The character of Jim Ignatowski on the television show Taxi is a comic character with an underlying sense of the tragic. His life has changed greatly over its course, and his behavior in the present is the result of the excessive use of drugs in the sixties. He was the scion of a wealthy family--he has changed his last name so he is no longer directly associated with the family--and was a student at an Ivy League university. He became part of the counter-culture, and much of his behavior today can be seen as a continuation of counter-culture attitudes some time after that movement dissipated. Jim is thus a throwback in some ways, and he also has flashbacks to that time. He has commented on some of these flashbacks brought about by recurring drug episodes.
Jim's thinking processes have been slowed. He is a good-hearted man, but he is puzzled by much of what goes on around him because he cannot quite grasp the meaning of things in the world today. He has a streak of hero-worship in him. He does not see other people's faults but their good points, and this is why he is so accepting of the behavior of the basically slimy Louis di Palma, who takes advantage of Jim's good nature at every opportunity. The characterization of Jim has changed during the course of the show. When first encountered, he was a preacher in a hippie-type church--his sixties characteristics were stronger then. Later, he would become a cab driver and would be more slow than counter-culture. Yet, he is able to function moderately well in the world, able to make a living for himself, and able to interact with other people in a meaningful way.
He has forgotten much of his earlier life and what he was like then. He has become a different person, less ambitious, more open to other people, and yet unable to function in the higher social strata from which he has come. There is much in Jim that is reminiscent of the main character in Being There or even...