Hey Starsk, can you believe we don't have our own entry yet? It's a revoltin' development Hutch.
"Dwarves and trolls get along in Ankh-Morpork City Watch, but if Completely Mismatched Police Partners didn't Eventually Get Along and Overcome Their Differences the entire narrative universe would come to halt."
Every police force in the US always contains two officers who are direct polar opposites, but are forced to work together, before eventually getting on quite well.
Hollywood Rule Book Vanity Fair
A
Cop Show which focuses on a partnership, as opposed to a
Cop Show which focuses on a single officer/detective or an entire squad.
A Buddy Cop Show that tightly focuses on the emotional lives of the two protagonists risks exciting
Ho Yay among its fans, c.f.
Starsky And Hutch. If the characters spend leisure time together off the job, they're
Heterosexual Life Partners. The buddies are often an
Odd Couple, occasionally
one black and one white
Movie versions abound, or at least they used to:
Bad Boys,
Lethal Weapon,
Die Hard With A Vengeance, etc. It was so common at one point, even making jokes at the expense of the genre is a dead horse.
Hot Fuzz is an excellent
Affectionate Parody.
For the female version, see
Lovely Angels.
See also:
Crime Time TV,
Forensic Drama,
Cop Show,
Police Procedural.
Examples:
Live Action TV
Comic
Western Animation
- Ozzy And Drix, which takes place inside a boy's body, and is based on the much-maligned movie Osmosis Jones.
- Funky Cops
- The Critic,in the episode "Sherman of Arabia", heavily mocked this genre with Beverly Hills Robo K9 Cop and a Half 2, wherein Cowboy Cop Dirty Harry is partnered with, to quote the IMDb...
Da Chief: ...a woman, a cute little kid, an ugly old dog, a dinosaur, and a leprechaun.
Leprechaun: I'll be your lucky charm!
[Leprechaun explodes]
Not Schwarzenegger: You think you've got problems? I'm partnered with a pig, an alien, Siamese twins, a sofa, and a second rate mime.
(The mime also exploded.)
- Fillmore: A Buddy Hall Monitor Show.
Anime and Manga
Literature
- Discworld partnered Cuddy, a dwarf, and Detritus, a troll. Of course, Discworld being a narrative universe, they eventually became best friends. Then brutually subverted when Cuddy is killed suddenly. Detritus has gone on to become arguably the fourth most powerful cop in the city, behind Angua, Carrot, and Vimes.
- Isaac Asimov's Robot series, with Elijah Baley and Robot Daneel Olivaw. Lije and Daneel are partners in the first book and remain good friends throughout the rest of the series, but each book of the trilogy examines a different facet of the relationship between robots and humans at a societal level.
Fan Fiction
- Double K, an AU Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann webcomic based off of what the show would be like if Kamina and Kittan were two cops partnered up Starsky and Hutch-style.
