Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, OJ’s in trouble!

Episode 3.12 “Of Scalpers and Superstars”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 9th, 1987)

O.J. Simpson gets arrested!

Okay, technically, OJ Simpson is not the one being arrested.  He’s just playing TD Parker, the Bulls’s general manager.  TD is the one who is arrested at the end of this episode after being framed for stealing 5,000 ticket to the Championship Game and selling to a ticket scalper.  Still, as is so often the case with this show, the casting of OJ Simpson does bring a while new layer to the action of meaning to the action onscreen.

Who framed TD?  The answer is Dolph Crane (Forry Smith), a former player who was cut from the team.  Dolph has never appeared on the show before but, judging from what TD says when he sees Dolph hanging around the stadium, it seems that Dolph was cut last season.  One of the things that I’ve noticed about 1st & Ten is that new characters will often pop up out of nowhere and people will act as if they’ve been there the whole time.  Dolph appears to be one of those pop-up character.  Dolph mentions that he’s now dating TD’s former mistress.  Dolph and the owner of Arizona’s team are the ones who conspire to take out TD.  Hopefully, they didn’t plant a bloody glove anywhere in the office.

The Bulls are going to the Championship Game …. again!  Maybe they’ll actually win this time.  This is their third trip to the game, after all.  It’ll be kind of sad if they win without Coach Denardo, though.  Coach Grier just isn’t as much fun as foul-mouthed Ernie Denardo.

The entire team gets mad at Yinessa.  After getting injured during a game, he decides that he needs to make as much money as possible so he allows his agent (Bobby Hosea) to promote him as being the “star” of the team.  The rest of the team feels that isn’t fair.  The thing is, though …. Yinessa is kind of the star.  He’s the quarterback.  If he has a bad day, the team doesn’t win.  The Bulls are a bunch of crybabies.  When they find out that a team music video is being reimagined as a Yinessa music video, they literally look like they’re about to break down in tears.  No wonder they always lose the Championship Game.

This episode ended wth the Bulls heads to the Championship and OJ heading to jail.  That seems about right.  Good luck to the team!