| Tenspeed and Brown Shoe | |
|---|---|
Tenspeed and Brown Shoe title screen |
|
| Genre | Detective fiction/Comedy |
| Created by | Stephen J. Cannell |
| Starring | Ben Vereen Jeff Goldblum |
| Composer(s) | Pete Carpenter Mike Post |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 14 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Stephen J. Cannell |
| Producer(s) | Juanita Bartlett Alex Beaton Chuck Bowman |
| Running time | approx. 50 minutes (per episode) |
| Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | January 27, 1980 – June 27, 1980 |
Tenspeed and Brown Shoe is an American detective/comedy series originally broadcast by the ABC network between January through June 1980. The series was created and executive produced by Stephen J. Cannell.
Contents |
The one-hour program revolved around two detectives who had their own detective agency in Los Angeles. E. L. ("Early Leroy") "Tenspeed" Turner (Ben Vereen) was a hustler who worked as a detective to satisfy his parole requirements. His partner Lionel "Brownshoe" Whitney (Jeff Goldblum) was an archetypal accountant, complete with button-down collars and a nagging fiancee (at least for the pilot episode), who had always wanted to be a 1940s-style Bogart P.I. (A running joke was his penchant for hard-boiled crime novels written by an author who just happened to look like Stephen Cannell, with Goldblum reading particularly purple passages in voice-over.) He was sharper than he seemed, although a little naïve and more reasonable than his career path demanded, and had picked up karate to Black Belt standard.
This was the first series to come from Stephen J. Cannell Productions as an independent company (it was distributed through Paramount Television, one of only two such collaborations - the other was Riptide) and is also the only one not to carry the famed Cannell logo on any episodes, having "A Stephen J. Cannell Production" appearing in-credit (the logo was introduced in 1981 when The Greatest American Hero began airing.) It was heavily promoted by ABC at the time it premiered in late January 1980. The series attracted a substantial audience for its first few episodes (indeed, the series was the 29th most-watched program of the 1979–80 U.S. television season, according to Nielsen ratings), but viewership dropped off substantially after that and the series was not renewed for the 1980–81 season.[1]
The show had broad similarities to the later television series Simon & Simon and Moonlighting, in that it was a lightly dramatic program with many comedic moments about two dissimilar detectives who attempt to solve cases together. Cannell recycled the basic idea of Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (a crime-solver on the right side of the law working with and taking responsibility for the rehabilitation of an ex-criminal) in watered-down form as the successful Hardcastle and McCormick.
| № | Title | Directed by: | Written by: | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Tenspeed and Brownshoe (Part 1)" | E.W. Swackhamer | Stephen J. Cannell | January 27, 1980 |
| E.L. is out of prison and quickly involved in a new scam - stealing a million dollars from the Mob. Unfortunately, he's unaware that the Mob got it from fencing Nazi diamonds. Meanwhile, accountant Lionel Whitney is in town to get married to his dominating fiance, and quickly finds his plans gone awry when Tenspeed hides the diamonds in his limousine. Both groups are now after both him and Tenspeed. | ||||
| 2 | "Tenspeed and Brownshoe (Part 2)" | E.W. Swackhamer | Stephen J. Cannell | January 27, 1980 |
| Lionel finds himself being pursued by Nazis and mobsters who are after the diamonds that Tenspeed hid on him. Lionel manages to talk Tenspeed into doing the right thing by appealing to his conscience (such as it is) and running a scam to get everyone arrested. With Tenspeed out on parole and needing a job, Lionel decides to finance a new detective agency with the reward money to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a hard-boiled detective. | ||||
| 3 | "Robin Tucker's Roseland Roof and Ballroom Murders" | Arnold Laven | Stephen J. Cannell | February 3, 1980 |
| Lionel and E.L. form a detective agency and get their first case: an unidentified man who is willing to pay lots of money to find a woman. | ||||
| 4 | "Savage Says: There's No Free Lunch" | John Patterson | Stephen J. Cannell | February 10, 1980 |
| Lionel takes a fancy to a client who claims someone is trying to kill her and then leads Lionel and E.L. around in circles while putting killers on their trail. | ||||
| 5 | "Savage Says: What are Friends For?" | Reza Badiyi | Shel Willens | March 2, 1980 |
| Lionel and E.L. must deal with a motorcycle gang when a nervous stockbroker asks Lionel to check out two of his clients who threatened him when he asked them for needed tax information. | ||||
| 6 | "The Sixteen Byte Data Chip and the Brown-eyed Fox" | Arnold Laven | Rudolph Bongheri | March 9, 1980 |
| Pressure is put on Lionel and E.L. to create a phony investigation for their client: a woman looking for her missing brother who was working on a super computer. | ||||
| 7 | "The Millionaire's Life" | Georg Stanford Brown | Stephen J. Cannell | March 16, 1980 |
| When E.L. uses a con to collect the rent money, he picks the wrong mark and gets himself and Lionel involved with the mob. | ||||
| 8 | "Savage Says: The Most Dangerous Bird is the Jailbird" | Reza Badiyi | Stephen J. Cannell | March 23, 1980 |
| A mobster goes after Lionel and E.L. after they help his girl friend dump him so she can run off with a lounge singer. | ||||
| 9 | "It's Easier to Pass an Elephant Through the Eye of a Needle Than a Bad Check in Bel Air" | Ivan Dixon | Juanita Bartlett | March 30, 1980 |
| E.L.'s nephew's appearance is concurrent with that of thugs who are after a book which E.L. knows nothing about. | ||||
| 10 | "Loose Larry's List of Losers" | Rod Holcomb | Stephen J. Cannell | May 20, 1980 |
| Lionel receives a hot birthday present from E.L., while E.L.'s probation officer is trying to find a way to get E.L. put back in prison. | ||||
| 11 | "This One's Gonna Kill Ya" | Stephen J. Cannell | Stephen J. Cannell | June 6, 1980 |
| Someone tries to kill Lionel and E.L. after Lionel decides to solve a forty-year-old murder case involving a celebrated beauty queen. | ||||
| 12 | "Untitled" | Rod Holcomb | Stephen J. Cannell, Juanita Bartlett |
June 13, 1980 |
| E.L. comes up with a get rich quick scheme when he learns that the Agency's cleaning lady is a descendant of the Russian royal family. | ||||
| 13 | "The Treasure of Sierra Madre Street" | Harry Winer | Gordon T. Dawson | June 20, 1980 |
| Lionel and E.L. set out to discover if a "random" killing by a mental patient was in fact the work of a hired killer. | ||||
| 14 | "Diamonds Aren't Forever" | Chuck Bowman | Juanita Bartlett | June 27, 1980 |
| E.L. helps Lionel impress his visiting parents by arranging for him to gain access to a luxurious office, belonging to diamond thieves, which Lionel can claim as his own. | ||||
On March 9, 2010, Mill Creek Entertainment released Tenspeed and Brown Shoe on DVD in Region 1 for the first time. Because CBS who held ownership of the pilot refused to come to an arrangement on its use, MCI revealed in January 2010 that it will not be present on the DVD. [1]
| Year | Award | Result | Category | Recipient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Edgar Award | Nominated | Best Television Episode | Stephen J. Cannell (For episode "Tenspeed and Brown Shoe") |
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