Tenspeed and Brown Shoe is an American detective comedy series originally broadcast by the ABC network between January and June 1980.

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.

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 in each episode.

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.

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.

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.

Also starring: Larry Manetti, Robyn Douglass, Richard Romanus, Robert Webber, Jayne Meadows and Peter Brocco.

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.