Okay, Two Things

First, you're wrong to write that "excessive laughter" was the sin of which BJ's "dangerous crowd" was guilty. It was the volume of the laughter, not the quantity, that was imagined to be the problem -- a transgression on which many parents might well take a harder line, particularly if they were talking on the phone or something while the overly-loud laughter was taking place.

Second, I just listened to the sax solo on Thunder Road, and don't agree. Maybe it's only because, like all the best Clarence solos, it seems to re-capitulate -- and to make abstract -- all the longing and hope we've just heard spelled out very concretely in the body of the song (the far, far better example of this is on Jungleland). But whatever the reason, it just has more soul than any TV theme-song, 1000 jumping Japanese or no.

Gabe replies: Predictably, my eagerness to work in the bit about the 1,000 Japanese men has confused my point, which was not that the sax on "Thunder Road" is cheesy but that Mike Post is awesome. Have you listened to "Hill Street Blues" lately? Soul on a roll (but you treat it like soap on a rope).