Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.10 “Wine Time”

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, it’s hard to win a game when you’re star players are in jail.

Episode 1.10 “Wine Time”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on January 27th, 1985)

When the Bulls are cheated by a fake vineyard owner named Jacques St. George (Peter Elbling), Bubba and Jethro (Cliff Frazier) end up in prison for attacking him. Jethro is surprised to discover that their cellmate is an old friend of his named Mike (Eddie Bell). Mike wears a long blonde wig and a dress. Jethro doesn’t know what to make of it. Mike explains that he likes “dressing like this” and says it’s no different from how much Jethro enjoys playing football.

Meanwhile, Diane is desperate to get Bubba and Jethro out of jail in time for their next game. She even goes to Arcola Brothers for help but, in the end, she decides that she can’t compromise her morals by accepting favors from gangsters. The team plays with Jethro and Bubba. The team loses.

Meanwhile, Dr. Death (Donald Gibb) and Otis (Tiny Lister), two defensive backs, go to the hospital and threaten to toss Jacques out of a window until he agrees to drop the charges.

This episode actually had a few amusing moments, mostly due to the performances of Gibb and Lister. I appreciated the fact that the team lost the game as opposed to pulling off some sort of last minute miracle. Diane refused to compromise her principles and that’s a good thing. But her solution was still basically to allow Dr. Death and Otis to threaten to kill a guy. This episode sent some very mixed messages.

I will say this. Michael V. Gazzo’s performance as Sal Arcola is one of the few things that I consistently enjoy about this show. A playwright, Gazzo had a pretty good side career going as a movie and television mobster. He’ll always be best remembered for playing Frankie in The Godfather, Part II. 1st & Ten is no Godfather but Gazzo is always entertaining.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & 10 1.8 “The Sins of the Quarterback”

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Bryce Smith finally takes the field!

Episode 1.8 “The Sins of the Quarterback”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on January 13th, 1985)

During a game against the — oh come on! — Atlanta Confederates, Bob Dorsey is sacked and knocked unconscious. Ultra-religious backup quarterback Bryce Smith (Jeff East) is sent in to replace him. Bryce throws an amazing pass across the entire field that is somewhat caught for a touchdown. The Bulls win!

The defensive players celebrate by grabbing Bryce forcing liquor down his throat. Bryce is a Mormon and a graduate of BYU. Bryce gets drunk easily. After the rest of the players leave the locker room, a barely coherent Bryce is approached by cheerleader Tammy Baker (Pamela Jean Bryant) who says that she is God’s gift to him. The scene ends rather abruptly, I assume because this episode was heavily edited for syndication.

A week later, an excited Tammy approaches Bryce at a roast honoring the team. She tells him that she’s pregnant! She’s super-excited! Bryce, however, is shaken and — after a fantasy sequence set in the Garden of Eden — Bryce announces that he is retiring from football and going to Tibet to become a monk. Why would a Mormon go to Tibet to become a monk?

Well, I guess the team is screwed! Bob Dorsey still isn’t ready to come back and the third-string quarterback can barely throw the ball. However, Bryce’s wife comes to the rescue. She forgives Bryce for cheating and she also invites Tammy to come live with them. Bryce can continue to play football!

Denardo, however, doubts that Bryce is the one who impregnated Tammy. He demands that every other player who had sex with Tammy raise their hand. Nearly every hand in the locker room goes up. Bryce worries that everyone is going to have to move in with him and his wife….

Okay, then! It’s hard to review this episode because, again, it’s obvious that the racy, original episode (the one that aired on HBO) was heavily edited for syndication. The version that I saw featured a lot of abrupt jump cuts. The story itself was fairly dumb but that’s kind of a given when it comes to this show. I’ll give some credit to Jeff East. He was far better than the material he had to work with.

Myself, I’m just amazed that this show featured a team called the Atlanta Confederates. I’m going to assume that team eventually changed their name.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.7 “Uneasy Lies The Head”

Posted on August 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Coach Denardo has a bad dream and put the future of the Bulls in jeopardy.

Episode 1.7 “Uneasy Lies The Head”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on January 6th, 1985)

After having a nightmare in which the members of the Bulls all appear as parts of his failing body and a demonic linebacker (Donald Gibb) and a saintly quarterback (Jeff East) tell him that he has to decide whether he wants to go to Heaven or Hell, Coach Denardo fears that his time is up.

At the next game, Denardo is distracted. He calls the last time out, not realizing that he doesn’t have any left. The clocks runs out while the Bulls are trying to get set up for field goal. “Time out! Time out!” Denardo yells. “You have no time left, coach,” the referee replies, which is maybe not the best way to speak to a man recovering from a heart attack. As for the game, it’s a humiliating loss. Denardo says that he might have to retire….

Yeah, that sounds about right. I don’t know much about football but I can tell that Denardo made a lot of mistakes in the course of just two minutes. Get that old man out there! Heck, just let Diane coach like she did last week….

Diane decides to trick Denardo into staying. She rolls a really old computer out during practice and lets it call the plays. Denardo gets angry. No machine is going to replace Ernie Denardo!

Meanwhile, Bubba (Prince Hughes) upsets his mother-in-law.

Seriously, that’s the entire episode. That’s all that happens. I know it doesn’t sound like much but what can I tell you? I sat through this and spent the whole time wondering when the episode’s actual story was going to start and it really didn’t. Denardo had a bad dream. Bubba upset his mother-in-law. That’s it.

This episode was forgettable. Diane should have fired Denardo after that loss. I fear the Bulls aren’t going to make it to whatever this show’s version of the Super Bowl is.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.6 “You Are Who You Eat”

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Diana makes history!

Episode 1.6 “You Are Who You Eat”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 30th, 1984)

Coach Denardo has a heart attack and is laid up in the hospital. It looks like Diane is going to have to coach the team!

Wait? What?

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about football but I do know that there is such a thing as an assistant coach. And there’s also coordinators. There’s a lot of coordinators and a lot of assistants and I imagine that a part of their job entails coaching whenever the head coach is in the hospital. So, I’m not really sure how this episode went from “Coach Denardo can’t coach this weekend” to “The owner is going to have to do it!”

Still, Diana ends up on the sidelines as the “first female head coach in history!” I remember that a few Super Bowls ago, they made a big deal about one of the teams having a female assistant coach and I was like, “Well, they better win or they’re never going to hire another woman.” I think the team lost. I don’t really follow football.

Anyway, Coach Denardo is on the phone with Diana for most of the game but, towards the end of the game, the connection goes down. Denardo runs out of his hospital in his hospital gown and takes a taxi to the stadium. Luckily, even without his help, Diana knew exactly which play to call and the Bulls win another game.

Yay, I guess. This episode was pretty dumb. If I was coaching a football team, I would just be like, “Have that guy run to the touchdown area and then throw him the ball.” I think we would win easily.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.5 “Play Me Or Trade Me”

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, an injury leads to the promise of sex …. or does it?

Episode 1.5 “Play Me Or Trade Me”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 23rd, 1984)

Carl Whitherspoon, the star running back who is always demanding more money, is injured while filming a commercial for a rental car company. (“Call OJ,” the commercial’s director says when it becomes obvious that Carl won’t be able to jump over any more luggage.) The Bulls are struggling and Coach Denardo wants a championship but his star player is out for four weeks!

It’s time to trade! Unfortunately, the only way that the Bulls are going to be able to get the running back they want is by trading their aging quarterback, Bob Dorsey. Dana is upset about losing Bob but then she realizes she can finally have sex with him if he’s no longer a Bull and she decides that she’s okay with the trade.

But then the running back that the Bulls were hoping to trade for is injured so the trade is called off. So, Dana can’t have sex with Bob. But Bob still leads the team to victory. Actually, the team wins because Bubba (Prince Hughes) blocks a field goal with his oversized ass. (That’s not me being rude. Bubba’s weight and the size of his ass is a running theme on this show.) The Bulls are now 5-3 and I guess they don’t need a running back after all.

The main theme of this episode seemed to be that Dana needs to get laid. I liked the chemistry between Delta Burke and Geoffrey Scott. And the scene where Carl injured himself made me laugh just because of Sam Scarber’s over-the-top facial expressions as he crashed into a table. Otherwise, this episode was pretty forgettable.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.4 “The Slump”

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, cocaine comes to the locker room. Actually, cocaine was probably already there. Now, there’s more cocaine. Football, right?

Anyway….

Episode 1.4 “The Slump”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 16th, 1984)

This week’s episode starts off with some full front nudity as wide receiver Mace Petty (Marshall R. Teague) takes a shower with a blonde woman. Suddenly, a bearded man steps into the shower, accuses Mace of seducing his wife, and points a gun at him. OH MY GOD, IS MACE GOING TO DIE!? (And who is Mace, anyway?)

Oh wait, it’s a prop gun. Ha ha, it’s practical joke. Those crazy Bulls.

With the required HBO nudity out of the way, the plot kicks off. The Bulls are in a slump. They’ve lost their past two games! In order to turn things around, Diane makes a trade for a talented wide receiver. (Ha! TAKE THAT, MACE!) Butch Cassidy (Michael Toland) may be a good athlete but guess who has a cocaine addiction!? Butch is soon snorting in the men’s room. When he has to take a drug test, he uses a groupie’s urine instead. When the results come back, it’s announced that Butch is pregnant. Butch is kicked off the team. Maybe the Sundance Kid can take his place….

The good news is that The Bulls still win their next game, breaking the slump. And Bob Dorsey earns Diana’s trust by telling her that Butch has a drug problem. And the Arcola Brothers attempt to keep the Bulls from serving beer at the stadium is thwarted when Diana has a bunch of helicopter fly in the beer. (That way, no one has to cross the picket line that the Arcolas have set up outside the stadium.) Finally, Carl Witherspoon gets a new contract and the rest of the team gets jealous because Carl is now a “millionaire” but then Carl points out that he’s a terrible negotiator and he actually got screwed over on the contract. He then agrees to take the team to Hawaii. No wonder they won that game!

This episode was actually better than the previous three. That doesn’t mean it was particularly good but still it wasn’t terrible. (And that’s what we mean by “damning by faint praise.”) If nothing else, Michael Toland gave a good performance as the cocky but self-destructive Butch Cassidy. I also kind of like the chemistry between Geoffrey Scott and Delta Burke. They’re good together. As far as episodes of bad shows go, this was a good one.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.3 “All Roads Lead To Dayton”

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Bulls are on the road!

Episode 1.3 “All Roads Lead to Dayton”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 9th, 1984)

The Bulls are playing their second game in Dayton! It’s a road game and Coach Denardo tells all of the players that they are expected to conduct themselves like gentlemen on the road.

“Booooo!” the team replies.

Denardo replies, “I know but the owner’s a broad now….”

Speaking of Dana Barrow, she has a lot to deal with. The Arcola Brothers are still trying to muscle their way into the team’s business. Meanwhile, her ex-husband, Paul (now played by Ben Cooper), is determined to get his team back. At the hotel in Dayton, he and his sleazy lawyer arrange for Dana’s drink to be drugged so that the hotel’s assistant manager can rape Dana while being filmed by a camera hidden behind a two-way mirror. They plan to leak the tape to the press and claim that Dana is a nymphomaniac who shouldn’t be allowed to own an NFL team. Fortunately, quarterback Bob Dorsey stops by Dana’s hotel room to discuss an offer he’s gotten to become a sports commentator and he proceeds to beat the hell out of the assistant manager, shatter the mirror, and give the camera the finger. And he wins the game!

Take that, Dayton!

He even scores an extra touchdown, just so the Mafia won’t make any money on their bets.

Take that, Arcola Brothers!

The episodes of 1st & Ten that are on Tubi are apparently a combination of episodes that were edited for syndication and the original HBO episodes. The version that I saw of All Roads to Dayton was clearly the HBO original, as there was significant amount of cursing and quite a bit of nudity. I get the feeling that those were the two main reasons that 1st and Ten found success when it first aired. It certainly wasn’t for the acting or the storylines, neither of which were especially noteworthy. That said, I’m from Dallas and I’ve heard all the stories about the Cowboys and Jerry Jones so I imagine that this episode’s depiction of a football team on a road trip was probably fairly tame when compared to the real thing.

As for this episode, Dana was a bit too naive to be believed. Delta Burke actually gives a good performance as Dana but the scripts continually let her down. We’re only three episodes in and Roger, the team’s general manager, has planted drugs in her house, caused Bob to get seriously injured during practice, and drugged her so that she could be raped in her hotel room. I would seriously be looking for a new general manager at this point. On the plus side, I do like Geoffrey Scott’s performance as Bob Dorsey. He’s charming without being smarmy about it.

Next week …. more football stuff, I guess.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & 10 1.2 “The Opener”

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the football season begins!

Episode 1.2 “The Opener”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 2nd, 1984)

The opening game of the season is approaching. The Bulls have trader their former quarterback (who was played, briefly, by Robert Logan in the pilot) for a new quarterback, Bob D0rsey (Geoffrey Scott). Bob Dorsey is a notorious womanizer and a veteran player with a strong arm and a bad knee. So, basically, he’s just like their former quarterback except he’s played by Geoffrey Scott instead of Robert Logan.

Dana has decided that Bob will start on opening day, instead of the quarterback that they drafted out of BYU, the ultra-religious Bryce Smith (Jeff East). (Opening Day, quarterback, drafted — look at me using all the football terminology!) Bryce is fine with not starting because he feels that it is God’s will for Bob to start.

However, the Mafia (represented by Michael V. Gazzo and Robert Miranda) is not happy! It turns out that general manager Roger Barrow has been doing business with the Arcola Brothers. He’s been giving them tickets and allowing the Arcolas to scalp them in return for a 20% commission. Dana puts an end to that, saying that all the tickets will now be sold through the box office as opposed to being held for VIPs. The Mafia wants Roger to make sure that Bob does not start. Roger convinces one of the other players to injure Bob during practice so that Bryce will be the starter.

Uh-oh! Bob injures his knee. Bryce is going to have to play …. except, right before the team hits the field, the team doctor suddenly says that Bob’s knee is at 80% and he can play if he wants to. Of course, Bob wants to! Bob takes the field and, after several minutes of stock footage, we’re told that the Bulls have won the game.

This show feels so strange. On the one hand, I get the feeling that this episode probably was realistic about the physical toll that playing football takes on a player. Bob is 35 and can barely walk. I imagine that the episode’s portrayal of the locker room being a mx of stupidity and testosterone was probably accurate as well. I’ll even give the episode credit for showing that all of the players resent the team’s owner and that Coach Denardo uses that to his advantage when it comes to motivating them. Everyone — well, almost everyone — resents their boss. (Not me! I love everyone I’ve ever worked with!)

On the other hand, the first two episodes have been so low-budget that it appears there’s only five or six players on the team and the mix of comedy and drama feels rather awkward. Dana’s friend Mona (Ruta Lee) starts drinking in the morning and tossing out pithy one liners. Meanwhile, the Mafia is threatening to kill Roger. It really doesn’t fit together. The whole thing just looks and feels cheap.

But, hey, the Bulls won! Good for them!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.1 “By The Bulls”

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For a few years now, first Prime and now Tubi have been recommending that I watch a sitcom called 1st & Ten.

My initial reaction, upon looking the show up online and discovering that it was about a football team that was owned by a woman and coached (from the second season on) by OJ Simpson, was to say, “Why would I want to watch this?” And, to be honest, that’s still kind of my reaction. Football is not my thing. The only thing that is less my thing than football is soccer.

(“But in the rest of the world, soccer is called….” Yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t care.)

But then I read on and discovered that this is actually a historically significant show in that it was HBO’s first attempt to produce an original sitcom. It was later sold into syndication, with all of the cursing and nudity edited out. (Apparently, most of the episodes that are currently on Tubi are the edited syndication versions.) That piqued my interest. I may not care about football but I love historical footnotes.

So, without further ado, let’s get things started.

Episode 1.1 “By The Bulls”

(Dir by Rod Daniel, originally aired on December 2nd, 1984)

The show begins as wealthy Diane Barrow (Delta Burke) comes home to her mansion and discovers her husband, naked in their bedroom with another man. “This is Ty Tylor,” her husband says, “he’s a tight end.”

“I bet he is!” Diane replies.

Later, while talking to her divorce lawyer (Earl Boen), Diane announces, “I want his Bulls!”

“You want his….?” the lawyer replies, glancing down at his crotch.

No, Diane doesn’t want his balls She wants the Los Angeles Bulls, the football team that he owns. When the lawyer replies that Diane’s husband loves the Bulls, Diane announces that if she doesn’t get the football team, she’ll let the world know that her husband’s gay.

(It’s the 1980s, folks.)

Diane gets the Bulls and she also gets a lot of attention due to being apparently the only woman to ever own a football team. Everyone doubts her but Diane is determined to prove herself. However, her sniveling general manager (and her husband’s nephew), Roger Barrow (Clayton Landey), tries to end her ownership before the season even begins by planting cocaine in her mansion, His plan is that, during the pre-season party, one of the players will snort the cocaine and …. I don’t know. I guess he’s hoping some will call the police or something. It doesn’t seem like much of a plan, to be honest.

Fortunately, veteran Coach Ernie Denardo (Reid Scott) hears about the plan from a friend of his so he rushes over to the party and gets rid of the cocaine, though not before letting Diane know that she has powerful enemies. That was nice of him since Diane previously fired him for being incompetent. Needless to say, Denardo gets his job back.

And that’s it! We did get to see a few snippets of the players, who all seem to be wild and wacky. Carl Witherspoon (Sam Scarber) shows up at the party with his lawyer and demands a lot of money. Another player, Kyle Brody (Robert Logan), tries to hit on Diane. I checked with the imdb and this is Logan’s only appearance on the show so I’m not really sure what the point of him being at the party was. It’s a pilot so I imagine that a lot of the background people in this episode will never be seen again.

Overall, my feeling about the pilot was that it …. well, it sucked. The humor fell flat. The acting was terrible. Delta Burke showed some potential as Diane but I didn’t like how, after demanding, “I want his Bulls!,” Diane suddenly became this passive character who needed Denardo to tell her about the cocaine in her mansion. But you know what? It’s always unfair to judge a show by it’s pilot. The Office, for instance, had a terrible pilot. In the end, this particular pilot did what it was supposed to do — it introduced us to the main character and it set up the premise of the show.

We’ll see if things get better in the weeks to come.