SLEDGE HAMMER SEASON ONE - EPISODE 11

“To Live & Die on TV”
(Airdate: Dec. 13, 1986). After a winning game show contestant is murdered, Hammer investigates. He learns that the show’s host did the killing, obscuring the fact that he’d also embezzled the prize money. Hammer signs on as a contestant to make the host try to kill again.

Guest Cast: Peter Marshall as Bob Kenny, Ken Lemer as Pinski, Suzanne Von Schaak as the prize model, Toni Attell as Officer Grace, Arlene Banas as Mrs. Jordan, Cindy Roberts as Mrs. Perlin.

Writers: Mert E. Rich and Brian Pollack.

Director: Daniel Attias.

Trivia: Brian Pollack and Alan Spencer first met writing on a game show (coincidentally hosted by this particular episode’s guest star Peter Marshall). The aforementioned game show’s producers claimed Spencer’s writing was too “off the wall” for daytime and fired him.

Censors wouldn’t allow a crooked game show to be identified as a network program, causing a last minute, and rather clumsy, reference to it as a “local show”.

This is the first appearance of a reoccurring character “Officer Mayjoy” portrayed by the very funny and nice Leslie Morris.