Stan Kamber | Through the Shattered Lens

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, the Bulls face a dilemma. What to do with O.J. Simpson?

Episode 2.2 “The Veterans”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 1st, 1986)

This week, veteran running back T.D. Parker (O.J. Simpson) shows up for training camp. All of the players are excited to see him. At the bar where all of the Bulls hang out, Dr. Death (Donald Gibb) announces that T.D. Parker has had over one hundred injuries over the past twelve years but he’s still the heart and the soul of the Bulls franchise. He’s the face of the team! When people think of the Los Angeles Bulls, they think of T.D. Parker slashing through the other team on his way to an ~~acquittal~~ touchdown.

Speaking as a viewer, it seems kind of strange that this is the first that I’m really hearing about the legendary T.D. Parker. Where was he last season? The Bulls went all the way to the Championship Game but I never once heard anyone mention T.D. Parker. I certainly didn’t see him in the locker room. The Bulls actually had a totally different running back named Carl Witherspoon. Oddly, Carl seems to have vanished this season….

As for T.D., his injuries are catching up with him. Denardo and Diana are forced to confront that fact that T.D. can no longer cut it. Even in practice, he’s spilling a lot of blood on the field. Denardo cuts T.D. from the team. When T.D. says that football is all that he knows, Denardo announces that T.D. may not be playing but he’ll still be on the field …. AS A COACH! T.D. looks confused. He’ll figure it out eventually, I guess.

Meanwhile, Jeff East briefly returns as quarterback Bryce Smith but just long enough to fall out of a window at training camp and bust his knee. (He was trying to keep the new kicker — a Bosnian played by future voice of the Crypt Keeper John Kassir — from sneaking out to go into town to get drunk.) Bryce is done for the season. Veteran quarterback and all-around druggie sleaze Johnny Valentine (Sam J. Jones) becomes the new starter and Tom Yinessa is brought back to be his backup. That’ll make Yinessa’s roommate (Jeff Kaake) and Yinessa’s potential girlfriend (Katherine Kelly Lang) happy.

Finally, the NFL owners don’t want to give their players a pension or a raise. They do, however, want to give them mandatory drug tests. Diana protests but she’s overruled by the other owners, all of whom are male and in their 60s. There’s a lot of toupees and cigars at the ownership meeting.

This episode was actually kind of entertaining. That’s doesn’t mean it was good. 1st & Ten isn’t a really a show that’s ever good. But this episode did feature Sam J. Jones giving a totally over the top performance as creepy quarterback Johnny Valentine. Speaking of going over the top, the same can be said of Delta Burke’s performance this season. It would appear that between seasons one and two, Burke realized there was no need to try to be in any way subtle in her line readings. That was probably the right decision.

Next week …. who knows? I’m getting a little bored with training camp so hopefully, we’ll move on!

This week, the 2nd season begins!

Episode 2.1 “The Rookies”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on August 25th, 1986)

It’s time for another season of Bulls football and …. hey, where did everyone go?

As soon as the opening credits for the first episode of the second season started, I noticed that there were quite a few people missing. Delta Burke, Reid Shelton, Prince Hughes, and Cliff Frazier were all listed. However, not listed were Geoffrey Scott, Sam Scarber, Clayton Landey, Ruta Lee, Marshall R. Teague, Michael V. Gazzo, and Robert Miranda. That’s the majority of the cast!

Instead of Geoffrey Scott’s veteran quarterback Bob Dorsey, we now have Jason Beghe as rookie quarterback Tom Yinessa. We now have Stan Kamber as assistant coach Fred Griner. We now have Marcus Allen as rookie running back Rick Lambert. And, as the veteran running back T.D. Parker, we have …. O.J. SIMPSON!

Oh yeah, this isn’t going to be awkward.

O.J, only appears for a few minutes in this episode. As T.D. Parker, he talks to his wife about how much he loves playing football and how he feels that he has one more season left in him as the Bulls’s starting running back. Uhmm …. I thought Carl Witherspoon was the Bulls’s running back. All last season, Carl was the Bulls’s running back. What the Hell is T.D. Parker talking about? Is he delusional? Maybe he’s a crazed fan who just thinks that he was the running back last year. All of that said, T.D. does come across as being a very nice guy and definitely someone who you can trust to slash his way through all of the ego and hype surrounding professional football.

(Probably not coincidentally, the other Bulls assistant coach is played by A.C. Cowlings, who was a friend of O.J.’s. Remember A.C?)

Anyway, this episode deals with rookie training camp. While the veterans get a week off, rookies like Tom Yinessa try out for the Bulls. Yinessa played football in the Army and the only reason he’s being given a tryout is because “Captain Pete” is a friend of Denardo’s. Denardo is shocked to discover that Yinessa is a good quarterback but he’s already got two veteran quarterbacks and Diana has signed a deal to bring in a third. Denardo is forced to cut Yinessa. Yinessa smashes the mirror in Denardo’s office and says that he’s done Denardo a favor because now Denardo won’t have to face what’s he done. Okay, weirdo….

Yinessa returns to his job at the auto yard and Bulls football continues! While hotshot rookie Rick Lambert continues to ask for more money before he’ll even show up at training camp, Diana is informed that the players are threating to strike if the League institutes mandatory drug testing. Diana says a strike will bankrupt the team. Why are the Bulls always on the verge of going bankrupt? Diana needs to hire better people to look after the books.

Here’s my prediction for the rest of the season! Yinessa will be back because he’s in the opening credits. And, whatever problems may come up, O.J. Simpson will always cut right to the heart of the matter.

As for this particular episode, it got the job done. It re-introduced us to the team and, even more importantly, it seemed to signal that all of the nonsense from the first season — the Mafia, Diana’s ex-husband and all the rest of it — was over with. The show is ready to move on so let’s give it more of a chance than Coach Denardo gave Tom Yinessa.