Tenspeed and Brown Shoe is an American detectivecomedy series originally broadcast by the ABC network between January and June 1980. The series was created by executive producer Stephen J. Cannell. Most of the show's creative staff (Cannell, Juanita Bartlett, Gordon T. Dawson) were veterans of the private detective series The Rockford Files, which concluded its run about two weeks before Tenspeed and Brown Shoe debuted.
Plot
The one-hour program revolved around two private detectives who had their own detective agency in Los Angeles. E. L. (Early Leroy) "Tenspeed" Turner (Ben Vereen) is a hustler who worked as a private detective to satisfy his parole requirements. His partner Lionel "Brownshoe" Whitney (Jeff Goldblum) is an archetypal accountant, complete with button-down collars and a nagging fiancee (in the pilot episode), who had always wanted to be a 1940s-style Bogart private investigator. A running joke was his penchant for reading a series of hard-boiled crime novels, subtitled "A Mark Savage Mystery", written by Stephen J. Cannell (in-universe; Cannell wrote the quoted bits but not a real-life series of actual novels), with Goldblum reading some passages in voice-over. But Brownshoe was sharper than he seemed (albeit a little naïve) and more reasonable than his career path demanded; he had even received a black belt in karate.
This was the first series to come from Stephen J. Cannell Productions as an independent company. It 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 not introduced until 1981, when The Greatest American Hero began airing).
The show had broad similarities to the later television series Simon & Simon and Moonlighting, in that it was a lightly dramatic program with many comic moments about two dissimilar detectives who attempt to solve cases together. Cannell later 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) as the successful Hardcastle and McCormick.
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 marry his domineering fiancée, and quickly finds his plans have gone awry when Tenspeed hides the diamonds in his limousine. Both groups are now after both him and Tenspeed. 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 fulfil his lifelong dream of being a hard-boiled detective.
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.
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.
"The Sixteen Byte Data Chip and the Brown-Eyed Fox"
Arnold Laven
Rudolph Bongheri
March 9, 1980 (1980-03-09)
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.
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.
The show 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 (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]
Home media
On March 9, 2010, Mill Creek Entertainment released Tenspeed and Brown Shoe on DVD in Region 1 for the first time. Because CBS, which held ownership of the pilot, refused to come to an agreement on its use, MCI revealed in January 2010 that it would not be included on the DVD.[2] However, the full-length pilot is included in the German DVD release.
