History Main / StarskyAndHutch

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''StarskyAndHutch'' was a 1970s television series that ran for 92 episodes (plus a pilot movie) between 1975 and 1979. It centered around two Southern California plainclothes police officers, streetwise Brooklyn native David Starsky, and the quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson. Under the radio callsign "Zebra Three'', they patrolled the Bay City in Starsky's iconic red Ford Gran Torino with that awesome white vector stripe. Their main contact in the criminal underworld is JiveTurkey Huggy Bear, a police snitch who often dressed extravagantly and ran his own bar.

''StarskyAndHutch'' was one of the first prime-time dramas to portray black characters in a positive light, with both Captain Dobey and--despite his walking on the edge of the law--the honest and trustworthy Huggy seen to be positive black role models. In fact, Huggy Bear was so popular with fans that the producers considered spinning off a "Huggy Bear" series, but this ultimately fell through.

A ''StarskyAndHutch'' video game was released in 2003 by Mind's Eye. Made into a [[Film/StarskyAndHutch motion picture]] starring BenStiller and Owen Wilson in 2004.
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!! This series contains examples of:
* ActorAllusion: In one episode, Starsky says Hutch sounds like "Dirty Harry, a cop in San Francisco". David Soul costarred in ''MagnumForce'', the second ''DirtyHarry'' movie.
* TheAllegedCar: Pretty much every vehicle Hutch drove, in deliberate contrast to his partner's CoolCar.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Starsky. In at least one episode he has a Star of David on his dashboard and a menorah in his apartment. (Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish in real life.)
* AvengingTheVillain: George Prudholm holds Starsky responsible for the death of his son in jail after Starsky arrests him; he kills two cops and Starsky's lover in an effort to make him pay.
* BeleagueredChildhoodFriend: Subverted in "The Las Vegas Strangler"; Hutch's high school friend Jack Mitchell really ''isn't'' the serial killer the guys are chasing. [[spoiler: Not that it helps, since he's dying of a brain tumor and doesn't make it out of the episode alive.]]
* BinocularShot
* BloodlessCarnage: Unsurprisingly for a show made in the '70s, people tend not to bleed no matter how many times they're shot.
* BodyguardCrush: Hutch gets into one of these with a visiting Russian ballerina who's received death threats.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: In "Playboy Island", HollywoodVoodoo causes Starsky to try to kill Hutch. Weirdly, once he's shocked back to normal it's ignored for the rest of the episode.
* BrokenPedestal: Hutch's mentor Luke Huntley in "Birds of a Feather".
* BuddyCopShow: Possibly the TropeCodifier.
* BulletproofHumanShield: In the final episode, Hutch is ambushed by two hitmen, one with a gun and one with a knife. He manages to take advantage of this by maneuvering the knifewielder between himself and the gunman, just in time to take the shot.
* BulletproofVest: Makes a rare appearance in "The Psychic"; naturally Hutch is shot in the chest shortly thereafter.
* BusmansHoliday: "Satan's Witches", where a quiet fishing trip in the woods is interrupted by virgin-sacrificing Satanists. No, really.
* ButtMonkey: Poor Starsky starts out as one, but as the series goes on, becomes more his own man and less 'Hutch's dopey partner'.
* CarChase: Well, ''yeah''.
* TheCastShowoff: David Soul is a professional musician; Hutch therefore is given opportunity to sing and play guitar in a number of episodes.
* ChristmasEpisode: "Little Girl Lost"
* ClearMyName: "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hutchinson for Murder One]]"
* ClipShow: "Partners"
* CoolCar: The Gran Torino, though Hutch compares it to a striped tomato.
* CopShow
* CowboyCop: Both main characters. They almost seem to be private detectives rather than cogs in a larger machine. Also, their methods include bribery, blackmail, and [[TheMafia Mafia]]-style intimidation.
* {{Cult}}: In "Bloodbath", Starsky is abducted by the followers of the memorably creepy Simon Marcus.
* DaChief: Captain Dobey.
* ADayInTheLimelight: Huggy Bear gets these in the cringeworthy "Huggy Bear and the Turkey" (a failed PoorlyDisguisedPilot) and the considerably better "Huggy Can't Go Home".
* DirectedByCastMember: Chances to direct were part of the deal to get Glaser to come back to the show. He directed 5, Soul directed 3.
* DirtyHarriet: Starsky's ex-girlfriend turns out to have been undercover as this in "Lady Blue".
* EasyAmnesia: Subverted in "Partners". Hutch apparently has amnesia after a car accident (and a ClipShow ensues as Starsky tries to remind him who he is), but he was [[FakingAmnesia faking it]] as revenge for Starsky's reckless driving.
* EasyImpersonation: "Starsky and Hutch Are Guilty"
* EveryCarIsAPinto: It was the seventies.
* FakeDefector: Starsky pretends to join a group of vigilante cops in "The Committee".
* FashionDissonance
* FatalAttractor: Hutch sometimes seems to be one of these.
* FindTheCure: The episode "A Coffin For Starsky"
* {{Flatline}}: After being critically injured in the series finale, Starsky has one of these. Resuscitation attempts fail and the doctor is about to call it...until Hutch races in and [[ThePowerOfLove Starsky's heart starts beating again]].
* FurAndLoathing: Hutch's thieving ex-wife shows up in a white fur coat.
* GenericCopBadges
* GirlOfTheWeek: They are both quite the ladykiller. Not literally, [[WouldNotHitAGirl of course]], although enough at times they verge on {{Cartwright Curse}}d.
* GoingColdTurkey: Hutch has to do this after being shot up with heroin in "The Fix".
* GoodCopBadCop: The boys play this with great enthusiasm at the beginning of "The Shootout".
* HandCannon: Hutch's weapon of choice is a .357 Magnum.
* HeterosexualLifePartners
* HollywoodSatanism: "Satan's Witches"
* HollywoodVoodoo: "Starsky and Hutch on Playboy Island", complete with {{voodoo doll}}s of the guys.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: The title character of "Gillian"; minor character Sweet Alice also seems to be one of these.
* HoYay: Between the title characters.
** Lampshaded in "Death in a Different Place":
--->'''Hutch''': Starsk, would you consider that a man who spends seventy-five percent of his time with another man has got certain tendencies?
--->'''Starsky''': ...yeah, sure, why not? You mean that was the case between John and--
--->'''Hutch''': No, no. That's the case between you and me.
** It may have been bleeding over from the actors. If these [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAifiPz6u5c outtakes]] are anything to go by, Paul Michael Glaser would try to lay a kiss on co-star David Soul at every opportunity.
* IfIWantedYouDead: In the pilot, two killers are after the heroes -- but several people who should know, including an AffablyEvil mob boss, assure them that these hit men '''can't''' be the ones trying to kill them, or they'd be dead by now. This turns out to be key. [[spoiler:The hit men already killed their actual target, and are making it '''seem''' they're after Starsky and Hutch instead in order to conceal their client's motive for the real killing]].
* InsigniaRipoffRitual: Throwing their badges into the ocean at the end of "The Snitch".
* InternalAffairs: Unsurprisingly played as jerks.
* JiveTurkey: Huggy Bear.
* KeyUnderTheDoormat: For reasons best known to himself, Hutch insists on keeping one on top of the door.
* KnowledgeBroker: Huggy Bear.
* LastNameBasis: Or abbreviations thereof ("Hutch", "Starsk").
* LoveCannotOvercome: Abby in "Vendetta".
* LoveTriangle: A brief but painful example in "Starsky vs. Hutch", which is eventually resolved when the guys tell the woman in question that if she wants either of them, [[{{Polyamory}} she'll have to take both]].
* ManlyTears: On occasion.
* MindControlConspiracy: A deranged serial killer in "Lady Blue".
* MommyIssues: Seems to be the motivation of the killer in "The Las Vegas Strangler".
* NameAndName
* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: The show's fictional setting of "Bay City" is a fairly obvious stand-in for Los Angeles, where the show was filmed.
* OddCouple: Not so odd as all that, but their tastes in cars, food, and vacation spots do fall at opposite ends of the spectrum.
* OhCisco: Most of the tags fall into this category, occasionally lapsing into EndOfEpisodeSilliness--sometimes to [[MoodWhiplash jarring effect]] in the darker episodes.
* ParentalAbandonment: Starsky's father was murdered when he was a kid. His mother is still alive, but various comments seem to imply that he was sent to California without her while still fairly young.
* PerformanceAnxiety: Hutch can pull off the most embarrassing undercover roles without a hitch or a stammer, but put him in front of an audience in his own identity and he freezes up.
* ThePeteBest: In the pilot, Captain Dobey was played by Richard Ward; the role was then recast with Bernie Hamilton.
* PieInTheFace: Hutch's ex-girlfriend aims one at Hutch at the end of "Deckwatch", but he ducks and poor Starsky gets hit instead.
* PimpDuds: Huggy Bear (although [[CommonKnowledge he wasn't a pimp]]).
* ThePlague: In, uh, "The Plague". Hutch is one of the victims, and Starsky tears the city apart looking for a potential cure.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Huggy Bear and the Turkey".
* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: Played straight in "Death in a Different Place", for one.
* RealTime: Most of "The Shootout" and "Deckwatch".
* RevealingCoverup: The pilot.
* RockstarParking: There always seems to be a spot for the Torino directly in front of the police station.
* TheSeventies: Made and set in them.
* ShowerScene: Hutch has one in his first five minutes on screen (followed soon thereafter by two separate scenes in which both stars wear only towels; let no one say this show didn't deliver on the {{fanservice}}).
* SuicideByCop: It is implied that this is what George Prudholm ultimately wants; Starsky refuses to participate.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Not actually invoked, but contemplated; Paul Michael Glaser was increasingly unhappy doing the show, and the characters of Officer Linda Baylor and Nick Starsky (Starsky's younger brother) were created as potential replacements for him.
* TemporaryLoveInterest: Terry, Gillian, we hardly knew ye.
* TranquilFury: Generally speaking, the calmer Starsky looks, the more worried you should be.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Check out the disco, for starters.
* VerySpecialEpisode: Various episodes featured issues like rape, drugs, racism, and homophobia, but "The Crying Child", which dealt with child abuse, was particularly {{Anvilicious}}.
* VivaLasVegas: "The Las Vegas Strangler"
* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: What's the point of having a CoolCar if you don't have a car chase ''every single episode''?
* WomanScorned[=/=]{{Yandere}}: Hutch's girlfriend in "Fatal Charm" turns out to be violently possessive, culminating in a murder attempt.
* YouLookFamiliar: [[http://starskyhutchfiles.net/compendium/page96/page96.html All over the place.]]
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''StarskyAndHutch'' was a 1970s television series that ran for 92 episodes (plus a pilot movie) between 1975 and 1979. It centered around two Southern California plainclothes police officers, streetwise Brooklyn native David Starsky, and the quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson. Under the radio callsign "Zebra Three'', they patrolled the Bay City in Starsky's iconic red Ford Gran Torino. Their main contact in the criminal underworld is JiveTurkey Huggy Bear, a police snitch who often dressed extravagantly and ran his own bar.

* OhCisco: Most of the tags fall into this category, occasionally lapsing into EndOfEpisodeSilliness
--sometimes to [[MoodWhiplash jarring effect]] in the darker episodes.