Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get really, really silly.

Episode 3.9 “Movie Madness”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 3rd, 1990)

Fritz and Nobby are back!

Who?

Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Nobby (Avery Saltzman) are two criminals who appeared in two episode of the second season of T and T.  The first time they appeared, they pulled a gun on T.S. Turner and threatened to kill him,  The second time, they were portrayed a bit more comedically as lovable bunglers.  This third episode finds Fritz and Nobby at their most cartoonish.

Fritz wants to rob a Chinese jewelry store that happens to be right next to Decker’s gym.  So, he and Nobby walk into the gym and tell Decker that they’ve reformed and they want to shoot a boxing movie starring him.  Decker agrees to act.  (“I could have been a contender!” he announces.)  Then Terri shows up and demands to know what Fritz and Dobby are doing at the gym so they ask her if she wants to be the female lead.  (“I have always depended on strangers being kind,” she says.)  The boxing movie becomes a love story.  Then, when the gym starts shaking due to the efforts to break through the wall that the gym shares with the jewelry store, Fritz explains that they’re testing the special effects for the big earthquake scene.  It’s a boxing love story disaster film!

Where is T.S. Turner during all of this?  Well, he doesn’t show up until the final 10 minutes of the episode.  He immediately suspects that Fritz and Nobby are up to no good.  “I’m going to pull the plug on your permanently!” he growls.

One would think that Fritz and Nobby would be smart enough to get out of the gym but they still try to blow up the wall, even with Turner nearby.  That’s a big mistake as Turner proceeds to grab them and turn them over to the police.

What a weird episode.  First off, Decker has been dumb in the past but he’s never been this dumb.  Secondly, Terri apparently knows Fritz and Nobby despite the fact that she wasn’t around during the second season.  Not only has this show failed to explain why Amy is no longer on the show but it also continually acts as if Terri has always been present despite not showing up until the start of third season.  We’re just mean to accept that Teri has always been the second T in T and T.  (How Orwellian.)  Finally, T.S. Turner is absent for most of the episode.  Why would you go to the trouble to build a show around Mr. T and then not use him?

This was all pretty silly and pretty dumb, even by T and T standards.  Remember when this show at least pretended to be a crime drama?

Oh well.  There’s only a handful of episodes left!  We’ll make it.