Faces for Radio

[captainsblog]

It's weird, reading about this after just watching Cheers yesterday for the first time in an age (during a rain delay), but the Car Guys, famed for their NPR radio show, are taking a crack at public television:

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers of NPR's "Car Talk" fame, are just two low-ego lugs. That's why -- familiar self-deprecating shtick aside -- the boys' ambivalence about their new public television series rings seriously true.

 "I hope that people look at it mercifully," says the younger, stockier, talkier Ray (Clack) about "As the Wrench Turns," a half-hour series that wraps social and environmental messages inside an animated sitcom.

Premiering 8 p.m. EDT Wednesday (check local listings) on PBS, the show follows Click and Clack's exploits co-hosting a nationally syndicated radio show and running a car repair shop that mirrors their real-life Good News Garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The show will air in two-episode blocks for five weeks.

Unmentioned in that story, and in any other I can google except one, is the connection to Cheers. No, it's not just that they're both from Boston. Since the Puzzler's on summer vacation, I'll offer this up as mine for the week. What's the connection between Tom and Ray and Sam and Diane? The icon is not a hint.