Ben Vereen

A group of animal characters encourage kids to be creative, in songs and sketches.

Jeff Goldblum is Lionel Whitney, an accountant fascinated by the noir detective novels of fictional PI Mark Savage. During the events leading up to his wedding, Lionel crosses paths with E.L. "Tenspeed" Turner (Ben Vereen), a smooth-talking fast-thinking con artist. When Tenspeed needs a job to make parole, Lionel fulfills his life's ambition, start a detective agency, and hires Tenspeed as his partner. Now the two men take on whatever cases come their way.

The docu-drama covers a period of history that begins in mid-1700s Gambia, West Africa and concludes during post-Civil War United States, over 100 years later. This 1977 miniseries eventually won 9 Emmy awards, a Golden Globe award, and a Peabody award, and still stands as the most watched miniseries in U.S. history.