History Series / StarskyAndHutch

''Starsky & Hutch'' is a 1970s American CopShow which ran for 92 episodes (plus a pilot movie) on Creator/{{ABC|US}} from 1975–79.

It centered around two Southern California plainclothes police officers, streetwise Brooklyn native Sgt. David Starsky (Creator/PaulMichaelGlaser), and quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Sgt. Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson (Creator/DavidSoul). Under the radio call sign "Zebra Three'', the duo patrolled the streets of fictional Bay City in Starsky's iconic red Ford Gran Torino with that awesome white vector stripe. Their superior was the no-nonsense Capt. Harold Dobey (Bernie Hamilton), while their main contact in the city's criminal underworld was JiveTurkey[=/=]SoulBrotha Huggy Bear (Creator/AntonioFargas), a police snitch who ran his own bar and tended to wear PimpDuds.

''Starsky & Hutch'' is 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 (Creator/PaulMichaelGlaser), and the quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson (Creator/DavidSoul). 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[=/=]SoulBrotha Huggy Bear (Creator/AntonioFargas), a police snitch who ran his own bar and tended to wear PimpDuds.

''Starsky & Hutch'' 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 [[EnsembleDarkhorse so popular with fans]] that the producers considered spinning off a ''Huggy Bear'' series, but this ultimately fell through.

* Menacingmask: In "Photo Finish" the White Witch wears a rubber mask depicting a woman's face along with a black bandanna to cover her hair.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Starsky. In at least one episode he has a Star of David on his dashboard and a menorah in his apartment. Also, in "Starsky Vs. Hutch", Hutch quotes Shylock's speech from ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' -- "If you prick us, do we not bleed" -- Starsky responds with "That's my line," and Hutch apologises. (Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish in real life.)
* AmnesiaEpisode: In the episode "Partners", Hutch develops amnesia after a car crash, allowing for a ClipShow as Starsky tries to jog his memory. [[spoiler:In the end he admits he was faking it.]]

** In "Photo Finish", a landlady catches Starsky and Hutch snooping in an apartment she owns. Hutch says, "We're the police." The landlady replies, "And I'm Tatum O'Neal."
** In "Ninety Pounds of Trouble", an underage girl tries to order a drink from Huggy Bear.

* AnimalAssassin: In "Satan's Witches", Starsky opens a refrigerator and a rattlesnake falls out. Hutch picks it up with a blanket and throws it out the window.

* 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.

* {{Cult}}: In "Bloodbath", Starsky is abducted by the followers of the memorably creepy Simon Marcus.

-->'''Mrs. Carston:''' Oh, it's that old klepto phase again. I mean, she'll get over it\\

* HeadbuttOfLove: In "Shootout", while Starsky is bleeding out from a gunshot wound and Hutch is about to go pull a risky manoeuvre to get them out of their hostage situation, Hutch silently presses his forehead to Starsky's just before he leaves.

* HoldingHands: In "A Coffin For Starsky", when Starsky is facing the fact that he might die from his poisoning, he tells Hutch "If this were a cowboy movie, I'd give you my boots," and then holds hands with him across their shared desk. In the middle of the precinct. Also, technically, in "The Plague Part 2", when Starsky visits Hutch in his isolation room and holds his hand through chest pains.

* HollywoodVoodoo: "Starsky and Hutch on Playboy Island", complete with {{voodoo doll}}s of the guys.

** In "Ballad For A Blue Lady", Hutch is sent undercover to honey trap the sister of a man wrapped up with the mob into testifying. [[spoiler: Hutch becomes genuinely sympathetic to her and begins to like her, [[CartwrightCurse she finds out it was a setup, refuses to testify, and her brother gets killed]].]]

* LastNameBasis: Or abbreviations thereof ("Hutch", "Starsk").

* 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]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: "Tap Dancing Her Way Right Back Into Your Hearts" focuses on a dance studio run by "Ginger Evans", a retired movie star who is fairly obviously a stand-in for Ginger Rogers. (At one point in the episode, Hutch mentions "Frank Astaire"; it's unclear whether he's playing dumb or whether it's a continuation of the joke.)

* OneLineAnxiety: In the episode "Murder on Stage 17", Starsky and Hutch are undercover as stuntmen in a studio shooting a [[TheWestern Western]]. Director Harry Markham (Creator/JeffGoldblum) decides to give Hutch a bit part. Even though it's a simple line ("Here comes [=McCoy=] now..."), Hutch is quite nervous and his stifled delivery forces multiple takes. At the end, once the movie is finished, Hutch discovers his line was dubbed over, to his dismay.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Huggy Bear's last name is revealed to be Brown in "Huggy Bear and the Turkey", but his real first name is never mentioned in any episode.

* PieInTheFace: Hutch's ex-girlfriend aims one at Hutch at the end of "Deckwatch", but he ducks and poor Starsky gets hit instead.

* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: Played straight in "Death in a Different Place", for one.

* SoftGlass: The windows in Bay City are absurdly fragile. In "Lady Blue", Starsky breaks a window by gently tapping it with his gun, and in "Murder Ward", Hutch shatters a window with his elbow.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: In-universe example. In "Photo Finish", Starsky asks an art collector about a piece that looks like two tin cans fused together.

** In "The Psychic", three men kidnap a teenage girl in a blue van and hold her for ransom. They don't have any intention of giving her back even if they get the money, so they leave her BoundAndGagged in another van in a junkyard.

* VerbThis: In "Moonshine", Starsky tells a group of moonshiners, "You're under arrest." One of them fires into the air and says, "Arrest this!"
* 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", in which the guys go to Vegas to investigate a serial killer who authorities think is Hutch's BeleagueredChildhoodFriend.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Starsky. In at least one episode he has a Star of David on his dashboard and a menorah in his apartment. Also, in "Starsky Vs. Hutch", Hutch quotes Shylock's speech from ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' - "If you prick us, do we not bleed" - Starsky responds with "That's my line," and Hutch apologises. (Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish in real life.)
* AmnesiaEpisode: In the episode "Partners," Hutch develops amnesia after a car crash, allowing for a ClipShow as Starsky tries to jog his memory. [[spoiler:In the end he admits he was faking it.]]

** In "Photo Finish," a landlady catches Starsky and Hutch snooping in an apartment she owns. Hutch says, "We're the police." The landlady replies, "And I'm Tatum O'Neal."
** In "Ninety Pounds of Trouble," an underage girl tries to order a drink from Huggy Bear.
-->'''Joey''': Give me a strawberry margarita, please.\\
'''Huggy''': We're fresh out of strawberries. Why don't you try the malt shop?\\
'''Joey''': I'm eighteen!\\
'''Huggy''': And I'm Reggie Jackson.\\
'''Joey''': No you're not, you're Huggy!

* AnimalAssassin: In "Satan's Witches," Starsky opens a refrigerator and a rattlesnake falls out. Hutch picks it up with a blanket and throws it out the window.

-->'''Kim''': You just tell Bessinger to keep his mouth shut and lay low. No more robberies until the heat lets up.\\
'''Father Ignatius''': Kim, you're forgetting. My order is sending three more priests from back east next week to help out with the work here. If we're not gone like we plan to be, they'll know [[spoiler:I'm not the real Ignatius]].

* BaldOfEvil: Danner, a powerful drug lord from "The Bait."

-->'''Huggy Bear''': And that's how I fix- how I set the odds.

-->'''Mrs. Carston''': Oh, it's that old klepto phase again. I mean, she'll get over it\\
'''Hutch''': Excuse me, ma'am, but don't you think that's a rather casual approach to take?\\
'''Mrs. Carston''': Oh, pooh. I don't believe in that old school of discipline. Stifles their creativity.… Listen, boys, I'll have a good talk with her about this. But I'm certainly not gonna punish her over something as trivial as a cigarette lighter. I mean, she has a very sensitive psyche.

-->'''Hutch''': You know something, Starsk? When they do your autopsy they're gonna find a petrified beef burrito.
-->'''Starsky''': *grinning* With onions.

-->'''Narrator''': *over a shot of Hutch* Starsky!
-->'''Narrator''': *over a shot of Starsky* Hutch!
-->'''Starsky''': *exasperated* I'm Starsky, he's Hutch!

--> '''Ezra''': Listen, I laugh all the way to the bank. Demonology and devil-worship, man. That's the newest fad. It's legal and tax-deductible. These nuts and kooks all want to be sorcerers and pay for the privilege.

-->'''Announcer''': The previous segment of ''The Disenchanted'' found Phil and Mary leaving for Montego Bay on what they hope to be a rescue mission for their splintered marriage. Shaun, meanwhile, remains in Lakefield, desperately attempting to persuade Rebecca to consider an abortion, little aware she is carrying the child of…
* SoftGlass: The windows in Bay City are absurdly fragile. In "Lady Blue," Starsky breaks a window by gently tapping it with his gun, and in "Murder Ward," Hutch shatters a window with his elbow.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: In-universe example. In "Photo Finish," Starsky asks an art collector about a piece that looks like two tin cans fused together.
-->'''Starsky''': What is that?\\
'''Monk''': Garbage. What does it look like?\\
'''Starsky''': How much did that piece of garbage set you back?\\
'''Monk''': My dear wife paid twenty thousand.\\
'''Starsky''': Twenty thousand's quite a lot.

** In "The Psychic," three men kidnap a teenage girl in a blue van and hold her for ransom. They don't have any intention of giving her back even if they get the money, so they leave her BoundAndGagged in another van in a junkyard.

* VerbThis: In "Moonshine," Starsky tells a group of moonshiners, "You're under arrest." One of them fires into the air and says, "Arrest this!"

* VivaLasVegas: "The Las Vegas Strangler," in which the guys go to Vegas to investigate a serial killer who authorities think is Hutch's BeleagueredChildhoodFriend.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Huggy Bear's last name is revealed to be Brown in "Huggy Bear and the Turkey," but his real first name is never mentioned in any episode.

* PsychicPowers: Joe Collins from "The Psychic." By the time the episode begins, his powers have caused him so many miserable experiences that he's stopped talking about them and mostly stopped using them. Starsky and Hutch have to talk him into using them to help save a kidnapped girl.

* TheAllegedCar: Hutch's vomit-colored, dented, rusting, crumbling Ford LTD, with a missing rearview mirror, window cranks that don't stay in, and a horn that randomly blasts at top volume whenever he opens the door. An overly prideful mechanic is so offended by the car's very ''existence'' that when Hutch tries to bring it in for repairs, he buries it in his trash heap just so he can yell at Hutch that "Garbage belongs WITH garbage!" When the LTD is totaled in an assassination attempt, Starsky buys him another one exactly as crappy as the first one, though not before writing "condemned c. 1847" on the rear window.

* HandCannon: Hutch's weapon of choice is a .357 Magnum.

* TheAllegedCar: Hutch's 1973 Ford Galaxie is consistently depicted as being in a state of haphazard disrepair, with the roof lining peeling, a happy helping of dust and grime, mismatched body panels and the window winder falling off ''in Starsky's hand'' in one episode.
** In a piece of real-world irony, his car was only two years older than the Striped Tomato when the series first aired in 1975. How it became so grimy and grungy after just ''two years'' is never explained.

--> In a piece of real-world irony, his car was only two years older than the Striped Tomato when the series first aired.

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Hutch's 1973 Ford Galaxie is consistently depicted as being in a state of haphazard disrepair, with the roof lining peeling, a happy helping of dust and grime, mismatched body panels and the window winder falling off ''in Starsky's hand'' in one episode. In a piece of real-world irony, his car is only two years older than the Striped Tomato.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Starsky. In at least one episode he has a Star of David on his dashboard and a menorah in his apartment. Also, in "Starsky Vs. Hutch", Hutch quotes Shylock's speech from ''The Merchant of Venice'' - "If you prick us, do we not bleed" - Starsky responds with "That's my line," and Hutch apologises. (Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish in real life.)

* TheAllegedCar: Hutch's vomit-colored, dented, rusting, crumbling Ford LTD, with a missing rearview mirror, window cranks that don't stay in, and a horn that randomly blasts at top volume whenever he opens the door. An overly prideful mechanic is so offended by the car's very ''existence'' that when Hutch tries to bring it in for repairs, he buries it in his trash heap just so he can yell at Hutch that "Garbage belongs WITH garbage!" When the LTD is totaled in an assassination attempt, Starsky buys him another one exactly as crappy as the first one, though not before writing "condemned c. 1847" on the windshield.

* TheAllegedCar: Hutch's vomit-colored, dented, rusting, crumbling Ford LTD, with a missing rearview mirror, window cranks that don't stay in, and a horn that randomly blasts at top volume whenever he opens the door. An overly prideful mechanic is so offended by the car's very ''existence'' that when Hutch tries to bring it in for repairs, he buries it in his trash heap just so he can yell at Hutch that "Garbage belongs WITH garbage!" When the LTD is totaled in an assassination attempt, Starsky buys him another one exactly as crappy as the first one, though not before writing "condemned in 1827" on the windshield.

** One episode involves a dance studio whose employees are seducing and then blackmailing wealthy married clients. Hutch reverses the trap, going undercover as a client and sleeping with one of the blackmailers to get them to incriminate themselves.

** In "Ballad For A Blue Lady", Hutch is sent undercover to honey trap the sister of a man wrapped up with the mob into testifying. Hutch becomes genuinely sympathetic to her and begins to like her, [[CartwrightCurse she finds out it was a setup, refuses to testify, and her brother gets killed.]]

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Starsky. In at least one episode he has a Star of David on his dashboard and a menorah in his apartment. Also, in ''Starsky Vs. Hutch'', Hutch quotes Shylock's speech from ''The Merchant of Venice'' - "If you prick us, do we not bleed" - Starsky responds with "That's my line," and Hutch apologises. (Paul Michael Glaser is Jewish in real life.)

* 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.)

''Starsky & Hutch'' is 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 (Creator/PaulMichaelGlaser), and the quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson (Creator/DavidSoul). 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 (Creator/AntonioFargas), a police snitch who often dressed extravagantly and ran his own bar.

''Starsky & Hutch'' is 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 (Paul Michael Glaser), and the quiet, intellectual Minnesotan Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson (David Soul). 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 (Antonio Fargas), a police snitch who often dressed extravagantly and ran his own bar.

* {{Adorkable}}: Both have their moments, but it is Hutch who takes the cake in this one.