Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (TV Series)

Pilot: Part 1 (1980)

Jeff Goldblum: Lionel Whitney

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lionel Whitney : When I try, I can be very plausible.

• Lionel Whitney : I never used my karate before, Mr. Okanama says you're not supposed to use it in anger, it's a sport. I feel so guilty about that. But I'll tell you one thing, it sure works. Damn near kicked that guy into next year.

• E.L. 'Tenspeed' Turner : You know, Lionel, when I first met you I just had you figured for another Brown Shoe.

  Lionel Whitney : A brown shoe? What's a brown shoe?

  E.L. 'Tenspeed' Turner : That's a person in a three piece suit, brown shoes, dow jones square type.

  Lionel Whitney : Are you insulting me?

• Martha Gribb : It's the Minister, Lionel, he's dead.

  Lionel Whitney : That's no Minister, he's a Nazi.

• Lionel Whitney : Sir, I don't want you to think that I'm not really appreciative, but, well, you see, I've been giving the whole security business a lot of thought lately, and with a recession and all, and people sorta getting outta the stock market, I think we're looking at a whole new decade in stocks about which, well, sir, if I might speak candidly, I'm not all that optimistic.

  Herman LaCross : Bull! When the going gets rough, the dress clerks jump out, the tigers jump in and take the profits. Now it's been that way, it's gonna continue to be that way. What you have to find out is: are you a dress clerk or a tiger?

• Lionel Whitney : All my life, whenever I've come to a stop sign, I've stopped. this ones I'm gonna keep going. This Nazi war criminal is planning to come into the country and one way or another, I'm going to stop him.

• Lionel Whitney : [reading from a Mark Savage book]  I shoulda known she was a wrongo the day her mother came into my office, spilling cigarette ashes and wheezing at me through yellow teeth. Find my daughter, she said. And I found her and she punched my ticket with cold lead and sent me to this place. Savage says: if you wanna know about a girl, take a look at her mother, 'cause that's what she'll be in twenty years. Her mother was a killer and under all that beauty, so was she. I'd ignored my own advice and so, I got what I deserved.

• Lawyer : [about Turner]  Is this guy on the level?

  Lionel Whitney : Almost never.