U.S.A. April 30 1975 (pilot), September 10 1975 – May 15 1979
U.K. April
23 1976 – October 28 1979
84 x 60 Minutes, 4 x 120 Minutes
Produced by: Spelling/Goldberg
Shown on: ABC (USA) / BBC1 (UK)
| Detective David Michael Starsky | Paul Michael Glaser |
| Detective Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson | David Soul |
| Captain Harold C. Dobey | Bernie Hamilton |
| Huggy Bear | Antonio Fargas |
| Crew | |
| Creator | William Blinn |
| Producer | Joseph T. Naar |
| Executive Producers | Aaron Spelling, Leonard Goldberg |
| Theme Music | Tom Scott (Seasons 1 & 3), Lalo Schifrin (S2), Mark Snow (S4) |
| Writers | Michael Mann, William Blinn, William Lansford, etc. |
| Directors | Paul Michael Glaser, Randall Kleiser, David Soul, Earl Bellamy, etc. |
In 1977, a
council in South London had to lower a wall after youths used it as a platform
from which to jump on to parked cars. The following year, Kenneth Oxford,
Chief Constable of Merseyside, complained that ‘my police on duty
were adopting sunglasses and wearing their gloves with the cuffs turned down.
They were also driving like bloody maniacs.’ Meanwhile, men throughout
the UK started wearing chunky cardigans. The show that inspired such
widespread imitation was Starsky and Hutch.
Back in 1973 Executive Producer Leonard Goldberg came across a newspaper article about two New York cops, David Greenberg and Robert Hantz, who were best friends, dressed like the residents of the tough area they patrolled, and worked mainly at night. The pair were so successful they became known as 'Batman and Robin' in the local press, and were the subjects of a book, The Super Cops, by L.H. Whittemore. Goldberg took the idea to writer William Blinn (Brian's Song, Roots, Gunsmoke), who developed the characters for a pilot initially called Nightwork.
Blinn decided to make the partners total opposites in every way except their morality and fierce loyalty. He named the ex-army, junk-food loving, New Yorker Starsky after a kid he used to play American Football with in high school. Affluent, educated Minnesotan Hutchinson was named Kenneth to add an air of sophistication to his character. The night-time setting was abandoned to avoid the logistical problems of always filming at night
David
Soul was the first to be cast, the producers having worked with him on projects
such as The Rookies and 
having
been particularly impressed by his turn as a dirty cop in Magnum Force.
Many actors were seen for the part of Starsky, but one stood out above
the rest. There is a scene in the pilot show in which Starsky addresses
a bar full of tough guys, prostitutes and pimps.
He calmly, almost jokily confronts them, while chewing his way through a
handful of walnuts. That was Paul
Michael Glaser’s reading of the scene, while all the other Starskys at the
audition played up the aggression of the scene.
Chemistry
is a tricky thing, which can so often make or break a show.
The genuine friendship amongst the cast of Friends certainly
played a huge part in that show’s success, while the sparks that flew on the
set of Moonlighting brought something to the screen that the fans loved. The producers of Starsky plain got lucky.
Soul and Glaser got together before the start of filming and spent time
getting to know each other, working on back-story for their characters, and
quickly became the best of friends. It
showed, and it made us believe in the strength of the bond between the partners.
The bond was so strong, in fact, that much has been made in writings about the series of a possible ‘homoerotic’ angle. Whether this comes from an inability to accept the power of friendship between the platonic partners, or a reading of ‘signs’ placed in the show by the producers, it is a common accusation which never seems to arise when talking about other ‘partner’ shows, such as The Streets of San Francisco, or CHiPs. Proponents of this theory point to storylines in which the guys go undercover as hairdressers or dance instructors and often end up in drag (particularly in later seasons), and the fact that female love interests never seem to last more than one episode and are generally shown to be liars or criminals.
This
theory makes some fans of the show incredibly angry, unable to understand why
people must read so much into the gestures and stories which simply showed great
friendship between the two. Personally, I think the truth is probably
somewhere between these two extremes. As Jerry and George discovered in Seinfeld,
when two
men appear very close, refer to each other as 'partner' and spend all their time
together, some people make assumptions. Not that there's anything wrong
with it. The writers on Starsky simply had fun with this - they
didn't suggest that Starsky and Hutch were homosexual, they played with the
conventions and stereotypes of the time, effectively showing that these guys
were so secure in their friendship and their (hetero)sexuality that they didn't
care if others might think they were gay - they were proud of their strong bond,
not ashamed of any possible misinterpretation.
With Soul and Glaser on board, the producers cast Richard Ward as the guys' boss, Captain Dobey, but Ward was unavailable when filming on the series began, so he only appeared in the pilot. Ward was replaced by Bernie Hamilton, who really made the role his own and began something of a cop show (and film) cliche - the perpetually yelling Captain who, in reality, would do anything to protect his Detectives. Antonio Fargas rounded out the regular cast as informant, pimp and occasional bar-owner (the bars were 'Huggy Bear's' in Season 1 and 'The Pits' in Seasons 3 and 4). Huggy always had the word on the street, and without him Starsky and Hutch wouldn't have solved half the cases they did. Huggy was so popular that a spin-off series was suggested, and the Season 2 episode 'Huggy and the Turkey' served as a pilot of sorts. It was not well received by fans, and the series never emerged.
The
lead actors were teen pin-ups throughout the run of the show particularly
in the UK, 
but
one element inspired even more devotion from the male fans, and continues to be
honoured to this day. Starsky's red Ford Gran Torino, with a white stripe
down the side (and across the roof at the back) has been copied by countless boy
racers with Vauxhall Cavaliers and Ford Fiestas, and remains an icon even into
the 21st century. Originally, Starsky's hotrod was going to be a yellow
Chevy Camaro, but Ford got the contract to provide all vehicles for the show,
and so the limited edition (only 1500 were made) Gran Torino was chosen.
Two such cars were used on the show, the only difference being one had red wing
mirrors, the other silver. The California licence plates, numbers 071
NCY and 026 PRZ were covered with a dummy plate reading 537 ONN.
In
2003, a Starsky and Hutch PlayStation game was released featuring various
missions where the player drives around Bay City chasing/shooting
criminals. Instead of points, the player collects viewing figures
For
the first two seasons the show was in and out of the top ten ratings, with the
gritty, seamy storylines drawing
plaudits from critics and fans alike. They also drew criticism from church
groups and the Parents and Teachers Association, who were campaigning against
violence on TV in this and other programmes such as The Six Million Dollar
Man and Roadrunner cartoons. Tired of fighting the
anti-violence lobby, Spelling made a conscious decision on returning to Season 3
to focus more on social issues. S&H still fought the bad guys, but now
it was abusive parents rather than drug-dealers, corrupt politicians rather than
kidnappers. With less car chases and gunfights, the viewing figures slowly
fell away, prompting a midseason schedule change which briefly gave the figures
a boost.
But the removal of the hard edges wasn't the only change in the '77-'78. Never happy being tied into a five-year contract, Paul Michael Glaser tried to break out. The producers refused, and he took them to court. With the outcome of the case uncertain, writers started preparing scripts which didn't feature Starsky, instead partnering Hutch with Detective Linda Baylor (Roz Kelly), who ended up appearing in only one episode, Fatal Charm. The contract dispute ended with Glaser still tied to the show, but with significant raises for him and Soul, as well as more creative control and the chance to direct a few episodes.
While on a break from filming the Season 3 episode Class in Crime, David Soul suffered a bad skiing accident which left him with difficulty moving, and in the later episodes of the season he can be seen sitting down a great deal. In the summer hiatus, Soul went into hospital for surgery and was forced to wear a back brace throughout the fourth season. To hide the brace, he wore loose fitting clothes, which gave the appearance that Hutch had gained weight and was suddenly less worried about staying healthy. Viewing figures continued to decline, due in part to Starsky and Hutch working separately more often to give the stars time off. Glaser continued to fight his contract, and did not plan to return for a fifth year. Midway through the fourth season, Starsky's brother was introduced, in the vain hope that his character may take over from Starsky if, as was originally planned, Starsky died in the final episode. In the end, the new head of ABC, Tony Thomopoulos, decided not to renew the show, and so it ended with Starsky in his hospital bed, surrounded by Hutch, Huggy Bear and Captain Dobey.
In 2004, a film version of Starsky and Hutch was released, starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, and directed by Todd Phillips.
1. Hutch's car was a beige Ford Galaxie 500.
2. The first season episode, The Fix, was banned by the BBC in the original run, and was not seen in the UK until 1999.
3. The pair were known to the production team as 'Hutchsky'.
4. S&H worked the 9th Precinct of Bay City, a fictional city which was the setting of several Aaron Spelling shows. The exteriors were filmed in L.A.
5. The duo's radio call-sign was Zebra 3
Pilot
Starsky and Hutch (90 minutes)
Season 1
Savage Sunday
Texas Longhorn
Death Ride
Snowstorm
The Fix
Death Notice
Pariah
Kill Huggy Bear
The Bait
Lady Blue
"Captain Dobey, You're Dead!"
Terror on the Docks
The Deadly Impostor
Shootout
The Hostages
Losing Streak
Silence
The Omaha Tiger
Jojo
Running
A Coffin for Starsky
The Bounty Hunter
Season 2
The Las Vegas Strangler (120 minutes)
Murder at Sea (120 minutes)
Gillian
Bust Amboy [a.k.a. Nightlight]
The Vampire
The Specialist
Tap Dancing Her Way Right Back Into Your Hearts
Vendetta [a.k.a. The Monster]
Nightmare
Iron Mike [a.k.a. Captain Mike Ferguson]
Little Girl Lost
Bloodbath
The Psychic
The Set-Up Part 1
The Set-Up Part 2
Survival
Starsky's Lady [a.k.a. Revenge; a.k.a. Snowball]
Huggy Bear and the Turkey
The Committee
The Velvet Jungle
Long Walk Down a Short Dirt Road
Murder on Stage 17
Starsky and Hutch Are Guilty
Season 3
Starsky & Hutch on Playboy Island [a.k.a. Murder on Voodoo Island] (120
minutes)
Fatal Charm
I Love You, Rosey Malone
Murder Ward
Death in a Different Place
The Crying Child
The Heroes
The Plague Part 1
The Plague Part 2
The Collector
Manchild on the Streets
The Action
The Heavyweight
A Body Worth Guarding
The Trap
Satan's Witches
Class in Crime
Hutchinson: Murder One [a.k.a. Hutchinson for Murder One]
Foxy Lady
Partners
Quadromania
Deckwatch
Season 4
Discomania
The Game
Blindfold
Photo Finish
Moonshine
Strange Justice
The Avenger
Dandruff
Black and Blue
The Groupie
Cover Girl [a.k.a. No Deposit, No Return]
Starsky's Brother [a.k.a. Starsky's Little Brother]
The Golden Angel
Ballad for a Blue Lady
Birds of a Feather
Ninety Pounds of Trouble
Huggy Can't Go Home [a.k.a. Huggy Can't Go Back]
Targets Without a Badge Part 1 [a.k.a. The Snitch]
Targets Without a Badge Part 2 (120 minutes)
Starsky vs. Hutch
Sweet Revenge
Video Clips:
Audio Clips
Articles:
TV and Satellite Week, Oct 2002
DVD:
Game:
Green Stamps - The Starsky and Hutch Site
Starsky and Hutch - SuperFanTastic
Buy
the first season on DVD
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