They Fight Crime - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sam: A small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the New World where they could worship according to their own beliefs... and solve crimes.
Toby: Sam...
Sam: It'd be good.

—The West Wing, "Shibboleth"

"He's a deeply religious gay barbarian possessed of the uncanny powers of an insect. She's an orphaned motormouth widow who can talk to animals. They fight crime!"

—TheyFightCrime.org

Two very different characters are obliged to work together to solve a crime. The premise is very often, but not always, expressed in Trailers and pitches as "He's an X. She's a Y. Together, they fight crime!"… So much that it's almost become a Stock Phrase. Expect lots of cultural clash humor arising both from different policing traditions and from general personal differences between the two characters. Sometimes the ante will be raised by making the crime-fighters from two groups that are actively antagonistic.

The story often (but not always) involves one character being on his own turf while the other character is a visitor. If there is a sequel, the character who was on his home turf in the first story will probably be visiting the home turf of the other character.

Can be the premise of a Buddy Cop Show, although then there usually needs to be some reason for the other cop to continue hanging around beyond the pilot.

A subtrope of both Wunza Plot and Odd Couple.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

The Big O: He's a rich negotiator with a Humongous Mecha, she's a robotic maid. They Fight Crime!
Read Or Die:: Three sisters: two love books and the youngest...doesn't. They Fight Crime!
Cowboy Bebop: He's an ex-mafia martial artist/fighter pilot/bounty hunter. She's a hot 70-year-old cryogenically unfrozen amnesiac crack-shot waif perpetually on the run from astronomical gambling debts. He's an ex cop taken out by injury, and possibly mafia influence, who owns the main HQ. She's...Ed. They Fight Crime... In SPACE!
Hellsing: He's the First Vampire, with more than enough power to destroy everything that exists. She's his dual-howitzer-wielding big-chested innocent spawn. They Fight Crime!
Death Note: One is a bored, brilliant high school student. The other is an immature supernatural being with an addiction to apples...They Fight Crime!...kind of.
- One is a bored, brilliant, ever-courteous seemingly Ordinary High School Student. The other is a sweet-obsessed, supergenius Bunny Ears Lawyer with no social skills. They Fight Crime...but it's not what you're thinking.
QED : He's a fourteen year old MIT graduate , she's a Police officer's enthusiastic daughter. They Fight Crime!

Comic Books

Angel And The Ape: She's a gorgeous super-sleuth who speaks six languages and knows karate. He's a comic book artist who happens to be a talking gorilla. They Fight Crime!
Sam And Max: One's a dog. The other's a hyperkinetic rabbit-like... thing. They Fight Crime! Sometimes on purpose!
One's a paranoid billionaire, one's an orphaned circus performer. They Fight Crime!
- Or, at the moment: One's an orphaned circus performer, one's the son of the world's greatest crime-fighter, and the grandson of the world's greatest crimelord. They Fight Crime!
Power Man and Iron Fist: Luke Cage is an indestructible badass from Harlem. Danny Rand is a martial arts master CEO. They Fight Crime!
Cable is a telekinetic cyborg soldier from the future with a messiah complex. Deadpool is an insane mercenary who's in love with Bea Arthur and Chimichangas (and Squirrel Girl). They Fight Crime!
- Or cause it, it shifts.
Booster Gold is a time traveling glory hound. Blue Beetle is a sarcastic inventor. They Fight Crime!
Hal's an intergalactic cop with a nearly omnipotent ring. Ollie's a loud mouthed hippie with a bow. They Fight Crime!
A pilot, a daredevil and a movie star, all with huge egos, get horribly disfigured and then brought together by a mad scientist who tells them they can redeem themselves if they work together. To fight crime!
Preacher's sex investigators.
Ray Palmer is a physicist, Carter Hall is a re-incarnated Egyptian warrior prince. They fight crime.
Birds Of Prey: One is a hyper-controlling, bitter nerd recovering from physical and emotional trauma. The other is a broken down woman with a history of valuing her boyfriends more then herself. Together, They Fight Crime!
One is a young, chaste, straight-edged reporter, the other is a middle-aged, foul-mouthed, alcoholic seafaring captain. They Fight Crime!

Film

The Kentucky Fried Movie: "She was six feet of black dynamite. He was a short Hassidic Jew!"...They Fight Crime!
Rush Hour: One's a black American cop. One's a Chinese cop. They Fight Crime!
Red Heat: One's an American cop. One's a Soviet Russian cop. They Fight Crime!
Bon Cop Bad Cop: One's an English Canadian cop. One's a French Canadian cop. They Fight Crime!
In The Heat of the Night: One's a black cop from the North. One's a white racist cop from the South. They Fight Crime!
Dead Heat: One's a living cop. One's a recently reanimated zombie cop. They Fight Crime!
Die Hard III: One's an aging white cop from Los Angeles, the other is a racist black man from Harlem. They Fight Crime!
Alien Nation: One's a human cop. One's an alien cop. They Fight Crime!
Last Action Hero: One's a super-cop taken out of a movie and put into the real world. One's a kid. They Fight Crime!
- The "police station" sequence of Last Action Hero also featured a Gentile Cop/Rabbi Cop pairing.
Mystery Men: "I am Pencilhead." "And I am Son of Pencilhead!" "We erase crime."
Showtime: One's a hard-nosed detective, the other is a fame-seeking patrolman. They Fight Crime!
Collision Course: One is a Japanese detective known for teaching karate via household chores. One is a Detroit beat cop with the world's largest chin. They Fight Crime!

Literature

The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries: She's a luscious, highly desirable telepathic barmaid. He's a vampire suffering from anachronistic attitudes. They Fight Crime!
Skulduggery Pleasant: She is a 12-year-old girl who inherited a mansion. He is a sixgun-toting skeletal-undead sorcerer detective. They Fight Crime!
Sherlock Holmes: He's a battle-scarred veteran of the war in Afghanistan! He's a substance-abusing dilettante grad student! They Fight Crime!
The Caves of Steel: One's a human cop. One's an alien robot cop. They Fight Crime!
Snake Agent: One's a human cop. One's a demon from Hell. They Fight Crime!
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: One's a Defective Detective with massive Jewish Guilt (TM). One's his sensible half-Jewish, half-Native American cousin. They're cops: They Fight Crime!

Live Action TV

Blood Ties: She's a Canadian police detective who is slowly losing her sight. He's a vampire. They Fight Crime!
On Friends, Joey got a starring role in 'Mac & Cheese', a show described as "One's a hard-bitten detective, one's a robot. They Fight Crime!"
- Which may have been a shout-out to the 1976 show "Holmes And Yo-yo" (see below.)
- In another episode, Phoebe and Monica declare themselves to be a hardass and wuss, respectively.
  Phoebe: Hardass and wuss. We could fight crime!
Pushing Daisies: He's a pie-maker with the power to bring the dead back to life. He and his undead girlfriend team up with a detective who knits to, yes, fight crime. Suprisingly, given that description, it's an amazingly well done show.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: He's a Lord Peter Wimsey with a title and a complicated personal life. She's a cranky, foul-mouthed working-class junk food addict with massive class resentment issues. They Fight Crime!
Castle: He's a bestselling mystery writer who doesn't play by the rules. She's a no-nonsense detective who'll do anything to bring a killer to justice. They Fight Crime! And Have Lots Of UST!
Automan: One is a police computer nerd who overclocks the computer and creates a Tron-like superbeing. The other is that self-same Tron-like superbeing. They Fight Crime!
Numb3rs: One's an FBI agent! The other is the Agent's nerdly math-professor brother. They Fight Crime!
Knight Rider: He's a man...who does not exist. It's a car holding plot-advancing gadgets with an entertaining A.I.. They Fight Crime!
Burn Notice: He's an out-of-work spy. She's his trigger happy ex-girlfriend. He's Bruce Campbell. They Fight Crime!
Life: He's an Eccentric Millionaire who spent twelve years in prison. She's an ex-junkie with a kick-ass attitude. They Fight Crime!
Due South: One's a crude, rude American cop. One's a polite, soft-spoken Canadian Mountie. They Fight Crime!
Holmes and Yo-yo: One's a human cop. One's an experimental robot cop. They Fight Crime!
Simon And Simon: Even though they're brothers, Rick and A.J. have nothing in common. They're private detectives, so of course They Fight Crime!
Collector's Item: Vincent Price is an antique dealer. Peter Lorre... well, it's not entirely clear what he does. He's short and kind of creepy. Together, They Fight Crime.
Psych One's a slacker with a photographic memory. One's a pharmaceutical rep with an acute sense of smell. They Fight Crime!
Bones One's a street-smart FBI agent, one's a socially-inept forensic anthropologist. They Fight Crime!
The first season of Angel: He's a vampire. She's a struggling diva. He's a half-demon (or inept linguist, depending on when in the season you're watching). They Fight Supernatural Crime!
Parodied by Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Conan O'Brien is very tall, Robert Reich is a former Secretary of Labor and very short. They Fight Crime!
Frequently used as a gag on Mystery Science Theater 3000. For example, near the end of the first-season movie Robot Holocaust, Tom suggests a sequel: "He's a robot. He's a human. They're detectives!"
The Persuaders: One's a streetwise American self-made millionaire, the other is a daredevil English aristocrat. They Fight Crime!
Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. One can summon angels, the other rides a BMX. They're a crime-fighting duo, d-d-d-d-duo, yeahh!
The X Files: He's a misunderstood crackpot, she's a sceptical pathologist. They Fight Crime! (And Aliens!)

Video Games

Ace Attorney: One's an idealistic rookie defense attorney. One's a logical, serious prosecutor. They Fight Crime!
- Or... he's a serious, fresh attorney. She's his dead mentor's spirit-contacting younger sister! They solve murders!
In The Curse of Monkey Island, there is a book about ventriloquism which, although only needed for one puzzle, can be used on numerous objects and characters with amusing results. Using it on the head of a donkey costume in the local theater results in, "Hi. I'm Frank. I'm a talking donkey. I fight crime."
Professor Layton: One's a renowned archeology professor and detective (not) obsessed with brainteasers. The other's a very insistent mockney-spouting little boy who can talk to animals. They solve puzzles, drink tea and occasionally - just occasionally - they fight crime.
Two instances of this in The Legend Of Zelda:
- Twilight Princess: He's a hero chosen by destiny to save a whole kingdom from impending doom, she's a mysterious, magical imp with an attitude and the princess of another realm. They fight Shadow Beasts.
- Spirit Tracks: He's a newbie-engineer with a Samaritan Syndrome and some awesome sword-skills, she's the disembodied spirit of a beautiful princess with the ability to possess evil knights. They fight ancient demons.

Web Original

See TheyFightCrime.org to get a randomly generated ridiculous-sounding permutation of that phrase.
Unskippable, in the episode on Onimusha 3: "One's a Frenchman. One's a samurai. They're cops."

Web Comics

2D Goggles. Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace as crime-fighting mathematical superheroes: She's the pipe-smoking, raised-by-mathematicians spawn of Lord Byron. He's an Absent Minded Professor with a vendetta against street musicians. They Fight Crime!
A Miracle Of Science: He's an unorthodox thought-police officer with a dark secret. She's a quasi-telepathic autonomous operative of the Hive Mind that inhabits her home planet, who can fly and breathe in space. Together, They Fight Crime!
The Adventuresof Dr Mcninja: He's an Irish ninja/doctor who wants to be Batman! He's a mustachioed, gunslinging 12-year-old! They Fight Crime!
Registered Weapon: He's a Cowboy Cop with no regard for life, property damage or hygiene! He's a cash register that was rebuilt into a super-advanced robot! They Fight Crime!
Order Of The Stick: He's a competent fighter with daddy issues! She's a greedy Combat Pragmatist! He's a stereotypical dwarf with a tree phobia! S/he's a trigger-happy know-it-all! He's a Spoony Bard with an Evil Twin! He's a Heroic Sociopath whose days are numbered! They Fight Crime!
Chirault: He's a demon employed as a demon hunter! She's a Cat Girl who's accidentally been shrunk to a few inches tall! They fight demons!

Western Animation

An episode of Family Guy played this as a joke, with the newest cop show, where the hardened cop got paired with a kid from the streets, a robot, and a couch To Fight Crime!
- Or the Stewie/The Rock buddy-cop cutaway. "One's a BABY, the OTHER'S...black? Filipino? Some kind of Spanish?"
Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers: Two chipmunks, two mice, and a housefly fight crime among both animals and humans.
Kim Possible: She is the popular cheerleader. He is the under achiever who has no friends. They Fight Crime! And she'd better be home before 10.
Parodied on The Critic, when Clint Eastwood played a cop partnered with a child, a leprechaun, and a velociraptor.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force. One's a megalomaniacal, sociopathic milkshake. One's an intelligent, box of french fries. One's a dumbass meatball. They're detectives... or at least used to be.
- Hilariously, the shows creators had to describe the show's premise as They Fight Crime, because the real concept of the show was too bizzare for the network to want to put on the air.
Bonkers. He's a By The Book Cop who aspires to be promoted. The other is a washed-up, toon actor bobcat. Together, they fight crime!