'Car Talk' Ends Its Radio Run. Here's What Ray Magliozzi Hopes You'll Remember - WBUR

Now, almost seven years after the death of Tom Magliozzi at the age of 77, his little brother Ray joined WBUR's Weekend Edition to reflect on the Car Talk era!

For the first three, four, five months, we'd see the 'On Air' light come on, and we would ask the engineer, 'So, are we on now?' And he must have said, 'Oh, my God, they are the two stupidest guys on the planet!' And after a while, you know, we knew we were doing something wrong, but it became fun to do it.

I love to laugh. And I don't know how much other families have this, but we had laughter at our table?

When you're 10 years old, how can you possibly know.

It's like, 'Oh, geez, people don't talk to each other!' Or you can just sense that tension in the room.

The talk at the dinner table was always light and fun.

Podcasts of "The Best of Car Talk" will be released twice a week, starting Oct.

And I think people listened to a large extent to see how many mistakes we'd make in a given hour.

And I think that freed up people who were listening to call and ask what people might perceive as a stupid question?

And I think that freed up people who were listening to call and ask what people might perceive as a stupid question.".

For example, a woman would call and say, 'Well, my father-in-law says that I have to warm the car up for 20 minutes.' And, you know, I think the first time or two we got that [type of] call we were very diplomatic.

You know, you don't have to tell him he's an idiot.

But no, get in the car, start it up and drive it away and and forget about it!' And then the conversation would turn to 'Well, how do we get out of this?' And then we'd say, 'Buy the Best Of Car Talk' tape, and give it to him for Christmas, and he can hear over and over again what a dope he is!'!

And so that's what Car Talk became: dispelling myths — and solving family issues?

'Well, why don't you get along with your brother-in-law, and what's his problem?' And then people would often open up because they'd start laughing, and we would laugh.

It was a way of getting people to talk about what else is going on in their lives.  .

That's what we did on Car Talk for, you know, 100 years, and it seemed to work?

What's incredible is that I would run into people who were 80 years old, and they would say, 'Oh, I've been listening to your show for 30 years.' And people will say, 'I'm 27 years old, and I've been listening since I was 7.' And I think the little kids liked it because my brother laughed like an idiot, and he laughed at everything.

I just have always felt that my mission in life is to make other people happy!

You can make other people miserable, or you make other people happy.

And if you have a chance to make other people happy, that's a lot more fun!

I got a fortune cookie with a little aphorism, and it said, 'Things work out best for those of us who make the best of the way things work out.' And I said, 'Well, that's profound!' Because most people don't think that way.

I don't know, but I think you got one shot at it

And there's no sense in being unhappy and miserable if you don't have to be. Put yourself in a situation where you can have fun and love the people that you're with

Laugh when you can, have a good time and enjoy the people around you because you know, it's a short trip