Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment)

"Ring of Fear
(A Dangerous Assignment)"

Police Squad! episode

One of the many headlines

Episode no.

Season 1
Episode 2

Directed by

Joe Dante

Teleplay by

Tino Insana
Robert Wuhl

Story by

David Misch

Original air date

March 11, 1982

Guest appearance(s)

George Stanford Brown (special guest star)
Rudy Solari as Montague Martin
Patrick St. Esprit as Buddy Briggs
Tessa Richarde as Mary
Floyd Levine as Saul Cooper
Irwin Keyes as Luca Burnett
Grand L. Bush as The Champ

Episode chronology

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"A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise)"

Next →
"The Butler Did It (A Bird in the Hand)"

Police Squad! episodes

Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment) is the second episode of the TV series Police Squad!. It was directed by Joe Dante, written by Tino Insana and Robert Wuhl, and produced by Robert K. Weiss.

Tonight's Special Guest Star shown in the opening credits is Georg Stanford Brown, dressed in the uniform of a police officer, cautiously walking a city street with his gun drawn. He is promptly killed-off, Police Squad! style, by a falling safe.

The story begins during a boxing match, which is won by boxer Mike Schultz. However, the fight was "fixed" and Schultz was supposed to deliberately lose the match (i.e., "go in the tank"), but he won anyway, much to the annoyance of crime boss Montague Martin who presumably lost money betting on the outcome of the fight. In retaliation, Martin sends his goon Luca Burnett to kill Schultz. Investigators initially rule the death a suicide, but Captain Ed Hocken isn't convinced that a boxer would kill himself right after the biggest win of his career. Believing that they are dealing with murder and corruption, Ed decides to send Frank Drebin undercover. The plan is to find a good boxer and straighten him up to draw the interest of Martin.

At the local gym (Jim's Gym) Frank meets Buddy Briggs, a talented up-and-coming boxer whose rise to prominence has been thwarted by Martin's fixing of fights in the city. Frank wants to manage Buddy, but needs Buddy's management contract for that. Frank seeks out Buddy's corrupt manager Saul Cooper, who is acting in league with Martin and was also Schultz's manager (and who had earlier warned Schultz not to cross Martin just before he was killed). Cooper is playing his cronies in a private poker game in the back of Jim's Gym. Frank introduces himself as Bob Kelly with a lot of "long green", i.e., money to gamble with, which is misinterpreted as Lorne Greene. When Frank corrects them by saying, "No, I mean I've got cash," the group assumes that he also manages Johnny Cash (as well as the Goodyear Blimp). They allow him to join the game and the stakes begin to climb, with the pot growing to include cash, gold, gems, Monopoly playing pieces—and eventually Buddy Briggs' contract. Ultimately Frank (or Bob) wins (with a full house and his revolver as his ace-in-the-hole), and gets Buddy's contract. However, Cooper warns that even though he's got Buddy's contract, he'll never get another fight in the city again.

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