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The Big Rip-Off was the pilot film for Tony Curtis' shortlived TV series McCoy. Curtis plays a sly but basically decent con artist who is engaged to recover $250,000 in ransom money from a recent high-society kidnapping. In the tradition of The Sting, Curtis uses scam tactics to get the money back--all the while keeping one step ahead from his own mobster creditors. Roscoe Lee Browne costars as Curtis' loyal assistant, a nightclub comedian, while Brenda Vaccaro guests as an investigate reporter who assists in the sting. When McCoy graduated to series status in the fall of 1975, Curtis and Browne were back, but Vaccaro was off to her own series, Sara.