Taxi was an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC, and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC. The series focused on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers working for the Sunshine Cab Company, as well as their abusive dispatcher. The show was produced by the John Charles Walters Company and funded by Paramount.

A non-fiction article entitled "Hip-Shifting for the Night Fleet" by Mark Jacobson, which appeared in the September 22, 1975 issue of New York magazine, helped suggest the idea for the show to James L. Brooks and David Davis, though nothing from it was actually used.The article was a profile of several drivers who worked the night shift for a New York cab company. (A persistent urban legend claims that the show was based on the Harry Chapin song, "Taxi".)

The opening titles show a cab driving across the Queensboro Bridge. The footage was originally intended to be a "bridge" between scenes and is only about fifteen seconds long. Parts of it are subtly repeated a couple of times to accommodate the entire credits. Tony Danza drove the cab in the sequence. He was already in New York in order to shoot a scene that would air in the first season finale. It ended up being the only scene in the whole series actually filmed in New York.

The external shot of the Sunshine Cab Company was an actual garage in New York's West Village. The building has since been demolished. The site now contains an apartment building and a Rite Aid.

"Angela", the show's instrumental theme song, was written and performed by Bob James. It was originally written for a sequence in the second episode, but producers liked it better than the original, more uptempo opening theme.

Bob James (born December 25, 1939) is a two-time Grammy Award-winning smooth jazz keyboardist, arranger and producer.

During the 1970s, Bob James played a major role in turning fusion jazz more mainstream. "Angela", the instrumental theme from the sitcom Taxi, is probably Bob James' most well-known work to date. For their first joint album release, One on One, Earl Klugh and Bob James received a Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1981. James is the founding member of smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay and is a Yamaha Artist.

Very influenced by pop and movie music, James has often featured soloists, who add a jazz touch to his sound (most notably Grover Washington, Jr.). While best known for his fusion sound, James began In 1962, recording a bop-ish trio set for Mercury, and three years later his album for ESP was quite avant-garde, with electronic tapes used for effects. After a period with Sarah Vaughan (1965-1968), he became a studio musician, and by 1973 was arranging and working as a producer for CTI. In 1974, James recorded his first purely commercial effort as a leader; he later made big-selling albums for his own Tappan Zee label, Columbia, and Warner Bros., including collborations with Earl Klugh and David Sanborn.

Two of James' songs - "Nautilus" from 1974's One and "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" from 1975's Two - are among the most sampled in Hip-Hop history. "Nautilus" has been most famously sampled in Slick Rick's "Children's Story", Eric B. & Rakim's "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em", and Run-D.M.C.'s "Beats to the Rhyme". "Nautilus" was also featured in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The first four measures of "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" (a Paul Simon original) includes a bell and drum groove that (next to James Brown's "Funky Drummer") is perhaps Hip-Hop's most fundamental break-beat. Run DMC's "Peter Piper", L.L. Cool J's "Rock the Bells", Beastie Boys' "Hold it Now, Hit it", and most recently Missy Elliot's "Work It" are indebted to Arthur Jenkins’s percussion work and the drumming of Steve Gadd.