Television

Lloyd is also famous for the his roles on the small screen. Here you'll find a list of the television shows in which Christopher Lloyd has appeared as well as one of the original pages from this site - the Taxi Episode Guide.

Tony Danza Show

Christopher Lloyd gave a RARE interview on the Tony Danza Show on November 15, 2004. I've obtained a copy of the interview in WMV format. Please right click this link and select Save As to save it to your computer. Please don't play it directly from this site or link to the video from your own site, as I have limited bandwidth. If the bandwidth comes close to being exceeded, I will remove the link for the rest of the month.

Current Shows

Stacked

Check out the Stacked page of this Web site for more information!

Cyberchase

Lloyd lends the voice of The Hacker to the very popular PBS kids show "Cyberchase" The show has been praised for its ability to integrate fun plot lines and math problem solving skills and has been honored with a number of Emmy awards. For your local listings to find out when Cyberchase airs in your area, check out Yahoo! TV. He also gave an interview on his role as The Hacker.

Recent Shows

Clubhouse

"Clubhouse" is the coming of age story of Pete, a young batboy with the fictitious baseball team the New York Empires who befriends the players and manager while dealing with problems in his own life. Lloyd played Lou Russo, the team's equipment manager who's seen it all and done it all, often finding himself in a surrogate father role in Pete's life. Despite critical praise and excellent reviews, CBS cancelled the show after only six of 13 episodes ran in the fall of 2004. The remaining shows aired on HDNet in the summer of 2005. It was produced by Mel Gibson. Checkout the online summary of the show as well as the complete episode guide.

I Dream

featuring the british teen pop group S Club 8, this British TV series cast Lloyd in the role of the headmaster, Professor Toone. The plot revolved around a group of students who enroll at the prestigious Avalon Heights School of the Performing Arts. "I Dream" was filmed in Barcelona, Spain in June and July of 2004. 13 episodes aired in this musical half hour series, much in the vein of the series "Fame"

Christina has graciously given us a couple summaries of some Lloyd's rarely seen guest TV appearances. More pictures can be found on the Yahoo! Group. Warning: The summaries contain spoilers, so if you plan on seeing them in the future, don't read this!

"Best of the West"

Back in 1981, some of the co-creators of "Taxi" and other successful sitcoms launched the show "Best of the West". The sitcom was set in a western town just after the Civil War. The main character, Sam Best, is a Civil War veteran from Philadelphia who moves out to the west with his son and new southern belle wife. The show was essentially "Blazzing Saddles" meets network television, with hilarious results as Sam and his family come to grips with the fact that the frontier isn't as romantic as they originally believed.

Christopher Lloyd appeared in three episodes in the hilarious recurring role of The Calico Kid, the fastest and meanest gunslinger in the West. His first appearance was in the pilot episode, where the town villain, Parker Tillman, hires The Calico Kid to kill Sam Best since Best poses a threat to Tillman's ability to cheat and hustle the local townsfolk. We learn that the Kid, as menacing and tough as he is, really isn't a horrible guy. When Sam pleads for 5 minutes to say goodbye to his family, The Calico Kid asks "it takes you 5 minutes to say goodbye to your family?" to which Sam replies "Yes!", and the Kid affably answers "okay."

Of course, Sam sneaks out of house during those five minutes and runs to the saloon to seek help, only to find there isn't a sheriff in the town. The Kid traces him back to the saloon and prepares to shoot Sam. Before he can pull the trigger, Laney Gibbs (a mountain woman who comes into the town to sell her furs) sneaks up on him and takes his gun, using it against the Kid. It turns out Laney is looking forward to seeing a good old fashioned gun draw, so gives Sam the gun and allows The Kid to have another gun for their shoot out. The Kid, however, is quite partial to his "lucky gun" and wants to swap with Sam. After a series of hilarious misfires, the Kid gets shot in the hand and Sam gets to live, inadvertently becoming the new sheriff in the process.

Lloyd's second appearance entails The Calico Kid returning to the town to start over. At first, every one is nervous that the Calico Kid is coming to exact his revenge: to Laney for embarassing him, to Sam for shooting him, to Doc Kullens for overcharging him in bandaging his hand, and to Parker Tillman for not paying him on the hit job.

The Kid, however, has no intention to get revenge, and has instead come to the realization that he doesn't want to be a gunslinger anymore. In fact, he wants to give up the violent lifestyle altogether. So what other skills does he have? Apparently he's a good cook. So Parker hires the Kid as the new chef in the saloon. Kid's new job is a great success until a young new gunslinger wants to challenge the Kid to a draw to prove he's the fastest gun in the west (with the logic that if you beat the reigning champ, you become the new champ). Kid doesn't want to shoot though, and keeps ignoring the challenger's taunts. But the challenger won't let up, and after insulting the Kid, Kid's mom...he insults Kid's culinary skills. Well, that's the last straw. The Kid whips out his gun and makes the challenger "dance", chasing him out.

The gang is concerned that if they allow the Kid to stay in their town, they are going to keep getting bad guys showing up for challenges, thereby making violence a regular occurrence for the peaceful town. They reluctantly tell Kid he has to leave, and the he understands. That night, Kid stops by Sam's cabin to say goodbye, but the gang tries to come up with a way for Kid to stay. But they know it would be impossible with all the ruffians trying to kill Kid. Sam suggests that he wouldn't have to leave if he was killed. "But won't that be inconvenient for me?" Kid responds. Not if he faked his death!

After a hilarious rehearsal, they devise a plan for Sam to challenge Kid in the saloon and beat him. The next day, everything goes wrong. The gang keeps forgetting their lines and the Kid is lost without the proper cues. To make matters worse, the challenger from the day before reappears. Afterwards, Kid decides that it really is best for him to leave and does just that, giving Sam a manly handshake and then a hilarious goodbye kiss. Afterwards, Kid reflects that he'd never kissed a lawman before...and it waasn't that great.

The third and final episode with Lloyd involves the Kid coming back to the town to share the good news that he's getting a job as a sheriff in a nearby town. Looks like all that experience with facing off with other bad guys has paid off. If he gives up his gunslinger life for the sheriff job, his fiancee Nora will marry him. The only catch, he needs to show proof of having completed at least a third grade education level to get the job. Of course, the Kid never went to school.

So the next day, the Kid attends school with all the other town children. The teacher has an immense crush on "big" men like the Kid and flirts with him, while still appalled at his less than refined manners (such as smoking in class and then offering some to the other kids so as to not be rude). As the lesson goes on, Kid becomes more frustrated and embarassed by his situation and finally leaves.

He heads to the saloon and tells Sam about his problem, recounting how the other kids laughed at him, and vowing that he'll come after them when they are thirty years old ("I'll just let them stew until then"). But the gang won't let him give up, reminding him of his love for Nora. They tutor him through the night and he shows up for his exam the next day to see if he can get a third grade certificate. After some trouble, and a hilarious reenactment of a shootout, Kid solves the final word problem and passes.

You can occassionally find episodes of "Best of the West" on Ebay, and I highly recommend checking them out if you can. Lloyd is great in this role, and the series has such a funny concept. You won't be disappointed.

"Fallen Angels"

"Fallen Angels" was a noir drama series that ran on Showtime from 1993 to 1995. The show usually adapted short noir detective stories or featured original stories following the lives of corrupt people in the early-mid 20th century and the detectives who were on their trails. Each episode was a separate and distinct stylish tale featuring a different famous face, including Gary Oldman, Joe Montegna, Benicio Del Toro, Brendan Fraser, Danny Glover (nominated for an Emmy for his appearance) and Laura Dern (also nominated). Many famous actors also directed several episodes including Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise. The show had critical praise and viewers could kick back and listen to the sultry jazz soundtrack while following plots that would have made James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart drool.

In the episode "Fly Paper", adapted from the short story penned by famed detective novel writer Dashiell Hammett, Christopher Lloyd plays the tough Continental Op. The story begins with Lloyd's classic noir narration as he sets up the background story. Essentially, the Hamiltons are a wealthy New York family who have retained the services of the Continental Detective Agency to keep tabs on their daughter Sue, who likes to hang out in night clubs and has fallen in love with gambler and ruffian Babe McClure. Babe and Sue eventually disappeared after New York crime bosses wanted to collect from Babe.

Flash forward to the Los Angeles office, where Lloyd's Continental Op is now working. Apparently, the Hamilton's received a telegram from Sue requesting a thousand dollars and promising to come home to New York if they will accept her. The Agency is now supposed to deliver the payment to Sue in Los Angeles and the Op is assigned the task. The Op goes to the address provided and a man named Joe answers the door, asking if the Op brought the money. After assuring him that he does have the money, the Op insists on seeing Sue before handing it over. Joe leaves to get Sue and the Op notices that the apartment didn't have any evidence to suggest a woman lived there. Joe brings in a woman (played marvelously by Laura San Giacomo) who introduces herself as Sue. However, the Op has a picture of Sue with him and remarks that there's no way Sue's nose could have gotten large enough to match the woman in front of him.

Caught in the act, the two crooks try to play it cool, and Joe claims he doesn't know Sue and just got the info about the Hamilton fortune from "a fella named Kenny". The Op isn't convinced of this Kenny fellow and reminds them that they are guilty of conspiracy to defraud. However, finding Sue is much more important to him than busting Joe and Peggy for conspiracy to defraud, so he convinces the Peggy to give him Sue's current location to avoid jail time. Apparently, Sue is still living with Babe. The Op calls in for fellow detective McMahon to keep an eye on the two crooks while he checks out the address.

No one answers the door at Babe's apartment, so the landlady lets the Op in. However, they find Sue's bruised dead body lying on the bed. While the landlady leaves to phone the police, the Op snoops the apartment and finds the book The Count of Monte Cristo tucked behind the kitchen stove. Inside the book, he discovers several sheets of arsenic fly paper. So the Op suspects she died of arsenic poisoning.

The Op returns to Joe's apartment with this new information. McMahon takes Peggy into the other room while the Op questions Joe some more. The Op challenges Joe: "you stumbled in sending the telegram AFTER the murder" and Joe responds "he's dead?", to which the Op asks "who's dead?" After tricking him, the Op tells Joe of Sue's death and Joe figures out that he's a suspect in the murder so he comes clean. He and Sue were having an affair and Babe was icredibly jealous. So Joe made a run for some of Hamilton's money so he and Sue could be safe and run away together. Just then, Babe appears on the fireplace and shoots through the glass window, killing Joe. The Op chases after Babe, but he gets away.

That night, the autopsy reveals that Sue died of chronic arsenic poisoning ("chronic? little by little, not all in one lump" the Op reasons). The Op and some officers interrogate Peggy at the police station, tricking her into thinking they suspect her of murdering Sue out of jealousy for her affair with Joe. Peggy reveals that she thinks Babe probably killed Sue because he figured out Joe and Sue were leaving together. Peggy didn't mind because she was cut in on the deal and she and Joe were just using Sue for her family's money. When asked how Babe would have killed Sue, Peggy tells them that since he's the violent type, he would have killed her with his hands. When confronted with the arsenic poisoning via fly paper, Peggy breaks down. She says she bought some a few months ago at Joe's request and that when she asked him about it, Joe laughed and said needed it to "make angels".

Just then, the police receive a call letting them know that Babe has been spotted downtown. The police and detectives drive downtown. While driving through the city, Babe (armed with a gun) demands that the Op stop his car. While the Op and fellow detective get out of the car, they attempt to foil his carjacking. Babe tries to get away and the Op chases him through an alley, dodging the bullets Babe fires at him. The Op finally threatens to shoot Babe, who has run out of ammunition. Babe doesn't think the Op will actually shoot him and threatens to beat him. "If I can't pop your kneecaps from here, you're welcome to me" the Op offers. Babe takes him up on the offer and charges at the Op, who makes good on his offer. With his knees shot, Babe confesses that he shot Joe because Joe was responsible for Sue's death. When asked how he knew of Joe's guilt, Babe reveals that Sue came down sick a few weeks ago, but wouldn't let Babe get a doctor. She kept getting worse and revealed she'd been poisoned by Joe, cursing him as she died.

The next day, the Op talks to his boss at the Agency, trying to figure everything out. He can't understand why the fly paper would be hidden behind the kitchen stove ("no one would hide something from a woman in her own kitchen"). Besides, when the Op had confronted Joe about the murder, Joe thought Babe was dead. As if the fly paper was meant for Babe. But why would it have been found in Sue's hair and killed her? Running through the Count of Monte Cristo, the detectives find a passage that proposes how to kill someone with arsenic without anyone suspecting. The book proposes that if one were to take a milligram of arsenic every day over a month, the person would have cumulatively taken a dose strong enough to kill a person, but would have built up an immunity. Thus, the person could then drink a larger dose from the same water source as the victim, which would kill the victim but not the murderer due to the immunity. So that's it, that was how Sue and Joe had planned to kill Babe. And Sue died trying to build up an immunity because you can't build a tolerance to arsenic. Thus, she slowly poisoned herself without realizing it, and then cursed Joe for his stupid idea.

The other detective laments it's too bad they can't convict Babe for the murders of Joe AND Sue. "You can only hang him once" the Op replies.