STARSKY & HUTCH
The Cars! The Clothes! The Bear! The Bromance!
They patrolled the streets of fictional Bay City for just four seasons, but buddy cops David Starsky and Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson still bromanced their way into television history.
The brainchild of TV visionary Aaron Spelling — who hoped to “hip” up the cop-show genre — Starsky & Hutch bowed in 1975 and parlayed the broad appeal of its stars Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, their easygoing on- and offscreen bond, proudly multicultural casting and, of course, that iconic, tomato red Ford Grantorino into an ABC hit.
Collared by some critics as too gritty for its time thanks to graphic depictions of crime, drug use and racism, Starsky & Hutch still lured in a legion of lady fans who gleefully took sides about which cop made their hearts beat faster — the brainy, blond Hutch (Soul, who further bolstered his sex symbol status with the lovelorn 1976 popradio hit “Don’t Give Up on Us”) or Glaser’s streetwise, smart-mouthed Starsky, the antithesis of the Cambridge, Massachusettsborn actor who held two master’s degrees.
Pairing Glaser’s freewheeling, Brooklynborn ex-army man against Soul’s thinky Midwestern divorcé, Spelling and veteran TV writer William Blinn turned the buttoneddown cop drama on its ear, letting the fellas be silly sometimes and other times placing them in dire situations that reflected the social landscape.to further up the hip factor, the pair were often upstaged by their pal-slash-informant Huggy
Bear, a groovy, ghettosmart guy who turned character actor Antonio
Fargas into a bona fide star.
But sex appeal wasn’t enough to keep the cops riding high. Growing distaste for televised violence led the writers to tone down the duo’s police work and focus on their personal lives, which sat well with neither actor.the duo only stayed through the fourth and final season after Spelling gave them more input on the scripts.
But the boys in baby blue bellbottoms remained bonded to the end.the series finale sees Hutch exacting revenge on Starsky’s wouldbe assassin, then sneaking booze and stuffed veal into his buddy’s hospital room, where Starsky offers a far-out farewell, saluting himself, Hutch, Huggy and stalwart
Captain Dobey. “A toast to four very, very heavy dudes,” he announces.
“God bless us all.”