Macho Man

Macho Man
January 20, 1981
Writers: Mark Jones and Glen A. Larson
Director: Gene Levitt

Birdie’s best friend Michael Prescott is murdered (Brett Clark, a Chippendale’s dancer who later starred in low-budget movies, plays Michael in photos), and the deputy (Brian Kerwin) is on the hot seat. Perkins (Mills Watson) thinks something might have been wrong with Prescott, because he finds Macho Man, a magazine with male centerfolds, in his house. It was 1981.

Thinking Michael’s connection with the magazine might have contributed to his death (for no reason I noticed), Lobo (Claude Akins) suggests that Birdie go undercover as next month’s nude centerfold. Meanwhile, Chief Carson (Nicolas Coster), discovering Prescott is the second Macho Man model to turn up murdered, sends in Brandy (Tara Buckman) and Peaches (Amy Botwinick) to poke around the magazine for clues. Tricia O’Neil (PIRANHA II) guest stars as Macho Man’s editor.

Another indication this show was telecast in 1981: the weird racial humor, mainly out of the mouth of Nell Carter (GIMME A BREAK) as Carson’s sassy black secretary Hildy (a wisecrack about rednecks, ropes, and trees seems especially shocking today). Levitt keeps the show chugging along, though there’s little mystery to the script by series creator Glen A. Larson and story editor Mark Jones. It does take steps to establish a budding romance between Brandy and Birdie though.