsed after his wife became less 'submissive' to him and he ended up chasing after a younger actress who he later publicly denounced as a 'pure demon' who had come to him in the guise of a human "I pray that no man goes that way, forsaking your children and going for a demon of a woman. Learn from my experience. Don't do it" he claimed "I haven't been lucky, it's like the women I got were boiled from Satan's kitchen". Adjetefio has also courted controversy in recent years by breaking with his family friendly persona and appearing in an adult oriented film, although he has yet to be offered enough money to bare all. "My buttocks are not cheap" Adjetefio has stated "any producer who wants me to strip may have to pay an amount of money heavy enough to last till even my great grandchildren grow to reap the dividends". You don't get to see Psalm's expensive buttocks in Taxi Driver, but you do get a catchy theme tune that has managed to stick in my head for around 20 years even though I still can't decipher the lyrics to it. Offering proof that you can find just about anything on Youtube, and finally giving me some evidence that I didn't just make this show up, five episodes of Taxi Driver are to be found on this YouTubechannel...move over Travis Bickle.