The "What are those two clowns smiling about?" Department

Bill O'Keefe and Douglas Hawke

More lameness from the House of Spelling.

In this 1983 TV flick (and failed pilot), BILL O'KEEFE (Parker Stevenson) and DOUGLAS HAWKE (Billy Dee Williams) are actors who get canned from their roles as detectives in a TV series.

It seems the star felt they were getting all the good lines, so he had their characters written out of the show. But, not content with simply getting them fired, he has them start a smear campaign, spreading allegations of drug abuse, and ensuring they'll never work in Hollywood again. (Hmmm... you ask me, these days that would probably help their careers).

So, unemployed and running out of dough, the two decide to try to make a go of it as real-life private eyes. I never saw this one, but at one point, because of the waiting period for getting a gun, they have to use a prop gun.

Oh, the hilarity. This must have been a real laugh riot.

It's mentioned in Craig Nelson's Bad TV: The Very Best of the Very Worst.

TELEVISION

• SHOOTING STARS
  (1983, ABC)
  Directed by Richard Lang
  Supervising producer: E. Duke Vincent
  Associate producer: Claudia Myhers Tschudin
  Executive producers: Douglas S. Cramer, Aaron Spelling
  Starring Parker Stevenson as BILL O'KEEFE
  and Billy Dee Williams as DOUGLAS HAWKE
  Also starring Edie Adams, Edwin Avedissian, Richard Bakalyan, Don Calfa, Kathryn Daley, Herb Edelman, David Faustino, Elizabeth Foxx, Tim Haldeman, D.D. Howard, Kathleen Lloyd, Tori Spelling, Fred Travalena, Lurene Tuttle, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Respectfully submitted by Alberta Bond.